Hypopressive gymnastics is a discipline that has become very fashionable in recent years. This fame is due to the great benefits it can bring to our body.
The precursors of this discipline are the elite sportsmen and women, who, thanks to the strengthening of their abdominals with these exercises, have seen their performance increase in their respective sports.
But this is not the only reason why doctors, personal trainers and physiotherapists strongly recommend these exercises. In the following, we will discover which are the main advantages that will help us in our daily life and sport.
But first, we must know what exactly is hypopressive gymnastics.
What are hypopressive exercises?
Hypopressive exercises were created in the 80’s, but it is in the last years when their knowledge started to grow exponentially.
They consist of creating a hypopressure inside the abdomen through certain techniques, postures and movements. We achieve this hypopressure by contracting the diaphragm when we breathe out, in other words, by performing an apnea.
This will create a suction effect on the viscera. As a result, we obtain a toning of the pelvic floor and the abdominal girdle. This way of toning the muscles is low impact. This low impact cannot be found in traditional abdominal exercises that end up overloading this part of the body.
To do the exercises we must perform a series of movements and postures.
Starting with an apnea, which consists of letting all the air out of the abdomen. At the same time, we will put the abdomen in and we will maintain the position for a few seconds. But don’t worry, the hypopressure teacher will teach you how to do each step correctly.
In case you were wondering, hypopressive gymnastics can be practiced by everyone, whether you are in shape or not.
In short, it is very easy. Causes a low impact and has multiple benefits. What more could you ask for?
Now that we know what this sport is, let’s take a closer look at the benefits it brings.
Benefits of hypopressive gymnastics:
- We increase abdominal muscle tone: these are ideal exercises for strengthening the abdomen and having a flat stomach. Moreover, it is achieved quite quickly, in a few weeks.
- We avoid urinary incontinence: it is one of the consequences of strengthening the abdominal muscles. We will achieve greater urinary control, avoiding urine leakage and other problems such as urinary infections.
- We improve the pelvic floor: which improves our sex life. This happens because of the increased blood supply to the sexual organs which leads to increased sensitivity. Although the change is more noticeable in women, men can also benefit from it.
- It helps to recover after childbirth: Facilitate the placement of the organs and the recovery of muscle tone and pelvic floor. The latter being of vital importance. Through these exercises we will manage to maintain the functions of the pelvic floor as before birth.
- It allows us to reprogram the body: it is normal that with the passage of time and lifestyle our body changes. Weight gain, injury or even urinary incontinence can cause our muscles to be unable to support our organs properly. As you can imagine, this can cause health problems. To reverse the situation and allow the muscles to return to an optimal situation, we must perform low-pressure exercises, in order to increase the muscle tone of the abdominal binder.
- We improve in other sports: as we said at the beginning of this post, the hypopressives help us in other disciplines because we increase our diaphragmatic capacity, we have more control over our body, more abdominal tone, etc.
We improve our posture: through the different postures, the control of movements and the strengthening of the spine area, we will not only get a better posture. We will also reduce back pain.