Belly Button!

I've read that if you hold your navel in for long periods of time eventually your muscles will tone up and hold that way.

Is this true? Anyone tried it? I'm trying it, to get rid of the slight buldge in my belly, because I'm not allowed to exercise much (I'm meant to be gaining weight, see, and I have that yukky bloated belly thing going on.)

Sucking in your stomach becomes second nature after you do it long enough, but I don't know if it really strengthens your muscles.

Try sucking in, do you still see the bulge? If not, then suck in! It also helps with your posture, too.

Somehow I learned to suck in when I was very little from my mom, and I have always sucked in. I remember when I was pregnant and my stomach started hurting because I was still sucking in! I had to consciously relax my stomach muscles....so, if you do it long enough you won't even think about doing it anymore.

Thanks for the advice, kelleigh - I've been sucking it in  a few times a day when I remember to! So hopefully I'll get into the habit quite quickly.

Thanks again!

xx

Sucking in your stomach will make your muscles toner. That is why when you lift free weights they tell you to "squeeze" the muscle. I think I held my stomach in through six years of JR High and then High school.

yes when i was young i learned to do this as well.. (i was  bit obsessive compulsive).. and by the time I was 13 I had really defined abs even though I didn't do anything special to work-out.

i've sicne then lost that but i still have STRONG abs... soon enough i'll be able to see them again :)

Hi demure, "sucking in your stomach or belly button as you said can tone up your abs, but not if you are actually holding your breath."  I  am recovering from a fusion back surgery at L5-S1 and the first thing they teach you in phys. rehab is abdominal bracing, that is what you are refering to when you say sucking in your stomach.  In abdominal bracing you are strengthening your core muscles, the inner abs.  It will help to tone if you do it long enough and it does become second nature. It really hurt at first ( since I had just had surgery) but over time it has become second nature and I do it all them time. I had a really large stomach from being really obese.  My stomach is still large, but probably half the size it used to be.  You do concentrate on the belly button are and pull in with your muscles, making sure to breathe ( so that you know youare doing it right with muscles and not your breathe.  If you do the abdominal bracing it helps protect your back from damage, or if already damaged, further damage.  Everyone should do it as it is really beneficial.  hope that this helps.  I have lost from 280 down to 225 in about 6 months, about10 sizes, I am in a 20-22 now. I hope to get to a size 16......... good look on whatever your goal is............lonestarpenny 

Sucking in the ab muscles (at least during exercise) to make them stronger is pretty much a myth and has been disproved from  a biomechanics standpoint, there is a good explanation in The New Rules of Lifting but basically, sucking your stomach in makes the muscles work less hard and will cause them to weaken.