Bracing vs. Hollowing (and Why I’m Not a Fan of These Terms)

CORE SOLUTIONS: No More Back Pain & No More Leaks! TVA Clinic Bracing vs. Hollowing (and Why I’m Not a Fan of These Terms)

I want to address a question I'm frequently asked: what's the difference between bracing and hollowing?

To be completely honest, I'm not a fan of these 2 terms because they tend to be misinterpreted:

Bracing gets confused with bearing down.
Hollowing gets confused with sucking in the gut.

Bearing down means you increase the pressure inside your abdomen by contracting the abdominal muscles and holding the breath. This can happen when pushing out a baby or straining to push out a bowel movement (i.e. the Valsalva Maneuver). This causes undesirable downward pressure on your pelvic floor, and a lot of pressure in the abdominal cavity. It can lead to hernias and pelvic organ prolapse.

How do you know if you are bearing down?

- If you have urinary incontinence when you do heavy deadlifts, this is a red flag that you are bearing down.
- If you have a habit of holding your breath and making a "grimacing straining face" when you are doing strenuous activities/exercise or lifting heavy things, it's a red flag.
- If you are holding your breath and pushing your urine out and straining to push out a bowel movement.
- SELF-ASSESS: Sit down and place your fingers under your perineum. Then cough. If you feel pressure on your fingers when you cough, then you are bearing down.

Sucking in the Gut: This means you hold your breath and suck in your gut. You've probably done it when someone is taking your photo. Sucking in your stomach or "drawing your belly button to your spine" (another term I am not fond of) doesn't mean you are engaging your pelvic floor and TVA. If you suck in your gut without engaging the core, all this does is displace air up and down and it stops you from breathing. It destabilizes the spine and puts downward pressure on the pelvic floor.

What is Correct?

The key is to coordinate your pelvic floor and TVA engagement with your breath so that you won't bear down. This is especially important if you are dealing with a prolapse.

In a nutshell: exhale and engage your pelvic floor and TVA when performing the difficult part of an exercise or task. Let's break it down into steps:

When you exhale, your pelvic floor should move inward and upward for support (the opposite of what happens when you bear down). Here are my examples to help you with this visual:
1. 1. ♀: suck a blueberry up higher into your vaginal canal
  2. ♂: bring your "nuts towards your guts"
When you exhale, you should feel your TVA engage. You should feel the waist tightening and cinching in. Put your hands on your waist to feel this happen when you exhale.
Combine 1 & 2.

NEED HELP? TRY THIS: Take a deep breathe in through your nose, then take a long and gentle exhale through pursed lips, imagining you are blowing out 50 birthday candles on a cake. Most people don't fully exhale. Using this birthday candle visual can help you optimize your exhalations. Envision your lungs emptying the air out!

RE-ASSESS: try coughing now with your fingers under your perineum. Ideally, you should not feel any pressure on your fingers. The win is having the pelvic floor move upwards and the TVA engage and cinch inwards. If you don't feel this, don't panic. I have lots of exercises and drills in this program to help you with your exhalations and pelvic floor/TVA engagement.

⚠️ Don't constantly hold tension in your abdominal area or constantly clench the pelvic floor. Learn how to relax on the inhalation. So when you nasal inhale, let the pelvic floor move back down and let the lungs fill up with air (your rib cage will expand along with your waistline). Envision the blueberry moving back down the vaginal canal. Don't let your shoulders shrug up when you inhale.

Back to Bracing & Hollowing:

Both of these are just terms to describe different styles of TVA engagement when exercising or doing tasks. Both involve a contraction of the TVA.

Bracing means you are isometrically holding the contraction of the TVA, like what you do in a plank hold for 30s. Do not hold your breath or bear down! Continue to nasal breathe. The reason why I don't like the term bracing is that people instinctively want to hold their breath. That's why you will hear me say, "exhale and engage your pelvic floor and TVA" instead of "brace your core".

During an isometric hold: when you exhale, you will feel increased engagement of the pelvic floor and TVA, and when you nasal inhale, you will feel both release a little bit.

With bracing, the TVA cinches in a bit, like what you see in this plank photo. How much does it cinch in? About as much as it does when you cough. But the stronger the TVA gets, the more it will cinch in! That's why training your TVA shrinks your waistline!

Bracing examples: plank hold, set-point hold, sandbag carry, when you pick up something off the floor, when you cough, or if someone is about to punch you in the stomach.

Hollowing: occurs when you cinch in the TVA (a lot!).

This makes the waist appear very small. Note that the pelvic floor & TVA are still engaged: This is not just "sucking in your gut".
Technically, this is still bracing, except it's in quite a cinched position of the TVA.
You still breathe in and out through your nose (unless you are doing a stomach vacuum).

How:

It depends if you are doing a "casual hollow" vs. an "extreme hollow". If it's a casual hollow, you will still maintain nasal breathing. In an extreme hollow, you will be maintaining a breathless hold.

In handstands, I do a casual hollow. I nasal exhale and engage my pelvic floor ("the blueberry moves up my vaginal canal") and then I REALLY cinch in my TVA to create the hollow. The stronger your TVA is, the more you will be able to cinch it in. Then I maintain the hollow whilst nasal breathing (which is just bracing, but in a cinched position).

This is a learned skill and playing with the stomach vacuum exercises in this program will help you figure it out. The stomach vacuum part of this program will teach you how to do an "extreme hollow" with a breathless hold.

Is hollowing or stomach vacuuming necessary to learn? No. But it will better connect you to your entire core, it will further strengthen your TVA (and shrink your waistline), and it will help you with your mobility training. For me, hollowing facilitates proper stacking of the pelvic bowl and rib cage (this is helpful if you have rib flare and an anterior pelvic tilt). It's also an opportunity to strengthen the TVA in a deeper range.

Hollowing Examples:

You see me do this in handstands: It's not necessary to hollow in a handstand but it looks very aesthetic. Hollowing helps me stack my pelvic bowl and rib cage. It fixes rib flare and pelvic anterior tilting for me, creating a lovely stack in my handstand.
I also hollow when I compress. For me, it facilitates compression and mobility. You can try hollowing during a forward fold, an L-sit prep or hip flexor raises and feel the difference.
The most dramatic example of hollowing is the stomach vacuum.

Which is More Effective?

Both bracing and hollowing have their indications. Both stabilize the lumbar spine if done correctly (i.e. with pelvic floor and TVA engagement). Again, I'm not a fan of these terms because they are mistaken with bearing down, sucking in the stomach, and breath holding. Instead, You will usually hear me say, "exhale and engage your TVA" or "feel the TVA cinching in". They key is to make sure the pelvic floor is engaged (moving inwards and upwards). After all, pelvic floor engagement drives TVA engagement!

Bracing is simpler to learn. Hollowing is more challenging to learn. What's the most important thing to learn? → How to engage your pelvic floor and TVA when you exhale, and that you don't cut your exhalations short. After you finish exercising, take some time to fully nasal inhale and relax the TVA and pelvic floor.

I already know your next question. What if you are doing HEAVY LIFTING (such as in powerlifting)?

Nasal inhale (without rib flaring) and feel your core expand. Engage your pelvic floor and core (like you are about to be punched in the gut). Maintain this bracing and maintain the breath hold during the entire rep. You can exhale near the top or at the top of the rep. This is how you brace when you deadlift, squat or lift anything heavy. Do not bear down and maintain proper stacking of your pelvic bowl and rib cage. If you are doing multiple reps (i.e. 2-6 reps), use this strategy and re-take the breath for each rep.
For "less heavy weights", you can nasal exhale during the hardest part of the movement. Typically, you nasal exhale during concentric contraction and nasal inhale during the eccentric contraction.
For most exercises and activities of daily living, you will "brace". Don't hold your breath!
If you are working on mobility or compression drills, I suggest you play around with hollowing (whilst maintaining TVA & pelvic floor engagement!). I find that hollowing really improves my mobility and that I have much better compression when I hollow. Hollowing also helps me stack my pelvic bowl and rib cage. It fixes rib flare for me and promotes an ideal hollow body position for me.

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