❤️ Voice

WEEKLY CHALLENGE:

Do the featured routine this week + 2 other Fit2B videos or repeat the featured routine! Just like wearing clothes twice to save water and detergent is okay, so is “wearing the same workout” when you want to save brain energy. In fact, revisiting routines again within 48 hours can help you to train your body awareness and muscle control. Variety is amazing, but when your body needs simplicity for a little while, that’s okay too!

And here’s the deal, banana peel: Your voice is a powerful tool to regulate your energy and mood when you’re needing to down-regulate your nervous system (which is a fancy term for calming your anxious nerves). How can your voice help you relax and enjoy simple movements more? Well, it’s because your “voice box” is a diaphragm just like your breathing diaphragm and pelvic diaphragm, and your vagus nerve rules them all!

Your vagus nerve is incredible. Body nerds worldwide are still discovering all that this spinal nerve does as it “wanders” throughout your body. We know for sure that it’s why the muscles in the jaw, core, pelvic, and all your diaphragms can co-activate. If you’re a birth junkie, you likely know about Sphincter Law which says “As it is above, so it is below.” That physiological truth is due to this life-giving nerve that wanders between all of those areas.

This breathing + vocalizing routine explores verbally verdant ways to hack your nervous system with your vagus nerve. Vive Las VAGUS, baby!

Equipment Needed: A comfortable place to sit.

Featured Routine: Verde Vagus

Parallel “Voice” Workouts:

Here are a few more exercise videos we have that will strengthen the muscles that give you a strong voice!

The OG Totally Transverse

Cue Connections

Cobalt Core

Quote Of The Week:

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”

— Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani Female Education Activist

Moving Thought: Having strong, functional abdominal and pelvic floor muscles helps musicians. Read more about music and your midline here. When your core is plagued by prolapse, pressure mismanagement, diastasis recti, and herniations, your breathing is affected. Learning to breathe better is a MAJOR component of reclaiming your midline mojo as a musician.

I remember watching my daughter sort out her breath as she began learning clarinet for marching band. Making the right sound with her instrument while practicing proper posture often left her bracing her belly.

The cues I gave her to use included:

Send air out from the pit of your belly
Bring your breath down into your hips
Keep your chest relaxed
Imagine your whole middle is a circle and make that circle smaller when you blow

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS CHALLENGE:

Make the featured routine ONE of the workouts or videos that you choose this week, even if you only do part of it.
Reach out if you need suggestions for different workouts to round out your week. We are here for you!
Join the conversation or start it below in the comments! Check out what others have done, share ideas, offer encouragement, or get encouragement from those who’ve done this week before you!

COMMENT PROMPTS:

Share what you think of the featured routine.
Share what workouts you’re doing and how they felt to your mind and body.
Respond with your thoughts on the “Word/Phrase of The Week.”
Ask for help with anything: workout ideas, mindset, motivation, alternates for the featured routine, anything!

See you in the workouts,

Beth

P.S. Click any image in these lessons to be taken to the associated content on Fit2B like this amazing podcast we did about the voice!