Sharpen Your “Abdominal Brain” And Build A Stronger Midsection
The Brain-Gut Connection
Have you ever wondered why people get butterflies in
the stomach before a job interview or big performance?
Or even why people vomit at the thought of something
unpleasant or while under severe stress?
The reason for these common experiences is that your
digestive tract and stomach in particular acts as a
second brain. The human digestive tract contains over
one million nerve cells… this is about the same amount
of nerves found in the spinal chord! In fact, there are
more never cells in your digestive system than there is
in the entire peripheral nervous system.(1)
Your digestive brain and the brain in you skull are
linked together via the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve
“wanders” from the brain stem through the organs in
the neck and thorax and finally terminates in the
abdomen. This has been termed the “brain-gut”
connection by Jordan Rubin, author of The Makers
Diet. (5)
This second ‘abdominal brain’ is just as important
as your ‘skull brain’. According to Dr. Michael
Gershon, professor of anatomy and cell biology at
Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York
City, describes the body’s second nervous system
in his book The Second Brain:
“The brain is not the only place in the body that’s
full of neurotransmitters. A hundred million
neurotransmitters line the length of the gut,
approximately the same number that is found in the
brain… The brain in the bowel has got to work right
or no one will have the luxury to think at all.” (4)
Your stomach literally thinks and, has the capacity
to feel and express your emotions.
Smart Core
According to Paul Chek in Scientific Core Conditioning,
the rectus abdominis is segmentally innervated by
different 8 nerves. He continues to assert that due
to the abundance of nerves that innervate the core
/ abdominal musculature, that it functions as if it has
8 brains.(2)
The reason for the abundance of nerve endings in
the abdominal musculature is obvious… throughout
our evolution, the hardships of developmental environment
dictated that the abdominal musculature need be
extremely strong as well as intelligent. It is the abdominal
musculature that is responsible for: the stabilizing effect
for the expression of limb movement, increasing intra-
abdominal pressure to assist in forced expression, flexion,
rotation, ipsilateral isometric contraction when stimulated
unilaterally, transferred tension to create spinal stability via
that thoraco-lumabr fascia (TCF), etc. So, my point is clear…
your abs have a lot of jobs, so they’ve been given a lot of brains.
Abdominal Inhibition due to emotional disturbance
To reiterate… First, your digestive system acts as a
second brain and contains the same amount of nerve
cells as the spinal chord. Also, due to the abundance
of neurotransmitters present in the stomach it has been
observed, both clinically and experientially, that it is highly
affected by the emotions that we produce.
Next, it has been established that the core musculature
has “8 brains”. The muscles of the abdominal are highly
evolved to withstand “primal man’s” need to survive and
hrive in developmental environment via functional movement
patterns necessary for hunting as well as building shelter.
Both the digestive system and the abdominal musculature
are linked via the nervous system. One of the primary
control centers of the nervous system, the brain, can
make or break your efforts to flatten your abs and build
a rock solid physique… and I am going to show you how.
Internal organs borrow their pain-sensitive nerve fibers
from the muscular system. This means that when an
organ feels pain, the brain cannot determine if it’s the
muscle or the organ that hurts. The brain only knows
which segment of the spine that the pain message came
from. So, the brain then sends a message to that
particular region of the spine and tells all of the muscles,
tissue and organs in that region to behave as if they were
in pain. (3)
When you are distressed, due to emotional disturbance
from – financial insecurity, relationships, a job that you
hate or spending an hour on the phone with your
depressed middle aged auntie… your stomach, or second
brain reacts. Some of the specific observed reactions by
this organ to emotional pain include decreased or increased
blood flow, “clenching”, and digestive inhibition.
While this is occurring, your abdominal musculature has
just received the same message that the stomach has –
“there is pain and we must react”. Your abdominal muscles,
now perceiving pain, become inhibited and lose the capacity
to contact to their fullest capacity. This is true in particular
for the Transversus Abdominis, the muscle that activates
the thoraco-lumabr fascia for low back stability and acts to
keep your belly “drawn in”. (I’ve just shown you how
mental/emotional distress causes low back pain as well.)
So, what does this mean for me?
Essentially, the point that I would like to make clear is that
as a holistic entity your entire physiology is linked via control
systems including the nervous system. You now understand
why mental / emotional stability is essential for muscular
strength and stability… especially as it relates to your
abdominal.
If you have been trying, unsuccessfully, to improve your
aesthetics through countless crunching sessions and dieting –
I invite you to consider that you have been missing as much
as 50% of your opportunity to have better health and visible
strength. Ignoring or working against your body doesn’t work!
And you will only look as good on the outside as you feel on the
inside.
What can I do?
First, recognize that you are an integrated system of
systems and that one part of your mind-body cannot
experience trauma without it affecting several others.
Next, there are a total of 6 factors which I call your
“The Primal Elements” that must be addressed in order
for you to look and feel your God-given potential. I will
elaborate on each of theses in a later article but for now
I will list them: Your Thoughts, Breathing, Hydration,
Nutrition / Food Quality, Exercise and, Biological Rhythms.(6)
Learn more about “The Primal Elements”:
.
Addressing each of The Primal Elements on a daily
basis will keep your organs, your nervous system and
subsequently your musculo-skeketal system functioning
optimally and allow for a flatter, stronger and better
looking midsection.
Reference:
1. Blakeslee, Sandra, “Complex and Hidden Brain in Gut Makes Stomachaches and Butterflies”, New York Times, January 23, 1996.
2. Chek, Paul, Scientific Core Conditioning (San Diego, CA: CHEK Institute Publications, 1998)
3. Chek, Paul, How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy (San Diego, CA: CHEK Institute Publications, 2004)
4. Dr. Michael Gershon, The Second Brain (New York: Haprer Collins, 1998).
5. Rubin, Jordan, The Makers Diet, (Lake Mary, Florida: Silhom, 2004).
6. Hulse, Elliott, Unleash Your Primal Edge (St. Petersburg, FL: Primal Edge Publications, 2006)
About Elliott Hulse, “the primal guy”:
Like no other human performance specialist or fitness
coach, Elliott Hulse has successfully integrated strength
training, nutrition, and lifestyle in order to maximize EVERY
facet of his clients’ physical and human potential into a
single program, which he has trademarked the “Primal Edge.”
For ten years, Elliott has dedicated his life to excellence in
the fields of sports science and holistic health. He is certified
by the most notable institutions in the fitness industry
including the National Strength and Conditioning Association
(CSCS) and the C.H.E.K Institute (EC, NLC).
As the author of the groundbreaking e-book Unleash Your
Primal Edge, Elliott has utterly defied conventional methodologies
with regard to human performance and fitness. It’s Elliott’s firm
conviction that latent within every human being lie the seeds of
extraordinary health, fitness, happiness, and longing for a return
to our natural and primordial lifestyles that hold the keys to our
“Primal Edge.”
Get two free reports, How to Flatten Your Abs Forever and
Maximum Fitness Results by visiting .
The Brain-Gut Connection
Have you ever wondered why people get butterflies in
the stomach before a job interview or big performance?
Or even why people vomit at the thought of something
unpleasant or while under severe stress?
The reason for these common experiences is that your
digestive tract and stomach in particular acts as a
second brain. The human digestive tract contains over
one million nerve cells… this is about the same amount
of nerves found in the spinal chord! In fact, there are
more never cells in your digestive system than there is
in the entire peripheral nervous system.(1)
Your digestive brain and the brain in you skull are
linked together via the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve
“wanders” from the brain stem through the organs in
the neck and thorax and finally terminates in the
abdomen. This has been termed the “brain-gut”
connection by Jordan Rubin, author of The Makers
Diet. (5)
This second ‘abdominal brain’ is just as important
as your ‘skull brain’. According to Dr. Michael
Gershon, professor of anatomy and cell biology at
Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York
City, describes the body’s second nervous system
in his book The Second Brain:
“The brain is not the only place in the body that’s
full of neurotransmitters. A hundred million
neurotransmitters line the length of the gut,
approximately the same number that is found in the
brain… The brain in the bowel has got to work right
or no one will have the luxury to think at all.” (4)
Your stomach literally thinks and, has the capacity
to feel and express your emotions.
Smart Core
According to Paul Chek in Scientific Core Conditioning,
the rectus abdominis is segmentally innervated by
different 8 nerves. He continues to assert that due
to the abundance of nerves that innervate the core
/ abdominal musculature, that it functions as if it has
8 brains.(2)
The reason for the abundance of nerve endings in
the abdominal musculature is obvious… throughout
our evolution, the hardships of developmental environment
dictated that the abdominal musculature need be
extremely strong as well as intelligent. It is the abdominal
musculature that is responsible for: the stabilizing effect
for the expression of limb movement, increasing intra-
abdominal pressure to assist in forced expression, flexion,
rotation, ipsilateral isometric contraction when stimulated
unilaterally, transferred tension to create spinal stability via
that thoraco-lumabr fascia (TCF), etc. So, my point is clear…
your abs have a lot of jobs, so they’ve been given a lot of brains.
Abdominal Inhibition due to emotional disturbance
To reiterate… First, your digestive system acts as a
second brain and contains the same amount of nerve
cells as the spinal chord. Also, due to the abundance
of neurotransmitters present in the stomach it has been
observed, both clinically and experientially, that it is highly
affected by the emotions that we produce.
Next, it has been established that the core musculature
has “8 brains”. The muscles of the abdominal are highly
evolved to withstand “primal man’s” need to survive and
hrive in developmental environment via functional movement
patterns necessary for hunting as well as building shelter.
Both the digestive system and the abdominal musculature
are linked via the nervous system. One of the primary
control centers of the nervous system, the brain, can
make or break your efforts to flatten your abs and build
a rock solid physique… and I am going to show you how.
Internal organs borrow their pain-sensitive nerve fibers
from the muscular system. This means that when an
organ feels pain, the brain cannot determine if it’s the
muscle or the organ that hurts. The brain only knows
which segment of the spine that the pain message came
from. So, the brain then sends a message to that
particular region of the spine and tells all of the muscles,
tissue and organs in that region to behave as if they were
in pain. (3)
When you are distressed, due to emotional disturbance
from – financial insecurity, relationships, a job that you
hate or spending an hour on the phone with your
depressed middle aged auntie… your stomach, or second
brain reacts. Some of the specific observed reactions by
this organ to emotional pain include decreased or increased
blood flow, “clenching”, and digestive inhibition.
While this is occurring, your abdominal musculature has
just received the same message that the stomach has –
“there is pain and we must react”. Your abdominal muscles,
now perceiving pain, become inhibited and lose the capacity
to contact to their fullest capacity. This is true in particular
for the Transversus Abdominis, the muscle that activates
the thoraco-lumabr fascia for low back stability and acts to
keep your belly “drawn in”. (I’ve just shown you how
mental/emotional distress causes low back pain as well.)
So, what does this mean for me?
Essentially, the point that I would like to make clear is that
as a holistic entity your entire physiology is linked via control
systems including the nervous system. You now understand
why mental / emotional stability is essential for muscular
strength and stability… especially as it relates to your
abdominal.
If you have been trying, unsuccessfully, to improve your
aesthetics through countless crunching sessions and dieting –
I invite you to consider that you have been missing as much
as 50% of your opportunity to have better health and visible
strength. Ignoring or working against your body doesn’t work!
And you will only look as good on the outside as you feel on the
inside.
What can I do?
First, recognize that you are an integrated system of
systems and that one part of your mind-body cannot
experience trauma without it affecting several others.
Next, there are a total of 6 factors which I call your
“The Primal Elements” that must be addressed in order
for you to look and feel your God-given potential. I will
elaborate on each of theses in a later article but for now
I will list them: Your Thoughts, Breathing, Hydration,
Nutrition / Food Quality, Exercise and, Biological Rhythms.(6)
Learn more about “The Primal Elements”:
.
Addressing each of The Primal Elements on a daily
basis will keep your organs, your nervous system and
subsequently your musculo-skeketal system functioning
optimally and allow for a flatter, stronger and better
looking midsection.
Reference:
1. Blakeslee, Sandra, “Complex and Hidden Brain in Gut Makes Stomachaches and Butterflies”, New York Times, January 23, 1996.
2. Chek, Paul, Scientific Core Conditioning (San Diego, CA: CHEK Institute Publications, 1998)
3. Chek, Paul, How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy (San Diego, CA: CHEK Institute Publications, 2004)
4. Dr. Michael Gershon, The Second Brain (New York: Haprer Collins, 1998).
5. Rubin, Jordan, The Makers Diet, (Lake Mary, Florida: Silhom, 2004).
6. Hulse, Elliott, Unleash Your Primal Edge (St. Petersburg, FL: Primal Edge Publications, 2006)
About Elliott Hulse, “the primal guy”:
Like no other human performance specialist or fitness
coach, Elliott Hulse has successfully integrated strength
training, nutrition, and lifestyle in order to maximize EVERY
facet of his clients’ physical and human potential into a
single program, which he has trademarked the “Primal Edge.”
For ten years, Elliott has dedicated his life to excellence in
the fields of sports science and holistic health. He is certified
by the most notable institutions in the fitness industry
including the National Strength and Conditioning Association
(CSCS) and the C.H.E.K Institute (EC, NLC).
As the author of the groundbreaking e-book Unleash Your
Primal Edge, Elliott has utterly defied conventional methodologies
with regard to human performance and fitness. It’s Elliott’s firm
conviction that latent within every human being lie the seeds of
extraordinary health, fitness, happiness, and longing for a return
to our natural and primordial lifestyles that hold the keys to our
“Primal Edge.”
Get two free reports, How to Flatten Your Abs Forever and
Maximum Fitness Results by visiting .