In this video, I’m going to show you some TVA exercises for a flat stomach that will help tighten things up in the midsection.
Hi, it’s Ivana. Welcome to my channel.
I’m a certified strength and conditioning specialist and Online Coach.
I’ve got some practical TVA exercises that will help you get a flat stomach.
If you’re not sure how to correctly activate the TVA, please check out my video: TVA activation exercises.
So I’m going to go through some of the most effective TVA exercises.
At the end I’ll share what most people don’t tell you about flattening your stomach.
Seated Stomach Pull
So the first TVA exercises for a flat stomach is the seated stomach pull.
You’re going to be trying to cross your legs here just so you’re in a stable position, and what’s going to happen is that first you’re going to breathe in and expand your belly out and then you’re going to breathe out and pull those stomach muscles in as far as you can towards your spine.
From there, you’re actually going to breathe out short and sharp and then trying to do 20 to 30 exhale. Short and sharp exhales when you’re already at that, the furthest part in. So I’m going to demonstrate this.
Obviously I’m not going to talk through it. I’m going to try to do about those 20 so here we go.
Then you breathe in and relax. That was 20. I want you to aim for two sets of 20 to 30 reps. So basically 20 to 30 exhales like I just did there. Try to keep your posture nice and upright and then get the stomach in. Get the TVA pulled in as close as you can towards your spine. Really tighten up that core. Once you’re done and try to just relax the belly again and then you’re going to do the second set.
Knee Hovers
The next TVA exercise is knee hovers.
For this one you’re going to be on your hands and knees. Just bring your hands straight down from your shoulders, knees, hip width apart, and you’re going to tuck your toes underneath. Now before you begin this, the first thing you want to do is activate your TVA by pulling in your stomach muscles towards your spine. So the same kind of activation we did in the previous exercise. Just pull in tight and then you’re going to come up with your knees and hold for five seconds. Tighten everything up,
and then relax. So you don’t actually want to bring your knees up too high. If you bring your knees up higher, it makes it easier to do this exercise. So just a couple of inches off the floor and then lift up again.
come back down. So remember to keep your neck in neutral as well. Don’t squeeze your head down or anything like that. So it’s really important to maintain control. With this one, I want you to do 10 sets of five second holds. The next exercise is also in what we call the quadruped position. So this is head squeezes. So this is your quadruplet physician. You’re going to maintain an arch in your lower back rather than rounding your back. You’re going to keep it in the slightly arch position. And now you’re going to pull your TVA up towards your spine, breathing out as you do that
and then relax. So you probably didn’t see anything happening there. It’s just a very small movement. As I’m pulling my stomach in, my ads are just coming in as tight in this exercise. And then relax. So for this one, I want you to try to do 10 sets of ten second holds.
Leg Lowering
The last of the TVA exercises for a flat stomach I’m going to show you is leg lowering.
You’re going to do this one on your back in the supine position, knees bent. You’re going to maintain an arch in your lower back like we did before. And the first thing you’re going to do is also breathe in, expand the belly, and then breathe out, tightening up the TVA.
So that happens first. You want to maintain that contraction whenever your leg is moving. So first we’re going to move one leg slowly and slowly down. Now you might want to relax in between.
Eventually when you get the good at this, you can maintain the contraction throughout, even in between the different reps. So I’m going to do another one here, tightening up first. Maintaining that TVA contraction as I do the movement.
When this becomes too easy for you, you can try this with straight legs, both legs up in the air and you want to also maintain that arch in the lower back but you’re going to squeeze first again, squeeze and hold and then slowly down and slowly up as well as I’ll try it with the other leg. So squeeze first, maintain that TVA contraction and then back up. So both movements are pretty slow. I want you to try two sets of 10 reps, so five each leg.
What Most People Don’t Tell You About Flattening Your Stomach
And now what most people don’t tell you about flattening your stomach.
There were three things that affect how flat your stomach actually is.
One is exercises like the ones that I’ve just shown you to train your TVA to contract and pull things in just so you don’t have those muscles loose and kind of bulging out.
The next one is your belly fat.
A lot of people joke that they have a six pack under all their stomach flab and that can definitely be true. If you’ve got a lot of fat around your stomach, you’re going to cover up your abs and I’ve actually got a video about how to lose belly fat, so check that one out as well.
And then the third thing that can prevent a flat stomach is digestive bloating, your stomach and your intestines underneath all those muscles so they can help make them kind of push things out as well.
This happens to me quite a lot because I have IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, so my stomach can look very different depending on how my digestive system is doing.
I’ve also got a video about reducing stomach bloating.
It covers the digestive side of things so you can have all three areas covered.
Let me know in the comments, what’s keeping you from having a flat stomach?
So at least you’ve got the TVA exercises covered. I’m going to be doing a little bit of an abs series here so you don’t want to miss out on that.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time.
