Sculpting your abs through breathing may leave some people skeptical. How to explain that this is more effective than intensive abdominal sessions?
I asked myself this question when I started The Belly Lab method in 2012. I was afraid, almost ashamed and I said to myself: “But how will women believe me and think that they will have a belly? flat through breathing? It must indeed be understood that the exhalation and the contraction of the pelvic floor will seek out a muscle called the transverse, which is innervated, and that it is a kind of sheath that we naturally have around the abdomen that encircles our spine. It is thanks to the control of the breath that we will be able to strengthen this muscle, which will contract on itself. And it is by strengthening your transverse, and only your transverse, that we can hope one day to have a flatter stomach, and even more to reconnect with your stomach.
This is very important, especially since breathing also brings us to a certain focus on ourselves and work on the stress since it lowers the level of cortisol, the stress hormone. My fight is to fight once morest crunches, intensive abdominal sessions and everything that can do damage to women’s stomachs and perineum… So stop intensive abdominal sessions.
Beyond diet, poor sitting posture or more simply morphology, what can cause stomach problems?
Beyond bad posture, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, diet, bad impact sports, intensive abs, the belly also undergoes our emotions : sadness, anger, hatred, humiliation, jealousy. This can have many negative impacts, including digestive disorders. We wake up in the morning, everything is fine, then in the evening, we go to bed with a belly the size of a rugby ball. Often linked to stress and other emotional causes.
A fortiori, having a flat stomach is not just an aesthetic issue. What are the benefits of a “calmed” stomach?
There is necessarily an aesthetic issue but a soothed stomach is above all a belly that we love. We’re going to love it, we’re going to pamper it, we’re going to pamper it and every day, we’re going to give it back its place. Many women have put their belly aside, they have their head on one side, the belly on the other. Sometimes they completely forget regarding him, so he knocks on the door and that results in stomach aches, bloating, indigestion. You have to give it the place it deserves to feel better, physically and mentally.
We talk a lot regarding the connection between the brain and the intestine, to which you devote a whole chapter. Can we deduce that the well-being of the belly is perhaps more important, if not as important, than that of the mind?
For me, the connection between the brain and the gut is paramount. I would even say that the belly is the first brain. I may be a little out of step with this, but today, when your stomach hurts, you also feel bad regarding yourself and your head. We actually have a more wobbly life because the anchor is not there. We don’t feel our emotions, we don’t listen to our body and one day or another, it reminds us through various ailments.