Are you sucking in your stomach?

Why are so many people sucking in their stomach while working their ab muscles? Most likely because their trainer told them that this was the best way to target the transverse abdominus. I too fell into the ab hollowing fad, but quickly noticed that you might put yourself at risk of injury with this technique. Stuart McGill, a renowned expert on the back has found ab hollowing to put the spine at risk. It makes since because when lifitng heavy weights or running ab hollowing puts the spine in more of a flexed position, which is the position that is most responsible for low back injuries. I have included a piece of an article from the New York Times, which goes into detail as to why you should avoid sucking in your stomach.

“If you hollow in, you bring the muscles closer to the spine, and you reduce the stability of the spine,” said Stuart McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics in the department of kinesiology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Try rising from a chair with a hollowed out stomach; not only are you “weak,” he said, but “it’s very difficult.”
Dr. McGill, who has treated patients with back disorders for 25 years, has measured spinal loading forces and their effects on spinal stability with computer models and in test subjects wired to computers.
His findings dispute not only the validity of drawing in, but also the very notion that the transverse abdominus plays a pivotal role in stability. All abdominal and back muscles are important, not just this one, Dr. McGill said.
Some trainers who once thought that drawing in was the key to protecting their lower back and building a strong midsection are now having second thoughts. Vern Gambetta, the author of “Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning,” now thinks the move is difficult to teach and too unnatural for athletes to maintain while being at their competitive best.
“In most sporting activities, things happen too fast to consciously think about contracting a specific muscle,” Mr. Gambetta said.
He and others have also seen that no matter how many times people hollow out their stomachs, firing the transverse abdominus rarely becomes second nature.
“I don’t know of a study that shows that drawing in becomes a subconscious reflex,” said Shirley Sahrmann, a professor of physical therapy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Some say the problem is the way people are taught to fire their transverse abdominus. Most of the time, exercisers are lying prone when they are told to consciously fire the muscle. Less often they are taught to perform an exercise that engages the transverse abdominus.
“I would rather facilitate the motion that turns the muscle on all by itself,” said Gary Gray, a physical therapist in Michigan who has been trying to re-educate other therapists to abandon the drawing-in technique. “Motion is the thing that turns on muscles, not the mind.”
Dr. McGill said there is a better way than drawing in to protect the spine and build the core. For those about to lift something heavy or, say, leap for a rebound, he recommends bracing all the abdominal muscles — something he said the body does more naturally during exertion.
“Bracing is stiffening the abdominal wall,” he said, explaining the difference. It’s a neutral position. “It’s not sucking in and it’s not pushing your belly out,” he said.
The easiest way to teach it: “Pretend you are going to get whacked in the belly,” he said. The body’s natural response is bracing.