Engage Your Core – “Lean In”

Have you heard this phrase “Lean In”? This was recently popularized by a woman I admire, Sheryl Sandberg, who is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, and as of 2014, was the 10th most powerful woman in business in the world. She started a movement with her book of a similar title. Let me tell you, this woman knows how to “Lean In”. The philosophy is basically when confronted with challenges, the solution is to lean into them. If it pushes, you can push back, rather than be pushed out of the way.  So how can we apply this today to your Core?

Easy. Muscles in our body, even when toned, are not necessarily “engaged”. You can build ’em at a gym, and then they could go right back to sleep. My application of the concept of “Lean In” to engaging your core works like this: when life pushes on us, we tend to physically lean back; we can instead lean in. Test this now, and see if something flying off the screen at you makes you lean back. Leaning back essentially lets your abdominal Core “stretch out” and sag. A woman like Sheryl Sandberg is going to lean in, and engage her core abdominals, and face that screen. Crunch in. Double down. Engaging the core muscles (in addition to your psychology) are what enable you to “lean in”.

Very often when I coach Vitality Exercises like medium-low-impact Jumping Jacks, I see people leaning back automatically, as though they might fall forward. This is not the way a Marine is going to do their Jumping Jacks, for example – they are going to engage their core, and Lean In to those Jumping Jacks. They are ready to move forward. Try it, fire the abdominal muscles when you rise up, each and every time. Lean in.

This strategy, “Engaging your Core”, in Body Mechanics and in life, can add awesome benefit for you. Let’s go over this engaged strategy and “Lean In” at your next appointment. Schedule today!