To begin the exercise, simply press your back lightly into the towel. Do this by tilting your hips under you like you did in the demo at the beginning of this tutorial. Tilting your hips under you this way will move your hip bones up towards your rib cage, flattening out your back.

Once you’ve established a bit of pressure on the towel, pull in your belly button and hold it tight (see our Core Training tutorial for more on why you’re doing this). Then, lift your feet a little bit off the ground, trying to maintain pressure into the towel.

You’ll probably find it challenging to maintain pressure on the towel. The weight of your legs will pull on your hips, causing your back to arch. Your lower abs will have to resist this pull to hold your back flat against the towel. When first getting started with this exercise, keep your feet and knees close to your body, as illustrated in the above picture.  As you move your feet farther away, this exercise gets a lot more difficult. Try to hold your feet in the air for 45 seconds to one minute, being sure that your lower back stays flush against the towel. This will be tough at first. If you have to put your feet down for a second or two to rest, do so, then just start again. Rest as many times as you have to but keep trying to hold your feet off of the floor for at least 45 seconds total. Repeat this exercise two or three times, leaving a one minute rest interval between each set. Feel free to do some stretching while you’re resting.

You should feel this exercise first in the lower, central portion of your abdominal region.  You may also feel it in your upper thighs.  You will probably also find that your upper back and neck want to extend, lifting your chin away from your chest.  You should try to resist this, holding your head flat and your chin down. While holding your chin down, try to keep your tongue at the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth.  Your tongue has to be in this position for all of your neck muscles to work properly (strange but true).  Otherwise, the neck muscles that hold your chin down will fatigue, and the muscles on the back of your neck will tighten up.  If you’re curious whether your tongue is in the right spot, just swallow. It’ll go there naturally. As your strength improves, and this exercise gets easier,  move your feet further and further from your body to increase the challenge.  

Hip Stretching

In addition to strengthening the lower abs, most people need to stretch the muscles of the hip to get the hips and pelvis in proper alignment. See the Stretching Tutorial for a guide.

Hamstring Stretching

Hamstring Stretching doesn’t have much effect on hip alignment directly, but it’s important to keep the hamstrings flexible while working on hip alignment to prevent back pain and injury. Our Stretching Tutorial covers hamstring stretching in detail.

Glute Stretching and Training

The glutes have a major effect on the alignment of the hip, knee, and even the arch of the foot. Some parts of the glutes are actually too tight on most people, while other parts are almost universally too long and weak. As a result, it’s important to both stretch the glutes and target them with resistance training. The major muscle of the glutes, the glut maximus, is long and loose on most people's bodies. As a result, the muscles of the thigh (quadriceps) have to do all of the work intended for the glutes. Because the quadriceps cross the knee, running, squatting down, or even walking up stairs while using primarily the quadriceps, rather than the glutes, means that the force of impact with the ground is transferred into the knee. The knee is a relatively small joint and isn’t meant to bear load. Over time, running, jogging, and even walking while overusing the quads due to turned-off glutes results in deterioration of the connective tissue in the knee and progressive cycles of inflammation and pain.

 Even if you don’t have knee problems, overactive quads and underactive glutes alter the tensions around your hips and spine. This can lead to back, buttocks, and hip pain. In addition, weak glutes really compromise the strength of your legs. Finally, weak glutes (believe it or not) frequently allow your legs to rotate inwards collapsing the arch of your foot. A proper foot arch helps to absorb shock while running and walking, protecting ankle and knee health. Training the glutes properly can actually fix many cases of flat feet, restoring the arch of the foot. The mechanics of this are a bit complicated, but if you have flat feet try this exercise for a few months. There’s a good chance you’ll notice your arches improving.

To train the glutes to improve hip and knee alignment (and help build firm, toned muscles), perform the Hip Loader exercise detailed below two or three times per week:

Hip Loader

Position 1	Position 2

The hip loader is designed to force your glutes to hold your body up, placing the load of your body weight into your hip (which the glutes attach to and, therefore, support) rather than your knee. On a cautionary note, this exercise may begin to tighten all of the muscles of your buttocks.  A few of the smaller muscles in your buttocks may already be tight, and, as a side effect, this exercise may tighten them further, creating tension in the buttocks and lower back.  This is easily remedied with the “Glute Stretch” covered in the Stretching Tutorial. This stretch frequently helps lessen back pain.

To perform the Hip Loader, first place one foot forward and take all of the weight off of your back foot by placing only the tip of your big toe on the floor (Position 1). Try to put all of your weight into the heel of your front foot, de-weighting the back foot completely.  Your goal is to have the big toe of your back foot resting lightly on the ground in a ballet-like position with all of your weight to the front.  You probably won’t be able to completely de-weight your back foot at first, so just do the best you can. 

Keeping your weight in the heel of the front foot, move your front knee back until it is behind the tongue of your shoe, and sink down a bit. Once your front knee is directly over your ankle, you won’t be able to use your thighs to hold yourself up, and you will have to use your glutes (Position 2).  Sink down holding your body weight in your front leg. Again, try to keep all of your weight in the heel of the front foot. Hold this position for 45 seconds to one minute.  As you progress, you can begin to do baby one leg squats from this position, sinking down a bit, then rising up, all the while pressing through the heel.

You’ll probably find that your balance gets worse as your front knee moves further back. This is because as your knee moves back, you are shifting your body weight out of your quads and into your glutes. Most people’s bodies are inexperienced at supporting their own weight using the glutes. If you do have trouble balancing in this position, you need to re-program your nervous system to do this task. This instability you experience is evidence that your glutes are in serious need of training. It should start to fade within a few weeks.

Lat and Oblique Stretching

The lats (the big, broad muscles on the side of the back) and the obliques (the muscles on the side of your torso) are major muscle groups that attach to the hips. Both have a powerful effect on hip posture. Almost everyone has tight lats and tight obliques. Our Active Back and Side Stretch available in the Stretching Tutorial works wonders for both

Shoulder and Upper Spine Alignment

Chest Stretching

Tight pecs cause your shoulders to pull forward and rotate inwards. This creates a slumped upper body posture, as the spine follows the shoulders, curving too far forward. The active pec stretch in the Stretching Tutorial should help you improve your pec flexibility.

Rhomboid, Middle Trapezius and Rear Delt Training

As discussed in the intro to this tutorial, most peoples rhomboids, middle trapezius, and rear delts are long and loose, allowing the shoulders to drift forward and the upper spine to curve. Training these muscles is critical to improving upper body posture. The two exercises below pay huge dividends.