For most of us the warm weather is finally arriving which means wanting to shed that extra winter weight and look great on the beach.
We have always been told that to lose weight and look great you need to work out, burn calories, and watch what you eat. I have seen so many people over the years searching for the latest fad diets which promise to reduce weight quickly. People do lose weight but very often put on even more once they stop the diet. People who can easily lose weight following any one of these diets usually get to a point where their bodies can no longer lose weight as easily. The calorie counting and burning of calories through working out stops working for them. It is hard to believe that what has always worked just stops! I have seen this over and over again.
Women’s bodies go through a series of hormonal changes from peri-menopause and well into their mid-60s. Metabolically their bodies begin to slow down. Through the hormone changes the soft tissue and bone changes occur and women often complain of stiffness and joint pain they never experienced before. Excess weight settles in the abdomen. No matter how much these women go to the gym and do what always worked before, they actually begin to gain more weight. The excessive impact into their joints decreases circulation and the nerve roots of the vertebrae begin to slow down in sending their functioning messages to the organs. The body is also losing height placing more pressure down into the lower body cutting off digestion, and healthy circulation to the feet.
This also happens to men but about a decade later. For some reason men begin to fall apart in their late 50s into their 60s. Joint injuries become more frequent and they can no longer play basketball with their grandchildren without experiencing some kind of pain the next day. Men become stiffer and lose range of motion in almost every joint in their bodies. Because men have always thought being fit meant to be strong and increase muscle mass and strength, when they age this all turns into rigidity. The 6-packs they have worked so hard to achieve now begin to sag. The more “Crunches” they do, the more contracted the abdomen becomes and the more weight they gain and the sagging increases.
This body rolling abs routine below will help you have the aesthetic look you want as well as the healthy functioning and metabolically switched on body you want. You will see how you need to change your brain so that you can get the results that are best for your body.
Yamuna Body Rolling Abs Routine
1. This is taken from the Abdominal Stretching DVD:
People tend to look down and see their bellies protruding, dropping, sagging or expanding and bulging. Nobody likes to see this ever! People often try to suck it all in, but that gets really exhausting to do. It also creates all kinds of internal tension. Other people just let it hang and stop worrying about it, thinking this is me and I just have to accept this. There are many forms of how we put on weight in the center of the body. What’s important to understand is what we actually have inside of us and why we need to care for the space between our ribs and pelvis which is where all of our internal organs of digestion are.
The stomach, pancreas, spleen, gall bladder and kidneys all are located slightly below the base of the rib cage. If you happen to become more swollen in this area of the abdomen chances are your upper digestive tract is not working correctly. If you tend to drop all the weight of your chest and upper body down into this area you are actually upsetting and weakening the function of your stomach, pancreas, liver and gall bladder. Acid reflux, hyatial hernias, excessive burping, and swelling immediately after eating are all symptoms that can be caused simply by how your upper body is compressing down on your upper G.I. tract. If you have a very tight chest and strongly pull your lower ribs in towards the center you can develop so much tension at this point that you can also create stomach ulcers. If you think logically about what I am describing, and you ask yourself what you need to do, it makes sense to say, “I need to lift my entire rib cage, widen my lower ribs, take all the upper body pressure off my upper digestive organs and kidneys and then my body should have the space to correct these problems.” Once you begin to train your upper body to lift up out of your abdomen your abdomen immediately lengthens, and becomes more toned. Once the pressure of the upper body has lifted off the small and large intestines they can actually work much better. Digestion will improve and that swollen abdomen will begin to flatten.
But…. It’s not that simple :(
There are still more parts to building an abdomen back to its optimal form and function. After years of your upper body weight hanging down into the abdomen your abdominal muscles have lost their memory of how they are meant to support you.
The rectus abduminus begins at your pubic bone and inserts up at your sternum and lower ribs. This muscle is meant to keep the entire abdomen lifted up long and strong from the pubic bone. It has to be turned back on so that its muscle memory awakens and it gets its tone back and can lift your center up off the pubic bone and entire pelvis.
Using the gold ball, work directly up from the center of the pubic bone to your navel to begin to wake this muscle back up. Here are simple instructions on how to lift and retrain this muscle.
1. Using a gold ball, place the center of your pubic bone directly on top of the ball. Extend your legs and arms out and simply let your weight sink into the ball at your pubic bone.
2. Slowly slide your legs backward so the ball slides to the top of the pubic bone. This is where the origin of the abdominus rectus begins. Stay at this point and breath and stretch the legs and arms out long.
3. Slide the legs out a bit more and let the gold ball slide into the lower abdomen. Take several breaths and keep sliding the legs back and stretching the arms on the floor above the head.
4. Continue doing this until the ball is at the level of your navel. Get off the ball and rest face up and see how this feels.
5. Do just this for one week and you will begin to see how this muscle begins to work again and hold the abdomen upward.
The Abdominal Muscles:
There is a network of abdominal muscles which help to support the abdomen and all the internal organs. The internal and external obliques, and the transversus abdominus are the abdominal muscles that when toned actually bring healthy support to our internal organs.
When we lose the strength of abdominal muscles we lose a great deal of our organ function. Our organs need these muscles to hold them in place and to bring them tone and healthy resistance.
Sagging or protruding abdominal muscles do not support the internal organs, nor keep them stimulated. The same thing goes for people who keep tightening and holding their abdomens in. This actually can tighten and create tension in our internal organs.
POINT: Healthy, toned, long, flexible and strong abdominal muscles are what you want and need.