Let's face it - the majority of us are leading increasingly sedentary lives - sitting long hours at work stations, driving, or vegetating in front of the television on the sofa, and the more time we spend sitting the more our core muscles are becoming increasingly relaxed. With this increasing sedentary lifestyle back problems and back aches are on the rise!
We do know that core stabilisation and core strengthening can help to improve back health / weakness, balance and overall functional fitness.
Even though "core stability " was a huge buzz word a few years back we do appear to still neglect it, it's one of those 'overlooked / time consuming' practices in the gym we're always first to miss or drop out.
For those who work with me know I continually go on about posture, not only in the gym but about being aware of it throughout the day. I very often ask that several times a day for clients to take 30 seconds and simply stand tall, relax their shoulders, and rotate their chest outwards, but there’s a lot more to it than just that.
Your core is not solely your AB (6 pack - rectus abdominis) muscles, these are the muscles the majority of us train! We also need think about our obliques, intercostals, and serratus as well, and further than that your core also engages your transverse abdominals, multifidus, diaphragm and pelvic floor plus many others - all in all its quite complex but all have a role to play. Our core muscles are essentially stabilisers and movers, the stabilisers attach directly to the spine - thus supporting it's movement, and the movers basically support the stabilising muscles to work with for us to move our bodies. Its important we don’t look at our core as a prime mover - yet most of us do and train it in isolation, ab curls / crunches / back extensions, there isn’t anything majorly wrong with this as it is better than doing nothing at all, but you should start adding in variety and mixing up some more functional & compound drills (as you’ll see in the video) and you’ll reap the benefits - better strength gains in the gym, more efficient movement, agility & speed, and even longevity of health For me the core is our epicentre, just like an earthquake this is the focal point - its where our balance, posture, agility, speed and power can all be measured from, a weak core will hinder all these other attributes, so set some time aside and start working your core more diversely, in a variety of ways, hit it from all angles - transverse, flexion, rotation, material flexion and also posterior as well. Get to it guys - Work Hard & Stay Humble
Comments