Yoga, pilates, or something else?
I need a low impact exercise for a beginner. Just wanting to tone up and maybe lose my front butt. What do you recommend?
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
~ Groucho Marx
- Conspiracy_Monger's blog
- Login or register to post comments
is that fat on your pelvis, or are you talking about like a... enlarged pubis?
pilates is perfect for abdominal work. i have been doing yoga for a long time, and teaching for a while, and i find taht pilates is a great complement to it. it's hard work, yet anatomically sound so it's safe and low impact.
if you decide to go with yoga, and you have the goal of getting in shape, you will have to select your class accordingly. a power yoga class is usually what you want. although around here "vinyasa flow" is all the rage. me, i'm not into it because it involves repetetive oppositional arching of the spine and people can hurt themselves like that. but the classes are always packed, so what do i know?
"Rap music belongs in the rubbish bin! It encourages punching, boastfulness and rudeness to hos!"
both yoga and pilates will help with that. mine were split too for a while. what you have to do is make sure that you suck in your gut in pilates, way way deep. like try to touch your spine with your abdominal wall. slow down the movements, do less reps than the rest of the class is doing and just generally be ultra ultra methodical in your movements. you will find that not only are your rectus abdominus split, but that your whole abdominal wall is very very weak. the only way to correct that is to really be focused and almost meditative in your movements. if you have a not so great teacher, she may possibly encourage you to speed it up to keep up with the class, but don't do it. look at your abdomen as it works. the second it starts to pop out, come out of the movement, suck it back in again, and try the movement again. you will get fatigued fast this way, but it's hard work and you will steadily improve and be able to hold the movments longer. only a good teacher will understand this.
yoga is good too for the same reasons, but i think for these purposes it would work more slowly. i did yoga first. i didn't even try pilates till my kid was four and when i did i really wished i had done it after the birth.
i'm sure you know this already but i'll explain in case you don't. the reasoning behind this is, the abdominals are in several layers. "traditional" exercises go for the rectus abdominus only, and obliques. but there are deeper layers too. if right now you suck in your belly, what you are doing is engaging those deep layers. these deep abdominals are now stretched out from your pregnancy, and bulging forward, making obliques bulge into the space beyween the two bands of rectus abdominus.you have to work to bring those back to whence they came, before working the rectus abdominus.
"Rap music belongs in the rubbish bin! It encourages punching, boastfulness and rudeness to hos!"
Also you can help the repair by manually rolling your belly (rectus ab muscle) back into inself. If you lie on your back knees up imagine your belly button tied to your spine, let it sink in, then raise your head to look at your pubic bone--the edges of your rectus ab should show themselves alittle. Take those two edges (look in an anatomy book, too) and sort of lift and roll them in and then up. If it feels good, hold and breathe. release. Again, from a different spot (goes from your pubic bone and continues fascially all the way up your neck). Always in, never out.
For pilates videos I've hit up my library. The one I like best so far is Power Pilates Post-Pregnancy workout. I've been doing 10-20 minutes a few times a week and am seeing a difference after just a couple weeks. good luck!
mmm...there is a book called _essential excercises for the child-bearing year_ that goes into detail about that condition.
i second all that etta says abut this. pilates is fantastic. though my abs are far from zexy, i will say that in every pilates class i've taken the instructor has asked the class to let her/him know if anyone has any injuries or concerns. be sure to speak up and say you recently had a baby and, if they know their shit, they will provide you with guidance on how to modify everything so you don't get injured. pilates really helped me recover after a bad car accident and regain usage of my abs after my c-section, which were totally kaput.
Cause I've been to yoga and pilates and mixes of both and weird dance classes, etc... and it seems like when I finally settled in and started to see a huge difference was when I found a teacher that really resonated with me. You've gotta talk to the teacher and let them know what your goals are. See how they react to your goals and see if they offer you a path to those goals that sounds "right" to you. kwim?
Make sure to find some time before or after class to let them know where your 'trouble spots' are, in terms of your body and also where your mind blocks you. That way they can help you to be more conscious of that.
As far as the ab stuff...I think it really depends on the teacher too. I've had pilates teachers and yoga teachers that I felt did not stress the abs and other core muscles very well.
I go to a studio where I practice hatha, vinyasa, yin and ashtanga. The owner of this studio is crazy about core strength and so we do lots of asanas to work on our core strength and she mixes a few pilates movements into her hatha classes to strengthen abs when there are new students in the class. I have never had very strong abs in my life and after my pregnancy they were even weaker and I started to have some lower back pain. This class has certainly saved my back and I can actually feel my ab muscles now do some pretty amazing stuff that I never thought I would be able to do.
Wishing you luck!
"The Universe Molds Itself To Prove Your Beliefs"
"Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki
I don't go anywhere cause I am poor and we have zero childcare options but I do a DVD and I love it, totally kicks my ass, I got it at target and you don't need any equiptment except a mat which I don't even bother with
Navigation
Who's online
Online users
- Reverend Mother
Who's New
- BeachBunny
- gayle.mallinger
- Mamapocket
- mjcwriter
- addie smith
My ab muscles are split still from pregnancy (just a little). I've heard that if I work them out wrong, I'll only make it more prominent. Advice?
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
~ Groucho Marx