Important Abdominal Patterns for Protecting the Spine

Maintaining a mild contraction of the abdominal wall can help ensure sufficient spine stability and in some demanding tasks is essential, however this is the beginning of an enormous controversy. Many believe that intentionally activating the transverse abdominis and focussing training effort on this muscle with a "hollowing" procedure is helpful for bad backs and athletes alike. Hollowing involves intentionally sucking in the abdominal wall towards the spine. In fact, training transverse abdominis in this way compromises stability and creates spine dysfunction! Abdominal hollowing dysfunctional: abdominal brace instead is "Hollowing", while intended to activate the transverse abdominis, has been documented to actually decrease stability in some situations. In contrast, the abdominal brace has been proven to enhance stability (Kavcic and McGill, 2004). When the bracing contraction is performed correctly, no geometric change occurs in the abdominal wall. In other words, rather than "hollowing in" the abdominal wall, the athlete simply activates all the abdominal muscles to make them stiff. We call this contraction abdominal bracing.

Teaching Abdominal Bracing

We begin by having the athlete/patient standing palpating their active low back extensors while the lumbar torso slightly flexed, extending slowly until moment equilibrium reached is is and the extensors shut off. This is the position of rest for the spine and is often reported as a posture of least symptoms in many. This position can also be reached sooner in the extension motion by retracting the shoulders, holding the arms back and pushing the chest out (see figure 10.13). At this point, the athlete performs the abdominal brace and they feel the extensors re-activate, proving the general bracing girdle that is produced with the abdominal brace technique.

This advice is provided by Zach Cooper, a professional health coach and physical therapist.