Do you want to build a strong midsection?
Watch this video and I'll take you through five key TVA exercises for
your core
[inaudible].
Hi, it's Ivana helping you get fit, healthy and strong.
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When I release a new video every week, most of us want a strong,
tight core. Not only does it make your stomach area look better,
but it improves their posture and helps to prevent injuries,
particularly of the lower back. Now the abdominals,
the abs are in layers and the TVA.
The transverse abdominis is the innermost layer, so the deep layer.
On top of that,
you have your internal obliques and then you have your external obliques,
and then right at the top you've got the rectus abdominis,
which is the six pack muscle.
The function of the TVA is to stabilize the lower back and the pelvis before
movement of the arms or legs occurs,
so you can see how it's really important for protecting your lower back.
From entry.
I'm going to show you five key TVA exercises to help strengthen
your transversus of dominance and make sure you stick around until the end
because I'm going to show you how you can integrate these exercises into your
workout program.
The first exercise is the stomach vacuum and this is one of those old school
bodybuilding exercises that even our himself used to do when he was preparing
for competitions.
So they use this to train the abdominals and then also to help them learn how to
suck in their stomachs onstage.
It's actually a great way to train the TVA and to build that mind muscle
connection with the TVA. So I'm going to show it to you from the side.
All I'm going to do is suck in and then try to hold,
it's an isometric hold for 10 to 30 seconds.
So I'm going to show you a fairly short one first.
So first I breathe in and breathe out.
So you just try to hold that, uh, pretty much as long as you can tend to,
30 seconds is what you're aiming for.
And after a while it becomes easier to be able to pull that TVA and think about
pulling your belly button in right towards your spine just as far as you can go
and that helps strengthen the TVA.
The next exercise is the TVA side. Knee drops.
You're going to be lying on your back with your knees bent and then the first
thing you want to do is flatten your lower back so that you can
feel the TVA contracting as you start the exercise.
This should help stabilize your pelvis,
so you want to do that before you start moving the knees out to the side
and keep in mind that you want to be coming down very slowly and then up very
slowly and focusing on the TVA.
It's not just about moving your leg up and down because that's not going to get
you the work that you want.
So very slowly maintain the stable pelvis,
contract the TVA,
and then do the movement so the knees from side to side.
The next section size is the TVA seated squeeze.
And you're going to do this one with your back against the wall,
legs crossed in front.
And the important thing about this one is that you're pulling back,
you're starting a position is actually pulling back all the way with your TVA.
I think about your belly button pulling towards your spine.
And then from that position you're going to do a little pulses.
So you're breathing out and at that same time you're pulling in.
So you kind of do like a little pull each time.
So I'll show you what happens here. So the starting position,
I'm going to breathe in first and then breathe out. Okay.
As far as it feels like I can go,
and now I'm going to continue to breathe out for 10
yeah. And then breathe in and relax.
So each time you're pulling and tightening the TBA even further,
so it actually teaches you how to contract your TVA quickly and very
sharply. So that's the TVA seated squeeze.
The next exercise is called dead bugs. And you're going to do this on your back.
And the first thing you're gonna do is just bring the knees up
and then the arms are going to go straight up as well.
So that's your starting position.
Sometimes you'll see people do this with a stability ball as well holding it.
We're just going to do this just to make it simple.
Now to start off your flat in your back and activating the TVA.
So you're squeezing very,
very hard trying to activate that TVA and now you're going to
move your right arm and your left leg.
It doesn't have to be all the way out.
It can just be a little bit of a movement. And then back in here,
it's actually kind of hard to talk. That's why I gotta pause there in between.
In order to keep your back pressed down and your TVA activated,
it really takes a lot of effort. So you can just share.
You could do up and down just movements like this,
but in order to actually work the TVA with this exercise,
you need to do it very slow and very controlled.
Keep pulling in with your belly button towards the floor so you're kind
of drawing in and then slow movement
and then backup and then switching over
and back up. If this is too difficult for you, it's totally fine.
If you just want to move the arms first,
keeping the squeeze and the contraction and the TVA moving the
arms. You can also try us.
There's an even simpler version if you just want to go one leg at a time,
just a sore leg lowering exercise from here,
but pressing flat with the back the whole time and very slowly.
The key thing about dead books and variations of that exercise
is that you want to stay really, really tight.
You want to hold the pelvis stable and you need to move very slowly in both
directions, so out very slowly and then back in slowly as well.
The next exercise is the TVA squad against the wall,
so it's a simple squat.
All you're doing is sliding down and then up against the wall,
but at the same time you want to activate your TVA and be pulling in the whole
time. So you find this is not as simple as it first sounds.
So I'm going to come up just a little bit away from the wall with my feet
and I'm going to breathe in and breathe out,
squeezing the TVA, pulling the belly button in towards the spine.
And then as I do that, I'm going to move down
down into the squat position and back up
the whole time, still squeezing, pulling the TVA,
really tightening up. Let me show you again. So from here to squeeze,
okay, so you might not think that looks very hard,
but if you're trying to activate your TVA and pull it in throughout the
movement, you will find it very challenging.
You're going to work up to 10 reps of those.
All of these exercises made sense for you. If you have any questions,
please just leave a comment and I will try to help you out. Now,
in order to incorporate these exercises into your routine,
you have three options.
Basically you can do the whole routine that I've given you
every other day.
The other option is to just pick one of those exercises and do one
exercise per day.
And the third option is to pick two or three exercises and then do two or
three exercises every day. I mean, you can do any combination you want,
but I just want to give you a few suggestions that makes sense.
I'd like to help you out more with your fitness journey.
So head over to my website,
ivanachapman.com or you can pick up a copy of my free ebook just to get you
started. Please do give me a leg if you enjoyed this video,
and of course subscribe. Hit that bell. See you next week.