Confused about Exercise

Submitted by CreatedWhole on August 31, 2017 - 7:25am
Body: 

I'm looking for clarification to the Exercise chapter in Saving the Whole Woman. In Christine's book, she talks briefly about what exercise can be done, and, to my understanding, says that anything should be fine as long as it is done in WW Posture. So I am wondering if that means that all exercises that include engaging the abdominal muscles (pulling them in) are out since pulling in the stomach is not part of WW Posture.

But then there is fire breathing which has us pull in our abs on the exhale. So is it only safe to activate/suck in the abs on an exhalation?

(As a note, I do not have prolapse, just some DR, but do not want to do exercises that would put me at risk.)

Thank you!

Forum:

Aging gracefully

August 31, 2017 - 12:23pm

Hi CreatedWhole,
Basically, once you have gotten all the aspects of whole woman down and your body has really taken the correct shape, you can try other exercises to see if they are conducive to the posture. In other words, as you are doing these other activities, do you feel yourself falling out of posture, or find yourself sucking and tucking, or start feeling symptomatic? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you might want to avoid that activity.
Many of us have been able to do much of what we were doing prior to finding prolapse, but we also first dedicated ourselves to the whole woman work before attempting these things.
As you gain the knowledge and strength that the posture work gives, this will all become very clear to you.

Firebreathing creates a vacuum with the out breath and can be very intense. If you want to suck in on the exhale, I suppose you can, but I don't know how long you can maintain breathing that way intensely. Normally during activity, we inhale, filling our belly, and just let our bellies fall back gently on the out breath.

CreatedWhole

August 31, 2017 - 2:58pm

You are so kind to take the time to answer my question. Thank you!

Just one clarification: Was I misunderstanding the firebreathing? Doesn't that involve pulling the abdominal muscles in and up on the exhale? I thought it did because in the book Christine said to "contract the abdominal muscles in and up in all directions." Did she just mean that that happens on its own because of the vacuum, or do we need to actively suck in and up?

Thank you!

Aging gracefully

August 31, 2017 - 4:00pm

Yes, we are sucking in and up on the exhale, but this is part of firebreathing to create that vacuum, not as usual part of exercise or breathing. When we are in a relaxed state, our bellies move out on the in breath and simply falls back on the out breath.
I think you would end up with some pretty sore stomach muscles if you tried to suck in all the time on the out breath.
Plus, we take a certain stance when firebreathing, as you can see the example of in the book. I haven't tried firebreathing standing straight up, but I don't see it as being very comfortable or helpful for prolapse.

ChooseIt

January 24, 2018 - 5:25pm

There are two directions in the belly toss exercise that I'm confused about. I am referring to the video where Christine shows how to do it. 1. Breath in and the belly comes down to the floor. With that she states "the tailbone lifts". Is there any more to say about the tailbone? I am now sure in which direction it is to be lifted.

2. With the out breath Christine states, Breath out, the belly pulls in to the spine. At least that is what I thought I heard. Is there force with pulling the belly to the spine?

Aging gracefully

January 24, 2018 - 5:42pm

Yes, pull belly button to spine. When lifting tailbone, think of it as if our lower half is that of a horse with tail being lifted.
I love those belly tosses! They give such a great feeling of lightness afterwards when done properly.