I find there is A LOT of noise in the world about core strength/stability and activation when it comes to everything from movement to singing. These are my thoughts, and I’ve tried to keep it simple as there is no one-size fits all solution. I am always looking to create dynamic bodies that have options to respond to the demands placed on them. That means your body and voice can respond appropriately to whatever type of singing or movement you are doing.

First we have to consider the concept of core stability: When we have good core stability, we have a balance of strong muscles that live in close to the midline of the body combined with freedom of movement in the joints of the hips, shoulders, vertebrae as well as the knee, ankle, elbow and wrist. Put another way, our axial skeleton (skull, spine and ribs) relates well to our appendicular skeleton (shoulder blades, arms, pelvis and leg bones).

When we have a dynamic sense of coordination and ease of movement in the core we are employing versatility, agility, stability and awareness to get there.

So, what are we doing when we don’t have those elements?

When we lack those elements our bodies adapt and find a way for us to do the task no matter what. As I’ve mentioned before, those compensations work until the they don’t – and when we are trying to accomplish a task at a high level, compensations can be more problematic.



There are three primary ways I see bodies compensate and they all relate to breathing and core function. These are all strategies to help manage pressure in the torso.

B1: Bracing, is the most common one I see. I think of this as an anticipatory action. When we anticipate something (an extreme example is being punched in the stomach, but another would be the notes on the page we are about to sing), our body will override it’s natural responsiveness and grip to try and help us survive the task.



Bracing looks like

• Holding the stomach in.
• A set of the lower ribcage at the onset of sound, or movement.
• Rigidity in the abdomen while singing.

Bracing can be related to

• breath holding
• Clenching in other parts of the body – glutes, pelvic floor, jaw.
• Exceeding the capacity that our body has for a particular movement or phrase

Bracing can be an unconscious habit brought on by stress. We can also brace as a result of mis-guided cuing in movement classes – or our own bodies misinterpretation of a cue.



Bracing is something we need to do when we are engaging in a high load activity – like lifting a really, really heavy weight. It’s a less useful strategy when we are walking up the stairs or singing.

B2: Bearing Down Your core is like a tube of toothpaste. When we squeeze a tube of toothpaste we want the toothpaste to come out the opening, not push down to the bottom of the tube. When we engage muscles in the core we want there to be an in and up motion of everything from the pelvic floor north. And we want that to be a responsive motion, meaning it is happening in response to inputs, not something we are consciously generating.

If you are engaging the abdomen and actively pushing down, you’ve got load headed in the wrong direction. This can create a drag down effect on the larynx and open up a whole host of problems for the pelvic floor and torso from prolapse to hernias.

It isn’t easy to see bearing down, so you might need to ask someone:

• Do they feel any downward motion when they are moving or singing?
• Do they have pelvic floor prolapse of any kind.
• Do they have hernias of any kind.

Please note, there is nuance to this: muscles can engage in a variety of ways:

• concentric contraction (working while shortening)
• eccentric engagement (working while lengthening)
• isometric engagement (length remains constant while working.

It is also possible that we think we feel something happening one way, but our body is actually doing something else.

I have worked with more than one singer who was suffering from prolapse and it was a lightbulb moment for them to connect that downward motion with why their prolapse felt worse after rehearsals.

NB: Here’s a helpful little hint: we don’t really want to be pushing down hard to get poop out either. So, if that’s you sitting there for 20 minutes and you’re not there because you are escaping your children for 20 minutes, you might need to rethink your poop strategy.

B3: Bulging I define bulging as an abdomen that moves outward when we are moving or singing and/or excessive outward motion of the belly when we inhale. This is very common in bodies that have a diastasis recti (this is a widening and thinning of the linea alba that connects the two halves of the rectus abdominus and it can happen in any body).

The abdomen does have some outward motion when we breathe in – as the diaphragm descends it pushes on the contents of our abdomen and they will move forward in response. Bulging is not this motion. It is an extension of this motion. It is that tube of toothpaste not moving up or down, but moving out. And it is a moving out that increases when we move or sing.

Ironically, when someone has a habit of bracing, the larger volume breath they take in to sing (primarily in a classical singer), will result in a bulge in the belly that goes beyond what you would expect to see.



B4: Blocking This is the one B that considers the back of the torso. When we breathe in we’d like the ribcage to move in 3 directions and one of those directions is front to back. Most of us lack movement over at least one plane and one of the most common places we see that is in the lower back ribcage. When we don’t expand well here, we can create a pressure management issue – this can contribute to bulging and also keep us from managing the exit of our airflow on phonation.


We can see blocking happening in bodies that have a habit of living in an extension pattern – meaning they tend towards a swayback position and the lower front ribs can look like a bell rung forward. That positioning means the lower back ribcage don’t tend to move well.

If you read about these patterns and think you see yourself in one (or more?!) of them, I hope you will join us in the Singer Synergy Movement Series. I am running a special summer edition that will have 3 LIVE sessions for participants to ask questions and go deeper with their somatic education.When we have a dynamic sense of coordination and ease of movement in the core we are employing versatility, agility, stability and awareness to get there.