It is worse than ineffective.
(Photograph: Dev Asangbam | Unsplash)
Revealed June 9, 2026 11:45AM
I’ve been educating yoga for nearly 5 years and there’s a standard yoga cue that I’ve by no means stated in any of my lessons. Not even as soon as.
For those who’ve ever taken a yoga, Pilates, or motion class of any sort, I can virtually assure you’ve heard it earlier than.
The cue?
“Stomach button to backbone.” Generally the phrases are disguised with the marginally extra anatomical language of “navel to backbone.” Both means, I’m not a fan.
The truth is, I’m in a buddy group of yoga and motion academics, private trainers, and devoted class-goers and we’re no strangers to attending Sunday morning class collectively after which dissecting the expertise afterward. At this level, my disdain for this cue has grow to be a working joke. Every time a instructor says it, all of them not-so-subtly whip their heads round to have a look at me and chortle.
The factor is, I don’t assume instructors use this cue maliciously. Fairly the other. I’ve heard unbelievable academics—academics I respect—drop it casually in school. I think the phrases have grow to be so commonplace in motion tradition that many academics utter it routinely, with out ever stopping to query whether or not it’s truly helpful.
And, frankly, it’s not. I’d say “stomach button to backbone” is ineffective if the aim is to assist college students activate the deep core muscle tissue, significantly the transversus abdominis. The concept is to create a stabilizing inner “corset” that helps the backbone and contributes to total stability.
For those who simply pulled your stomach button inward whereas studying this, discover what occurs. Your abdominals don’t magically swap on. Extra probably, you merely suck your abdomen in, inflicting your posture to vary and your breath to grow to be restricted. When taken too actually, many college students reply by gripping and bracing excessively or fully holding their breath. None of these outcomes are significantly useful.
For those who’re already aware of the sensation, then stomach button to backbone is perhaps all it is advisable to hear to kick issues into gear. However in case you’re newer to motion and yoga lessons, it is advisable to perceive that it’s a extra advanced and delicate motion that entails all of the muscle tissue of the core. This cue each oversimplifies it and, on the similar time, makes it extra complicated than it must be.
Motion educator Jenni Rawlings has written extensively about approaches to core stability and unpacks a number of the reason why “navel to backbone” won’t be the best option to obtain the meant consequence from a mechanics perspective, together with some misassumptions.
The intention is sweet. The execution? Not a lot.
The Different Downside With This Ineffectual Yoga Cue
After which there’s the body-image challenge.
As a mid-size yoga instructor with lived expertise in lessons the place the cueing was not designed for my physique, I make a degree to maintain my cueing as physique impartial as potential. I do know from private expertise in addition to conversations with college students and colleagues that cues targeted on pulling in, shrinking, or by some means making the physique smaller can land otherwise than academics intend.
It’s necessary to do not forget that many individuals have difficult histories with their our bodies. They could have skilled criticism, disgrace, or exclusion in health areas earlier than they ever stepped onto a yoga mat. Even worse, they could have additionally skilled it on the yoga mat.
For some college students, significantly those that have spent years receiving messages about altering their our bodies, “stomach button to backbone” doesn’t really feel like a motion cue in any respect. It appears like a reminder to shrink themselves.
And the second a pupil begins worrying about whether or not their abdomen appears to be like flat sufficient as they try to tug their navel towards their backbone, we’ve fully misplaced the plot.
We’ve additionally misplaced their consideration. Their thoughts is someplace else totally as a result of their nervous system is activated. It would smash the remainder of class for them and even the remainder of the day.
What to Cue As a substitute of “Stomach Button to Backbone”
The excellent news? There are far simpler cues that may truly assist college students discover core engagement.
Additionally, telling college students to attract their stomach button to the backbone misses one thing important that everybody can use reminding of throughout motion: respiratory. To me, respiratory and stability ought to work collectively, not compete with each other like they could when you’re busy sucking in your stomach button to your backbone.
I choose to cue breath as a 360-degree rib cage breath in my lessons. Which means I encourage college students to increase by the entrance, sides, and again of the rib cage on the inhalation and permit pure core rigidity to return on the exhalation. There’s much less give attention to squeezing and minimizing and extra give attention to truly participating the superficial in addition to the innermost muscle tissue and focusing in your respiratory.
Following are a few of the cues I’ve heard academics say to incur core engagement, which are likely to instinctively create in college students the specified core engagement response we’re in search of with out asking college students to grip, suck in, or overthink their midsections:
Exhale with an audible “haaa”
Think about you’re about to step into freezing chilly water
Brace like your canine, cat, or toddler is about to leap onto the mattress
Think about you’re getting ready to catch a heavy field.
As yoga and motion academics, it’s necessary we do not forget that language shapes expertise. We now have 1000’s of phrases at our disposal. If one set of phrases doesn’t enhance motion mechanics or help respiratory, and if it dangers distracting some college students from their follow, possibly it’s time to retire it.
