Bloating – not always caused by the food you eat

bloatingBloating is a common complain! Whether it’s my Physio patients or Pilates clients, bloating is right up there with one of the top 5 most talked about and wished about things to fix! Interestingly enough, the majority of us put bloating down wholly to either type or amount of food we have consumed. While often this is true, sometimes there are other factors completely unrelated to diet! Have you ever stopped to think about the contribution the spine, specifically the thoracic spine has on bloating and why certain movements or postures seem to relive your bloating symptoms?

How Does the Spine Affect Bloating?

The position of the spine, specifically the thoracic spine and its 12 sets of ribs, plays a big role with regards to how the abdominal muscles (deep and superficial) work. Twists in the spine and ribcage creates non-optimal pressures through the abdomen often causing what we call ‘pressure bellies’ or bloating! This is why many people feel more comfortable in spinal twists, child’s pose and other various unloading postures for the thoracic spine.

How do the Spinal Nerves Affect Bloating?

The enteric nervous system (the nerves responsible for the organs in our gut) has both sympathetic (inhibitory) and parasympathetic (excitatory) nerves. These inhibitory nerves exist the spine from T5-L2 (our thoracic and first two lumbar vertebrae). Can you imagine what would happen to the quality of the signal being emitted from these nerves when you thoracic spine is in a non-optimal alignment? Yes you guessed it … very poor!

What Postures can I try to Ease my Bloating?

  • Childs Pose – see here
  • Spinal Twist – see here
  • Down Dog – see here

What Exercises can I try to ease my Bloating?

  • Bridging –
  • Side to side – Watch Here
  • Book openings
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Episode 007 – How To Get Abs
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Episode 007This episode focuses on abs! But not abs in the way you might think. We break down the barriers, stop repeating and rehashing the same old tips and tricks and truly, as I always aim to do, give you a thought provoking and inspiring conversation. We discuss the deep and superficial muscle system, discover for yourself which is better, strong, flat or efficient abs, as well as demystify the word ‘core’ once and for all. Of course there will be your favorite part some home play to enjoy in your own body and the bodies of the people you work with.

What You Will Learn In This Episode

Abdominal Muscles are located between the ribs and the pelvis on the front of the body. They allow movement, support the trunk and hold the organs in place through the regulation of intra abdominal pressure.

‘Core Muscles’ I would like to argue that we have ‘core muscles’ all over our body, this is called the deep system and its there to balance out the forces that act across our joints! This means that although you do have deep system muscles in your abdominal region, you also have them elsewhere in your spine, neck, hips, knees, shoulders …. You get my point! Anywhere there is a joint, there is a group of muscles which function to provide stability to ensure a different group of muscles can provide movement, strength, speed and power! You can think of them like team A and team B. Neither one is more important but without both teams working together the game of movement is no fun for anyone!

I think of these two systems as needing to work together like opposite sides of a seesaw. On one side of the seesaw you have your superficial system which is responsible for lifting loads, propelling your body through space and maintaining the endurance necessary for a variety of long hold positions. on the other side of the sea saw you have the deep system which is responsible for aligning and balancing the forces around a particular joint, enabling its movement to be both efficient and effective. Neither system in my eyes is more important than the other, your superficial system doesn’t work well without an equally effective deep system, but similarly having a well orchestrated deep system is not much use if your superficial system is not strong enough to do the tasks required of it .

Home Play

Superficial System Ab Exercise = Crunches (Watch how to here)

Deep System Ab Exercise = Pilates Bridging (Watch how to here)

Thank you for listening to episode 007 of the Move Beautiful Podcast, I loved bringing all these insights and valuable pieces of information to you and I hope you have found them as valuable as I have and are now breathing easy!

If you liked this episode please share it with your friends, family, colleagues, or better yet leave us an honest review on iTunes these rating and reviews are incredibly helpful and help me to help more beautiful movers like you reach their movement potential!

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes so you will be sure to never miss an episode.

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Episode 005 – Pelvic Floor Exercises

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Episode 005More on this is future podcast episodes, but for now, here is an introduction to your pelvic floor! We talk about how intra-abdominal pressure affects pelvic floor recruitment, what the best position to practice your pelvic floor lift is, what can be do about ‘LBL’ (Light Bladder Leakage) and of course we wrap things up with some home play.

In This Episode You Will Learn

As promised here is a better visual or your pelvic floor muscles,

pelvic floor musclesIf you haven’t already read our article on ‘how the pelvic floor and lower tummy are connected‘ that is a great place to start! Nevertheless a quick recap is always good. The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that act like a sling at the base of the pelvis to support the bladder, bowel and pelvis structure as a whole. I think it’s helpful to have this image in your mind as you begin to start your practice, as a lot of what you are doing when you recruit you practice pelvic floor exercises is internal and you need to have a good mental picture of what is going on down there. I like to think of them like a sling or a draw string bag that can gently tighten as you close the draw string around the neck of the bladder and bowel.

Alright now for the good stuff, I will break these exercises down into male and female as the cuing and explanations change slightly for each. Sometimes what works for men doesn’t work for women and vice versa, it takes sense our anatomy down there is fairly different!

  1. Pelvic Floor Exercises – Visualisation for Women

When attempting to recruit your pelvic floor the following mental pictures may work for you. When practising visualisation and internal recruitment it best to be in a quiet calm place away from any interruptions. It is also helpful to make sure you are sitting or lying in a comfortable position so you won’t be distracted by any other feelings of discomfort or pain in your body.

– Imagine you are sitting on the toilet urinating and all of a sudden you need to stop the flow, what muscles would you need to use to achieve this?

– Image a rock being thrown into a pond, and the ripples that spread out after it hits the water. Now imagine what that scene looks like in reverse a the ripples draw together and the rock is pulled back up out of the water. How could you make your pelvic floor muscles feel as though they are lifting as gently, controlled and equal as that rock?

– Imagine you have a straw inserted into your vagina canal, and what it would feel like to try and suck water up through the straw, what muscles would you need to use this?

– Imagine you are (or actually do it) sitting on the floor crossed legged. On the floor is a small velvet handkerchief, what would the handkerchief look like if you used a pincer grip and gently picked it up from the centre, allowing the rest of the fabric to fall away from the middle. How would you need to use your pelvic floor muscles to mimic this gentle movement of the fabric with your pelvic floor?

  1. Pelvic Floor Exercises – Visualisation for Men

When attempting to recruit your pelvic floor the following mental pictures may work for you. When practising visualisation and internal recruitment it best to be in a quiet calm place away from any interruptions. It is also helpful to make sure you are sitting or lying in a comfortable position so you won’t be distracted by any other feelings of discomfort or pain in your body.

– Imagine you are standing at the toilet bowel urinating and all of a sudden you need to stop the flow, what muscles would you need to use to achieve this?

– Imagine you were wading out into freezing water, what would it feel like as your testes started to lift, what muscles would be doing this movement?

– Imagine you were retracting your penis, what muscles would make this movement? 

You might have found that one or two of those imagery cues made sense or worked well for you. Use your favorite cue, or try them all and see which one your prefer for the next stage of pelvic floor recruitment,which is … actually practicing it in your own body!

Thank you for listening to episode 005 of the Move Beautiful Podcast, I loved bringing all these insights and valuable pieces of information to you and I hope you have found them as valuable as I have and are now breathing easy!

If you liked this episode please share it with your friends, family, colleagues, or better yet leave us an honest review on iTunes these rating and reviews are incredibly helpful and help me to help more beautiful movers like you reach their movement potential!

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes so you will be sure to never miss an episode.

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