So what is the “Core” and why is it important?

When you talk about the core you probably think of the typical 6 pack abs everyone desires to have. While the appearance of six pack abs are nice it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s strong. So let’s get a better understanding of what the core is then.

The core is a group of muscles that stabilizes and controls the pelvis and spine. It is comprised of your back extensors, abdominals, obliques, pelvic floor and glutes. Core strength is the ability to maintain the body in ideal postures by unloading the joints and promote better movement. They are the bridge that connect the lower body with the upper body.  Understanding how to correctly engage your core on lifts will help you achieve the best transfer of power throughout the entire body. This means no wasted energy or lost energy, being able to lift more and most importantly safety for your back.

Benefits from having a strong core

• Promotes more efficient movement

• Prevents injury

• Improves performance

• Prevent overuse of injuries

• Postural control and stability

• Transfer of Power

Now that we understand why having a strong core is important, let’s look at the other side of things discussing the problems with a weak core.

Ever experience back, hip or knee pain? If you didn’t have an acute injury chances are it’s coming from having a weak core. Most of the time when we can strengthen the core muscles, pain related “injuries” tend to go away. Having an imbalanced core can lead to problems up and down the body. Knee pain is often caused by having an unstable pelvis, back pain is not being able to brace through the rectus/obliques properly and usually weak/inactive glutes. Having strong and stable postural muscles helps suspend the bones and other structures, allowing them to move better, thus moving pain free.

Now if you’re having problems with hips, knees, or lower back in movements during your workouts it’s probably from not being able to stabilize properly. Spending more time learning how to breath and brace properly can literally make or break lifts, fix pain you might be experiencing and prevent injuries from occurring. Spending more time doing things that challenge your core vs chasing the six pack muscles, will have a greater transfer to not only your lifts but daily life.

So now we understand what the core is but what’s next?

Understanding how to brace

A good core program relies less on mindless repetition of exercise and focuses more on awareness. People with good core strength learn to identify and activate the muscles needed to accomplish the task. Learning to activate the core requires concentration, and leads to being more in tune with the body. You first have to start with understanding how to brace properly. Bracing starts with stacking of the spine. You want a small hip tuck to make sure you’re in a good position, standing nice and tall you’ll exhale through your mouth slowly with a long sigh to get the obliques help lower your rib cage and also bring it back towards the spine. Your stomach should appear to be flatter and keeping your 6pack abs “off”. If you pierce your lips or do a forceful exhale you with get the rectus abdominals to turn on which we don’t want. Once you exhale you’ll want to inhale through your nose, filling air from the bottom of the belly to the top. If air is going into the lunge and expanding the rib cage or chest, you aren’t bracing correctly. The whole mid section should be expanding when you inhale not just pushing out your stomach.

Most people will struggle with this as we tend to breathe mainly into our chest or abdominis(pushing the stomach out). This is a skill set that takes practice and focus but once achieved it you’ll notice a difference as you’ll be able to take better inhales and full exhales, allowing the rib cage to properly descends as the diaphragm ascends. It’s not too difficult to learn but takes a lot of practice to master. Once you can understand the breathing aspect it would be then good to start incorporating core stabilizing movements like variations of dead bugs, bird dogs, planks, side planks, wood choppers, suite case carries to name a few as starting points but honestly staples in my clients programming. Get good at the basics and make them more challenging over time. You’ll see your lifts get easier, more explosive but most importantly keeping your back healthy.