Now that you have all found your pelvic and core muscles, I will share with you  how engaging them feel to me.  I exercise with one Pilates lesson, one GYROTONIC lesson and road bike about 100+ miles a week.  I would say the pelvic floor should be engaged in every exercise in Pilates and GYRO but during a run, bike or walk?   Well, I say YES!    Maybe not the entire time but certainly occasionally whenever you need something to think about to relieve you from boredom or when you are feeling a little achy in the back, neck and/or shoulders.  When standing, feel your weight equally distributed into the floor with an energy lifting up through the center of your feet. Gently wrap the hamstrings toward each other, feeling the sit bones pull toward each other. Keep in mind the 3-d body. Now pull the pubis and coccyx toward one another and stay with this side to side, front to back pulling in for a while. THIS IS YOUR PELVIC FLOOR WORKING….   Go further up to the abdominal area, exhale to engage the deepest abdominal layer, the transverses, which wraps completely around the body and is engaged by exhaling and actively pulling in.  After some practice, you will feel as if you can get your abdominal area to touch your spine. Well, there is a muscle along the front of your spine, the multifidis, which will pull toward the transverses. THIS IS YOUR CORE!!  The core is a shared feeling between the front and the back and the pelvic floor.  (If not standing, the feeling is the same, minus the feet to floor, hamstring connection.)

After a few hours on the bike, if I don’t engage my pelvic floor and core, my back, arms and especially my shoulders, start to ache. Engaging enables my body to have space between the joints and shared weight throughout and allows my body to work as one complete muscle system…..Oh, what a feeling!!!    ~gail giovanniello