Dr. Andy Galpin

You don't have to be in that position where we can pull our abs so far in that it looks like, you know, there's an inch difference between our anterior side of our stomach and our back, but we should have some good separation between our rib cage and ability to pull our stomach in.

You can do this in a couple of different ways.

You can do this seated.

So can I pull my stomach in, pull my belly button in closer to my spine when I'm seated?

Many, many people will struggle with that.

Sometimes it's easier to actually go in a quadruped position, so on your hands and knees, because your stomach will fall to the ground.

It actually puts external pressure on it.

And then we'll ask, can you pull it back up and in?

And more people will probably have success with that.

Even if they're not good at it, it's a really good test.

It's a really good way to actually train just to say, can you activate and control that?

I don't have exact numbers on how far it should go.

You get the idea.

This is just more of like, can you pass or fail?

Another one like that that I enjoy and use very frequently is the obliques side of the equation.

So if you take your two hands and you make an L with your hands so that your thumb is pointed sideways and your finger is pointing up, just like you'd make an L with your finger, and you put those on your sides just above your hip,

Can you move your hands outward without, in fact, those of you watching, you can see I'm doing this as I'm talking.

There's a small change in my voice, but I should have active control of my obliques and my transverse abdominis so that I can move my hands outward while still having a breath, while not having to hold, not having to contract and have everything tight and

Can I activate those things separately?

So again, a way you can make this easier is you crunch down.