Benefits Of Low Pressure Fitness

June 14, 2020

If you’ve read my About page you already know that I’m an obsessive learner. I’m always curious about the latest trends in my field of expertise. And one of the most (relatively) recent – and interesting – trends is about low pressure fitness (hypopressive exercise). I say relatively recent because it’s not new, it’s something that got more and more attention in the last years and I’ll tell you why in a bit.

Before I start I want to mention the founders of this technique which are Piti Pinsach and Dr. Tamara Rial.

In a short and very simple way, Low Pressure Fitness is a training which integrates: posture, breathing and body conscience. One benefit that I would like to mention before all the others is that while it tones your abdominal and pelvic muscles, it also reduces pressure in the same areas (abdominal and pelvic cavities). It’s a “new” and different way of doing “abdominals”.

I attended my first course (Low Pressure Fitness Level 1) more than 2 years ago on 21 of April 2018. After that, I attended three more training courses (Level 2,3 and Wall Series). And I realized this is an amazing tool not just because it can improve your health, your body aesthetics and sport practice in general, but if you look deeper it can provide significant improvement of your quality of life.

When I was talking about POSTURE I was referring that we train the main muscle chains in our body. A muscle chain is the expression of neuromotor coordination based on an objective. It is a functional concept, not anatomical, concept that represents a set of muscles that are associated with a certain function or movement. They are located following direction continuity circuits and the anatomical planes of the body through which forces propagate.

When I was talking about BREATHING, LPF uses a similar technique borrowed from yoga called Uddiyana Bandha, where you perform an abdominal vacuum while opening your ribs. To perform the vacuum you begin by expanding your chest at the end of expiration while holding your breath and not breathing/inhaling any air. Is just like an inhalation only with no air.

When I was talking about BODY CONSCIENCE I was thinking about how aware we are about the movements and segments that make-up the human body. The most important thing is to really listen to your body. When you do that, something “magical” happens: you gain control over your body, and the perceptual sensitivity increases, allowing you to correct and improve performance / execute better and better.

All my professors made sure that we understand that it is mandatory to work both posture and breathing at the same time and that they are both equally important when it comes to having great results. So in a LPF training is very important to hold the posture, while breathing and also during an apnea/vacuum technique. From outside it looks like nothing, but believe me is very hard work and super beneficial for your health.

After I finished the courses I started to teach my own classes here in Palma, and here are just a few of the benefits both me and my students are enjoying:

Here are 3 of the main benefits of LPF:

Reduces intra-abdominal pressure
Increases activity of postural musculature
Normalizes myofascial tension

Another benefits that I will insist mentioning, because they are absolutely amazing for your health:

Muscle toning
Re-educate/Improve your posture
Prevents various hernias (abdominal, vaginal)
Prevents spine problems (which includes back pains)
Prevents/Diminishes myofascial restrictions
Diaphragmatic and abdominal release
Increases and regulates vascularization factors (blood & oxygen circulate better)
Re-train (or) learn a new way of breathing and at the same time regulate or even improve the breathing parametres
Diminishes your waist size (by toning the transverse abdominis; this muscle is like a natural corset)
Diminishes the abdominal diastasis
Greater core stability, and also prevention and rehabilitation in the lumbo-pelvic muscles
Coactivation of the abdominal muscles
Prevents/Reduces stress urinary incontinence
Great benefits have been noted practicing LPF not only postpartum, but also during pregnancy
Prevention of joint and muscle injuries (plus helps with your sport performance)
Pelvic and visceral decongestion
Improves Intestinal Transit
Last, but not least, like all physical exercise, provides well-being and pleasure