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Fitness
How to Get Rid of your Gut (If You Have One)
By Michael Tonetti
The “gut” that protrudes, or the lower abdominal pooch that so stubbornly refuses to obey your desire for it to disappear, is not from carrying extra weight. Sure, extra fat hanging forward can exacerbate the problem, but the underlying cause is mechanical; the protruding gut happens only when the big lower-back muscles tighten up. When the back muscles tighten, the opposing abdominal wall muscles are inhibited, or cut off neurologically. These opposing front and back muscles need to interact in a give-and-take relationship to be healthy. There are two aspects to setting up the no-gut pattern: One is a unified spine and the other is deep back and side breathing.
What works: Deep breathing, done skillfully, has the profound effect of simultaneously stabilizing the spine and getting rid of the gut. When the abdominals participate in deep inhalation, they inhibit the big back muscles that span from the back of the pelvis to individual ribs. These muscles have to let go to let the ribs open to the sides (like Venetian blinds). When the abdominal wall does not budge on the inhale, the back of the pelvis, the lower back, and the sides of the ribcage expand. This facilitates full spinal length and mobility while eliminating the gut.
How to practice deep breathing: Draw your head high, straight up above your pelvis; relax to allow the weight to settle on your spinal structure; breathe back and wide on the inhale by pressing back with your whole abdominal wall. You will feel your lower back expand in the back of your pelvis by pressing back with the lowest abdominals while you are inhaling. As you get used to that, direct your breath into the sides of your ribcage. You will feel the lower ribs move and then up, as if filling with water all the way to your armpits. Picture your ribs like Venetian blinds opening to the sides on the inhale and then closing on the exhale. You can do this during any activity.
At the beginning of the expansion process you really have to work to activate your lower abdominals and force your breathing into your back and sides. It can take some real concentration to force the expansion at first, but once it expands it takes much less effort. The problem is that the lower back and ribcage are like balloons that have not blown up yet. To get the process started requires much more pressure than it does to keep it going. Once the connective tissue gets stretched out enough to allow lower back expansion and rib mobility, it becomes much easier for the abdominal wall to participate in breathing and movement.
Some obstacles: Ducking is a very important emergency function of the spine. Unfortunately, allowing the head to tip back in movement inadvertently signals the neck to buckle. The ribs drop in the front and the head ducks. This sets off a muscle lockdown syndrome in which the lower back, hip, and shoulder muscles slowly tighten and the abdominal wall distends. This is a big problem with upright vertebrate movement. Tipping the head back in movement is the signal to duck; the spine buckles. Without the support of the abdominal wall, the back muscles grab and the pelvis tends to dump forward. Deep in under the gut, the hip muscles that lift the knee now pull the front of the lower back vertebrae forward. The outer and rear hip muscles get tight holding the rear of the pelvis down. Knees tend to lock back. Through decades the head drifts forward, the ribs drop down, and the shoulders go forward at the top and the muscles tighten up. And there is that darn gut again.
Why crunches and sit-ups don’t work: Very few spinal columns are healthy enough to recover from crunches. Crunches pull the front of the ribs down and the head forward just like slouching does. This is especially damaging to the spinal structure when the head tips back. A bent spine is extremely weak compared to a neutral spine; the deep muscles of the back become overstretched and weak. The ribs have quite a bit of leverage so they tend to bend the spine when they settle in the front. With a lot of work, the deep spinal muscle strength can be maintained but I have never personally seen it. Sit-ups can overdevelop the deep hip flexor muscles (iliopsoas muscles) and play havoc with the neck and ribcage. After sit-ups or crunches have helped to lock down a chronically bent section of the ribcage, it is very difficult to get the vertebrae to stack well enough to experience freedom of movement. And without the support of the front of a neutral ribcage, the abdominal wall cannot contain the gut as well as it might.
As weird as it feels at first, deep breathing in this manner and gravitational harmony do end up feeling really good. People who practice mindfulness, yoga, qigong, dance, or athletics already pay attention to their body and breath; gravitational harmony is complementary to these practices. But anyone may find new expansion even decades after he or she gets started. It all starts with your next breath. … Expand your back and sides; it feels so good that you may forget that you are breathing to get rid of your gut.
For more information visit www.dealingwithgravity.com or call 530-894-3787
Adolescent Girls, Sports, and Body Mass Index
By Kristi Ayars
I would like to interpret for people some research findings that, if applied, will help girls of middle-school and high-school age prevent obesity. Here is a brief summary: Attention has been drawn to today’s trend toward fatter children in our society. Reports from the 1999 to 2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed that 16.5 percent of children ages 6 to 19 were overweight. Furthermore, 31.5 percent of children were at risk for being overweight or obese. In response, another study funded by the federal government picked all types and sizes of schools from urban and rural areas around the nation, with all ethnic groups represented.
Two confidential in-school surveys were given a year apart to more than 90,000 7th- through 12th-graders. A random selection of female subjects yielded data from 1,004 girls. It was found that the girls who reported participating in sports activities five or more times per week had a significantly lower body mass index than the girls who exercised only one or two times a week. [Citation: Mitchell, K., & Pauls, J. (2006). Adolescent Health Study: An Analysis of Female Adolescent Sports-related Activity Patterns on Body Mass Index over Time. Journal of Women’s Health Physical Therapy, 30(2), 5-9.]
Applying this research is easy: Middle school– and high school–age girls need to exercise at least five days a week. The type of exercise is not important; what matters is vigorous participation. If a girl who falls into the overweight or obese category sticks with the five-day-a-week fitness habit, she will find that during the course of a year, her body mass index will decrease.
What is the body mass index? Take a person’s weight and height, subtract frame size and muscle mass, and you get a calculation of about how much fat is being carried per unit of height. The adolescent body is growing rapidly; thus, it is better to keep track of body mass index than it is to merely step on a scale and keep track of weight. You want to be putting on weight in adolescence, but in the form of bone density and muscle mass, not fat. Of course there are other factors that play into people’s being overweight, but getting started with a fitness habit at this crucial age brings other benefits, too. These include thicker bones, stronger and more shapely muscles, improved mood and sense of well-being, and better posture and coordination. And it really boosts a person’s confidence to discover she has the ability to stick with healthy habits for the long term.
The Chico Public Library has pedometers that people can check out. These little gadgets keep track of how many steps a person takes each day. Even just trying to fit in a few hundred more (vigorous) paces during lunch could be the first step toward reducing the risk of obesity and all the difficulties and health problems that come from being overweight. As always, consult a physician before beginning any exercise program. If a person has been medically cleared by a physician but wants more specifics on how to get started, how to prevent injuries, and how to avoid aches and pains, an experienced physical therapist can help.
Kristi Ayars, PT, DPT, Simply Results Physical Therapy, 1263 Esplanade, Suite A, Chico, 
530-891-4456
