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.

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