The Importance Of Strengthening Your Core
By: Billy Jo Collette
Have you ever heard your Personal Trainer say “keep the core tight” or “engage your core”?
For us as trainers, this is common knowledge but without asking, clients may not know the importance behind what engaging these muscles does to correct their form.
The core refers to primarily muscles located around your abdominal region but also back and pelvis muscles are included.
The core muscles consist of the rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, external and internal obliques, multifidus, erector spinae, pelvic floor muscles, and the diaphragm.
Included is a photo of where each of these muscles are on the body. Looking just at the diagram, you can see that the abdominal muscles include and span a whole lot more of the body than just your “6 pack abs” region.
This is the reason that core strength impacts the body’s exercise form so greatly.
As a whole, these muscles work together to provide stability, balance, and coordination throughout movements.
Because the core muscles span along the lower portion of the torso, once these muscles are engaged and locked into place the only movement would be coming from the extremities (arms and legs) unless you were to be adding a slight twist into a movement.
This is helpful to note and feel the difference when trying to perform a balance exercise or daily activity because engaging the core muscles (or “holding the abdominal brace” as some of our trainers refer to this as) while being able to maintain breathing allows you to become more stable in any plane of motion.
In addition to better balance, stability, and coordination; strengthening and engaging the core muscles can help reduce back pain because it helps stabilize the spine and reduce movement/ strain in the low back.
Holding the engagement of the core muscles, helps the spine be in proper alignment allowing for proper upright posture without the sway in the low spine and pelvis tilting forward.
The core muscles have the job of helping in “deep breathing” allowing for the chest cavity to expand and air to be able to enter the lungs. This ensures that the body is breathing efficiently as it functions.
As your core muscles strengthen, this allows your spine to lengthen.
When the spine lengthens and grows taller, this allows the lungs to be able to expand more and an increased amount of oxygen to be able to enter into the body.
Once developing a strong core, this makes daily activities and other exercises easier to complete, especially once weight is added to exercise or hauling large objects.
If you’re in the process of developing a strong core, remember that using exercises that specifically target the abs helps in toning the deep muscles, and aerobic exercises help in the process of burning the top layer of fat over the abdominals.
It’s beneficial to incorporate a mixture of both types of general exercise types into your workout to generate the results you would like.
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