Love-handles? Did you know that you can slim your waistline just by lengthening it … without shedding a pound? Not to mention getting rid of back pain, gaining more mobility and your enhancing digestion! Here is a simple way of measuring the structural health of your waist
: with your fingers, gently poke into your side, into the soft of the waist between the top of your hip crest and the bottom of your rib cage.
Make sure that you are pressing in far enough back that you can feel the base of the bottom rib. Now, see how much space there is in terms of finger width. Can you fit in one, two, two and a half fingers? Ideally, there should be a three fingers-width worth of space between your rib cage and your hip though often we encounter much less.
This is because between the ribs and hips (with the exception of the spine), there are only soft muscles that can chronically tighten over time. Unlike in the upper torso where ribs create and maintain space between the vertebrae, the waist relies on a healthy tonus of the waist muscles to keep the proper length in the spine. And by healthy, I don’t mean tight six-pack-abs. I mean healthy, flexible, mobile muscles that can help you do all of the things that a healthy waist should.
Let’s talk a little about what these waist muscles are designed to do. The waist muscles allow a wide range of motion: they allow us to bend forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonally and can turn the upper body while the hips are facing forwards - an important safe-driving skill.
When the waist muscles get really tight, they pull down the rib cage towards the hips, compromising the ideal length in this area. This action compresses the lower lumbar region of the spine, which can impinge nerves, cause a great deal of pain, and compromise the integrity of the spinal disks. While the spinal disks are made to take a lot of compression, they are built to withstand this natural stress only if it is not chronic.
The muscles of the waist also have a lot to do the mechanics of walking: orchestrating and mediating the cross-lateral movement between the hips and pelvis, arms and legs that occurs in a normal gait. How much these muscles lengthen also determines how far you are able to reach into that upper cabinet. Over time, a chronic shortening of the waist leads to a loss of hip mobility that results in wear and tear on hip, knee and ankle joints. We start to move like cardboard boxes rather than the sleek animals we were designed to be.
If you’re not impressed yet, listen to this: the muscles of the waist also help maintain your natural height. Most people find that over the years they lose a little of their height – sometimes as much as a few inches. Well, you may have guessed it – the compression of the waist is the source of this loss of height. I regularly have clients report after their yearly physical that they’ve gotten taller!
And what about slimness? When the waist shortens, all the skin, muscle and other tissue in this area tend to bulge out to the sides - easily corrected by regaining the vertical length. Another thing worth mentioning is that digestion and organ function can also improve as more space is available for movement and circulation in this vital area, so reclaim your three-fingers’ worth!
If you have any questions about your particular condition, please feel free to contact us at Ahimsa Bodywork, (510) 495-4449.
Make sure that you are pressing in far enough back that you can feel the base of the bottom rib. Now, see how much space there is in terms of finger width. Can you fit in one, two, two and a half fingers? Ideally, there should be a three fingers-width worth of space between your rib cage and your hip though often we encounter much less.
This is because between the ribs and hips (with the exception of the spine), there are only soft muscles that can chronically tighten over time. Unlike in the upper torso where ribs create and maintain space between the vertebrae, the waist relies on a healthy tonus of the waist muscles to keep the proper length in the spine. And by healthy, I don’t mean tight six-pack-abs. I mean healthy, flexible, mobile muscles that can help you do all of the things that a healthy waist should.
Let’s talk a little about what these waist muscles are designed to do. The waist muscles allow a wide range of motion: they allow us to bend forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonally and can turn the upper body while the hips are facing forwards - an important safe-driving skill.
When the waist muscles get really tight, they pull down the rib cage towards the hips, compromising the ideal length in this area. This action compresses the lower lumbar region of the spine, which can impinge nerves, cause a great deal of pain, and compromise the integrity of the spinal disks. While the spinal disks are made to take a lot of compression, they are built to withstand this natural stress only if it is not chronic.
The muscles of the waist also have a lot to do the mechanics of walking: orchestrating and mediating the cross-lateral movement between the hips and pelvis, arms and legs that occurs in a normal gait. How much these muscles lengthen also determines how far you are able to reach into that upper cabinet. Over time, a chronic shortening of the waist leads to a loss of hip mobility that results in wear and tear on hip, knee and ankle joints. We start to move like cardboard boxes rather than the sleek animals we were designed to be.
If you’re not impressed yet, listen to this: the muscles of the waist also help maintain your natural height. Most people find that over the years they lose a little of their height – sometimes as much as a few inches. Well, you may have guessed it – the compression of the waist is the source of this loss of height. I regularly have clients report after their yearly physical that they’ve gotten taller!
And what about slimness? When the waist shortens, all the skin, muscle and other tissue in this area tend to bulge out to the sides - easily corrected by regaining the vertical length. Another thing worth mentioning is that digestion and organ function can also improve as more space is available for movement and circulation in this vital area, so reclaim your three-fingers’ worth!
If you have any questions about your particular condition, please feel free to contact us at Ahimsa Bodywork, (510) 495-4449.
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