V-UPs? Meh. Intelligent use of your hip flexors? Gorgeous!

We've all done them for years - navasana, V-ups, pike ups, leg tosses - they are hard, they make you grunt, surely they must be strengthening your core, right?  WRONG!  While one of the hip flexors does lie deep within the core of your body these exercises are not CORE exercises, rather they are exercises to strengthen your hip flexors.  Having strong hip flexors is important for many things - like bringing your thighs closer to your torso during a press handstand or balancing navasana on your friends.  But warming the core up for an acro class with the reckless flinging of the legs in a piking motion (aka V-up) is, in my opinion, wasted effort and can potentially cause more harm than good.  Not to mention - there are far more intelligent ways to strengthen your hip flexors that will achieve more control at end range, which will be of far more benefit to an acrobat.  But I digress.

This is what intelligent, informed use of the hip flexors can look like!
Acrobats:  Ariel Mihic and Jaimie Harrow

So what would be better than V-ups?  Good question!  There are a million and one ways to strengthen your core, and evidence suggests that functional core strengthening is more important than isolated core strengthening.  However, I propose that until you know what your core is, and how to engage it, functional training won't do much for you in the way of developing your core strength.  

Let's take a look at anatomy.  I define the core as a group of muscles that functions via anticipatory postural adjustments -- meaning the core is a group of muscles that should engage before you move to help stabilize your lumbar spine.  These muscles include:

• Respiratory diaphragm
• Transversus abdominus
• Pelvic floor 
• Lumbar multifidi

Here's an image of these muscles:  

Engaging these muscles is pretty simple, and should be very subtle.  Once you learn how to engage them, you can fire them up while doing more fun and exciting exercises, like acro!  

How to "find" your core (warning - there are a lot of words following this image; remember: words are helpful, they convey meaning, they are sometimes necessary to get a point across):

Posterior pelvic tilt (exhale)
Anterior pelvic tilt (inhale)
Neutral spine (pause, full breath)

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, go through a few pelvic tilts to find your neutral spine position, then maintain this position during this exercise.  Reference above image for finding your neutral spine.
• Place your hands over your anterior hip bones with the fingertips resting just inside on your belly tissue.
• Take a nice deep inhale - trying to expand your ribcage laterally as you do so.
• On your exhale try to create tension across your abdomen, drawing your navel towards your spine and in an upward trajectory (imagine tucking your navel under your rib cage).  Remember - this is subtle!!!  You should not feel a huge bulge under your finger tips - rather a gentle tightening.  If you feel nothing - that's ok too - just keep working with your breath; imagine your ribs expanding laterally on the inhale, and creating tone and tension across the lower abdomen on the exhale.  
• You can then go through a series of movements of your arms and legs to test your ability to maintain neutral spine.  And thus functional core training begins.

If you are still reading this blog ... GOOD JOB!!!  I find the nuances of the body fascinating, and I take great delight in getting movement geniuses on board with learning the subtleties of being human.  I encourage *you* to study the fine details of your body so that you can  continue doing the amazing things you do in an informed way and thereby support the sustainability of your practice.  

Practical teaching applications:

If you are teaching beginner students, it might be helpful to go through the above series of pelvic tilts to bring awareness to spinal positions, namely flexion, extension, and neutral, and discuss why you would be in any one of those positions.  For example, in a handstand, for partner acrobatics, we primarily train with a "flat back" or "spinal imprint" or "a slightly flexed spine", in conjunction with a posterior pelvic tilt.  As a result, our warmups are generally done with the spine in this position, and we almost always discuss the anatomy of this position or give some little nugget as to why subtle engagements are important.  

Cues to facilitate engagement of the deeper core muscles include: 

• Bring the navel towards the spine
• Create tension across the midline
• Scoop the lower abdominal muscles up and back 

Ideas for warming up the core before class are endless and include: 

• Lying on your belly and lifting your navel off the floor while doing your posterior shoulder warm up
• Plank position - in neutral spine, or with pelvic tilts - while you and your students are in a plank, talk about the muscles of the core and how they are creating structural stability
• Table top with knee lifts - again - emphasizing position and stability of the spine
• Remember the value of education - understanding the mechanics of the spine will help keep you and your students safe and healthy 

Whether or not you choose to take the time to delve into the nuances of core work in your practice or in your classes, I strongly encourage you take the time to practice intelligently.  If you choose to do a V-up - know the risks (injuring your low back should be at the top of that list), and be clear on why you are doing that exercise.  If you want control of your hip flexors so you can create a beautiful shape like Ariel and Jaimie in the above picture - V-ups likely won't get you there.  Engage your core, then choose an exercise to work on hip flexion at end range.  THAT will get you into a beautiful shape (or increase your chances, anyways).  

As always - if you are injured or find yourself at a loss for how to engage your core, find someone that can help you.  Examples of people that can help:  physical therapists, pilates instructors, personal trainers familiar with the demands of acrobatics, coaches and teachers who have studied these things so that you don't have to (although why wouldn't you?!?) ...

Keep it safe, keep it engaged, and come see us soon! 

Upcoming events with Precision Acrobatics:
Handstand Workshop with Ariel:  October 4th, Zaccho Dance Theater, SF
Divine Play Festival:  October 7th-9th, Portland, OR
Dance Acro Series:  November 8th, 15th, 29th, Zaccho Dance Theater, SF
Intermediate Daylong Intensive:  Noteworthy November:  November 12th, Zaccho Dance Theater, SF
Giving Thanks: An Acro Retreat:  November 22-26:  Zazen Retreat Center, Ukiah, CA

If you live in the SF bay area and would like to work with me (Liz) as your PT, you can find me here:
Oakland:  http://synapsemassageandbodywork.com/services/physical-therapy/
San Francisco:  http://eastwestsf.com/