Weighted Hula Hoop Lesson - Activate Deep Core Muscles

Need Help With Waist Hooping? Check out our companion video at https://vimeo.com/198362788

In this short lesson, I’m going to teach you an easy way to activate your deep core muscles while you waist hoop. The truth is you absolutely will get some core activation with any movement that keeps your hoop spinning around your waist. But to activate the deep muscle layer that acts like a natural corset, we’ve got to do a little bit more to get those to fire.

If you’ve ever thrown up, then you’ve activated your transverse abdominis, which we will call TA. If you’ve had a coughing fit that left your abs sore, you know the transverse abdominis – we just don’t activate it much while we exercise. But its super important to support your spine, alleviate back pain, and again pull in your waistline by tightening your natural corset.

So today we’re going to learn to activate your TA with a simple breathing exercise first, then we will incorporate it with your hoop.

Don’t get sidetracked with the idea that this is just breathing. You’re going to be working out very important muscles that have been inactive for probably a while. It’s very difficult if you’ve been chest breathing to learn how to breathe through your belly and activate your TA on the exhale while standing up.

And by chest breathing I mean this. Think about when your doctor asks you to inhale. You’ve probably done this – chest comes up, shoulders come up. Well, early in life we transition from belly breathing to chest breathing. I work with quite a few children preschool age and they have already lost the practice of breathing through their belly when taking deep breaths.

So to begin, I’m going to have you sit in a chair and rest your forearms on your thighs. I’ve found this is one of the easiest ways to take your chest and shoulders out of the equation when trying to learn this. , but Now go ahead and lean slightly forward. Focus on relaxing your belly – don’t try to suck in your stomach for this. You want you belly relaxed. Now when you take an inhale breath, I want you to focus on filling your belly with your breath.
When you exhale, focus on pulling your belly button to your spine as you make a hissing sound. The hissing sound is going to help you activate your TA. If that’s not working, cough as you exhale. Practice this at least five times. Ideally you want to get to a place where you are inhaling and exhaling through your nose, but for today we’re just working on filling the belly, not chest with breath, and exhaling to activate the TA.