What is your experience when you engage the crura of your thoracic diaphragm to support your core, rather than just engaging your muscles?
There’s so much buzz around core support, mostly speaking about building muscle strength. Bonnie shows us another way to find what many are looking for simply by engaging and embodying the crura of the thoracic diaphragm.
COMMUNITY QUESTION
I’ve been investigating this very thing for a while, but still find it quite difficult to feel the crura. Any tips?
BONNIE
Important question! The best way I know to become aware of any structure is to have someone who already knows it help you personally. On your own, the best way I’ve found is to breathe, sound, and explore movement from the space/location of the specific structure.
When we don’t have immediate results, it requires pausing, breathing, and beginning again with less effort. Focus on receiving information from the structures into the openness of your back brain, instead of directing the movement from your front brain.
Here is a further verbal clue for exploring your crura for discovering support on the front of your spine through awareness and embodiment of the crura, the longitudinal fibers of the thoracic diaphragm:
When embodied, they travel along the front of the vertebral column from T12 to the tip of the tail (coccyx). At the tip of the tail, the fibers weave together with fibers of the pelvic diaphragm that attach to the front of the coccyx.
In the front of the pelvic diaphragm, fibers attach to the pubic arch and alo continue as the rectus abdominis muscle (and other abdominal muscles and fascia) to the xiphoid process of the sternum, lower ribs, and front of the thoracic diaphragm.