Lose Weight with Hypopressive Abdominal Exercises
Hypopressive abdominal exercises do more than just improve your body shape, they can also help to fix a bad posture and all the issues that come with it. Don’t hesitate to try these exercises if you want to lose weight and feel better and more satisfied with yourself.
As time goes by, some of our muscles stretch out while others contract. Inadequate body postures can really affect our bodies, causing different types of discomforts. Hypopressive abdominal exercises are meant to correct those posture issues while helping you achieve a more slender figure.
Health and beauty
It’s a physiotherapy technique that combines physiology and biomechanics to improve your body posture. Hypopressive abdominal exercises are breathing and stretching exercises that decrease the pressure on your abdomen and thorax while relaxing your diaphragm.
On a neurological level, these routines produce a set of various reactions. Among those reactions, we can find a reflex contraction of the abdominal muscles and the perineum.
Hypopressive abdominal gymnastics and their fitness version -called Reprocessing Soft Fitness- help to control anxiety and stress effectively. At the same time, they prevent and relieve back and pelvis pain and promote good circulation, sports performance, and sexual relations.
All of that work combined can also prevent hernias, urinary incontinence and organ displacements such as prolapses. It also stimulates the digestive system and increases sleep quality.
When talking about aesthetics, these exercises offer the possibility of working your abs without affecting your pelvic floor muscles. They also help to take inches off of your waist. Meanwhile, they also strengthen and tone your muscles, giving your body a healthy appearance.
Just as with any other training process, persistence is essential. It’s a good idea to have a professional trainer guiding us through this new and effective technique at the beginning.
What are hypopressive abdominal exercises?
They key to this process is doing stretching and breathing exercises for 20 to 35 minutes. During the first three trial months, it’s recommended to rest three days between each session. After this period, you can start to do daily routines.
The first recommended exercise is elongating or stretching your back as if you were trying to appear taller. The double chin consists of bringing your chin towards your throat; you should feel a stretch in your spine.
The next step is performing deep inhalations. You must keep the air you inhale in your lungs for 10 to 15 seconds. Then, slowly exhale until your lungs are completely empty. Do three slow inhalations before repeating the exercise.
Another exercise for people who are getting started with this technique is controlling their abdomen. You do this by simulating a deep breath, but no air should enter your lungs. There’s no need to force yourself to tuck in your abs, that’s something that will happen on its own.
A good way to know if you’re doing the exercises correctly is checking if your diaphragm is in towards your rib cage:
- If you feel a voluntary contraction, you’re doing it right.
- If your collar bones begin to show, the procedure is correct.
- However, if your collar bones are relaxed, you’re not doing it correctly.
Lose weight with hypopressive abdominal exercises
Another hypopressive abdominal exercise consists of expelling all the air out of your lungs, tightening your abs and holding this position for 20 seconds. Compliment this by inhaling as much air as you can and then going back to your normal breathing. Once you’re done with this, repeat the process. Ideally, you should do each exercise for 5 to 10 minutes.
If you want to achieve a flat stomach, this is another exercise that can help. Stretch your legs in parallel, with an 8-inch space between your feet. Bend your knees and put your hands on top of them. Your elbows should be bent as well, while you bring your chin towards your throat and lean all your weight on the tips of your toes.
The next step is to inhale and exhale repeatedly to open up your ribs. Keep the air inside your lungs for 10 seconds between each inhalation and exhalation. Repeat this exercise three more times.
The forearms and tiptoes
On the other hand, a great exercise for your back, legs, abs, and glutes consists of laying down, using your forearms and tiptoes to support your body weight. Your elbows should be directly below your shoulders to ensure your back is relaxed.
Keep your body straight, parallel to the floor, with your abs stretched. Hold this position for 5 minutes while you take deep breaths.
Lastly, deep breaths make a comeback with 10-second intervals between inhalations and exhalations. The difference is that we will do the sitting down this time, with our legs crossed, back straight and arms on our hips. Repeat this cycle three times.
Hypopressive abdominal exercises are undoubtedly positive exercises for your health in general, they go beyond the weight loss you may be looking to achieve. However, you should always keep your form under control to ensure you’re performing them correctly.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Caufriez, M., Fernández, J. C., Guignel, G., & Heimann, A. (2007). Comparación de las variaciones de presión abdominal en medio acuático y aéreo durante la realización de cuatro ejercicios abdominales hipopresivos. Revista Iberoamericana de Fisioterapia y Kinesiología, 10(1), 12–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1138-6045(07)73661-4
- Flores, G., & Ucl, V. (2018). Ejercicios hipopresivos: prescripción, técnicas y efectividad. Revista Clínica de La Escuela de Medicina UCR-HSJD.