Dooley Noted: 10/26/14
During my junior year of high school, I had to wear a corset as part of a period costume.
This was nearly 20 years ago, but I distinctly remember one feeling: I could not breathe.
My shoulders – and décolletage – ended up in my ears. I felt very anxious. My low back was killing me – and I was a teenager!
As I took off the corset, my back felt even worse. My pelvis and lumbar spine ached for days after the show wrapped.
You can imagine the biomechanical horror my back was enduring. The more I was sucked in, the less my back was protected. The core stability I earned early in life through belly breathing was trashed within moments.
But I didn’t try to regain stability. I didn’t know better.
So, you can imagine the repeat horror of hearing a colleague tell me yesterday that her personal trainer colleagues were willingly wearing “ab trainers” (aka corsets) to minimize their waist size!
The obsession with small waists was important in many eras.
But robbing low back stability for a tiny waist is a dangerous trade.
It’s a new era.
One can create an appearance of a small waist through developed lats and glutes! But, it’s the “hard” way.
I’ll personally vow to each and every reader that you will absolutely suffer the consequences of wearing a corset.
Whether it’s an ab trainer or perpetually sucked-in gut, you will wreak havoc on abdominal stability.
This dysfunction will chase its way up and down your kinetic chain, stealing stability from your spine, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles, just for starters.
Some rules to follow:
1. Never hire a personal trainer more obsessed with a tiny waist than keeping your joints safe.
2. Never wear a corset. It messes with your airway. The airway will mess back.
3. Flip your script and develop more lats and glutes, giving the appearance of a smaller waist. This will help you actually GAIN low back stability!
4. Practice a 360 abdominal push-out for inhaling. This stabilizes the low back and makes way for core stability and a patent airway.
5. Limit chest raising on breathing. With a 360 ab push-out, the thorax won’t need to raise much. It will fill via vacuum as you increase pressure in the abdomen.
6. Watch a walking toddler. They are way more stable than you, and they breathe in 360. They never suck in.
Lose the corsets. Or, pay the price.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley