CHANGE #12

Covertly Work Your Core Throughout the Day

SIMPLY PUT… Imagine how you’d react if someone were about to punch you in the stomach. You’d tighten that midsection and brace yourself for the blow. Do you see how you squeezed your stomach muscles but didn’t suck in your gut? That’s what I want you to do all the time.

For me, the core is the key to everything.

Building core strength—in other words, having strong abdominal, lower back, and oblique muscles (the ones you hide underneath your love handles)—is key if your goal is getting and staying strong, balanced, and healthy.

Will training these muscles lead to a flatter, leaner midsection? The short answer is yes, but core work doesn’t mean sit-ups and crunches. Your core—the major muscles that move, support, and stabilize your spine—affect your strength, endurance, flexibility, motor control, and function. You’d need a lot more than crunches to tackle all that. So to fully work your core, you need to broaden your abdominal horizons.

Your core is your center of gravity, and when it’s conditioned, it’s what keeps your body in perfect alignment. That means less back pain, better balance and posture, and a major improvement in practically any task you can think of. To put it another way, a strong core can lead to a strong everything else.

So let’s get back to the anticipated punch in the gut. By bracing your stomach as if you were going to absorb the blow, you work your core from the inside out. Keeping it contracted all the time can help tighten your midsection—without ever having to step foot in a gym. But it’s not that easy.

In the beginning, you’ll have to consciously think about it—otherwise you’ll forget and let your stomach out. When I first tried this, I considered it a success if I kept my core tight for five straight minutes. After a month, I had worked up to an hour straight. I was constantly reminding myself: Tight core. Tight core. Tight core. At the gym. In the shower. On TV. Keep it tight. Keep it tight!

Today, I no longer think about it. It now takes a conscious effort for me to completely let my stomach out. Both times I was pregnant, I found that subconsciously I was holding my core in. When someone took a picture of me pregnant, I had to remind myself to let my stomach out to show off what my belly looked like.

One time, Bill Murray visited the set to promote a movie he was doing. Somewhere between my attempts to impress him with how many lines I remember from Caddyshack (like three… so pathetic), we decided to take a belly-to-belly picture to compare physiques. His golf body and my pregnant body. I’ll never forget purposely letting my stomach out to look more pregnant for the picture.

I’m fully expecting that when my children get older, they’ll both ask me, “OK, what in the hell was that for the first nine months?”

DON’T STOP THERE…

First things first: It’s not about sucking your stomach in and holding your breath for fourteen hours. It’s about doing what comes naturally to you. If I were to punch you in the gut, you wouldn’t just stand there and suck your stomach in. (You’d be the easiest target ever.) No, you would automatically contract all of your core muscles without thinking about it. And that’s what I’m asking you to do all day (and eventually all night) long.

Don’t overdo it—there’s no need to. You still need to function and perform your regular everyday activities, right? All I’m asking you to do is make a muscle, and you’ll find a happy medium between that and what you’re comfortable walking around doing.

Once you get the hang of doing it, it’s about reminding yourself to do it. When I first started out, I had to remind myself every thirty seconds to tighten my core, which quickly turned into every few minutes, then every hour. But within a couple of months, I was doing it all the time without any thought at all.

Eventually, you’ll get to that same point. Right now, your stomach may be hanging out and it’s a chore to even think about holding it in. But I promise you: Before you finish the thirty Changes, it’ll become so second nature to you that the only effort will be inflating it when you want to pretend you’re eating for two.

Tips and Tricks

It’s your core muscles that decide how powerful and pain-free the rest of your body is, and working them all day long in little ways can add up to a big payoff. Here are some techniques to activate them instantly in a few subtle ways.

Make like a flamingo. Anytime you’re standing around in one place, bend one knee slightly and lift your foot at least an inch off the ground (either behind or in front of you) so you’re balancing on one leg. Start with thirty seconds on each foot and then increase that to a minute—you’ll be engaging your core the entire time. It doesn’t matter whether you’re pouring a cup of coffee, brushing your teeth, waiting in line to buy another copy of this book for a friend, or standing in an elevator—try it wherever it’s safe, feasible, and sometimes inconspicuous.

I say sometimes because I used to do it while I was on the air at the Today show all the time. Standing on the plaza in the dead of winter, I would lift one foot up and contract all my muscles to stay warm. There I was, dressed up for TV—hair, makeup, and fancy dress—balancing on one six-inch heel on live television. Did I risk kissing the pavement? Every time! But did I get some much needed core work in despite that risk? Absolutely.

Lift and lean. If you find yourself sitting on something stable without a backrest, allowing you to lean (like a bleacher seat or bench, for example), try this: Shimmy your butt to the edge, straighten your legs, raise your feet off the floor, then lean back (keeping your back straight) so that you’re balancing your body like a seesaw. Hold for as long as you can, rest, and repeat.

Plank while you lounge. The next time you’re lying belly down on the floor (playing a board game with your kids, reading this book, surfing on your tablet, and so forth), use that time to plank. Get yourself in a classic push-up position—legs extended straight behind you, feet wider than shoulder-width apart—then rest on your forearms so that your arms are at 90-degree angles. Your body should form a straight line from your head to your heels. Don’t let your midsection sag down or pop up. See here to learn how. Once in plank, hold that pose for as long as possible—the longer you lounge, the better you’ll be for it.

Engage behind the engine. Whenever you’re stuck riding in a car for a long time, put your hands flat on the roof, then gently press up with your arms as you tighten your midsection. Try it for ten to twenty seconds when you hit a light or are stuck in traffic.

Get a leg up when your butt’s down. If you’re seated in a sturdy chair (at work, at home, in a restaurant, even at the movies), sit up as straight as possible, tighten your core, then raise one foot six inches off the floor. Hold that pose for as long as you comfortably can, repeat it with the opposite leg, then alternate back and forth.

If you want a tougher challenge, try lifting both feet off the floor at the same time while maintaining perfect posture. I once did this for the entire length of a feature film (not the previews) at the movie theater and spent the next day not only boring my friends to death with every detail of the experiment but with a sore core as well.

The “So You Know” Science

If you’re “core-curious,” the primary muscles that make up your core aren’t just your abs, love handles, and lower back. Yes, your abs (officially known as your rectus abdominis muscle) are responsible for bending your torso forward, your lower back (or erector spinae) raises your torso and lets you bend your torso backward, and your internal and external obliques, the muscles along your sides that help you rotate your torso and bend it from side to side. But the other players that never get any credit include your transverse abdominis (a thin band of muscle that runs across your midsection that compresses your abdomen and draws your belly button toward your spine), and your lumbar multifidi (the tiny muscles that connect your vertebrae to one another and hold your spine stable during movement).