TIP 13

tip of the month archive

TIP # 13

Our Tip Of The Month for August, is again about breathing. ( I warned ya last month . . . remember? )

This tip is something you can try as you sit there and read about it. It's a great exercise that can be performed anytime, anywhere, and will go a long way to helping you to control not only your breathing, but your stomach muscles. So, it has health benefits as well as being able to benefit the look of your midsection

Standing or sitting erect, inhale as much air through your nose as humanly possible. ( Done correctly, when you reach your 'maximum inhale', your head will shake, or shudder a bit. ) When your lungs are full, your chest and stomach should both kinda bloat, as well as rise up with the fullness.

Next, suck your gut in as far as you can. Try to touch your spine with your abdominal wall. Your chest should rise up even further as you do this. This called a stomach vacuum. Hold that big breath as you vacuum.

Once you have your midsection sucked up as far as you can, blow that big breath out through your mouth. Blow through an 'O' shaped mouth . . . the same mouth configuration that you should be using when lifting a weight in your training. ( See Tip 12 )

While you are blowing out all of this air, maintain that stomach vacuum. Now, breathe normally while keeping the stomach vacuumed in. Continue to breathe normally with your stomach vacuumed for as long as you can.

This entire process will get easier, and you'll be able to maintain the vacuum longer as you perform this exercise more and more. The great thing about it is that you can do it a hundred times a day. There's no danger of overtraining, and you'll find that the more you do it, the sooner you'll see results. Look for better posture and the fact that you'll be carrying yourself better with your gut held up and in, even when you're not trying to.

Until next time . . . train hard, but train smart!

- Poppa