Strengthening Your Core

We crave them, we obsess about them, and we're constantly holding them in. They are the sexiest things to look at and the hardest things to get. Some claim that getting them takes only five minutes a day, but others toil for a half hour. Many use machines and devices, but most prefer to work au naturel. I'm talking about abdominal muscles, of course. But do you realize that it would be impossible to have fantastic abs without the big role that your low back muscles play?

You've probably heard the term core training. The basic theory is that if you train your core or trunk muscles (your abdominals and low back) you will improve the strength, stability, and possibly power of many movements. That's because the power that generates a lethal tennis serve or a killer volleyball spike comes from the center of the body (the core) and transfers out to the arms. Think about this: Many injuries that result from accidents and overuse can trace their origins back to poor trunk control and strength. If your core is not strong and you perform high-level activities like deadlifting a toddler or playing tennis, you may be putting stress on muscles that are too small, too weak, and too mechanically disadvantaged to perform those movements.

Think about the developmental processes that occur from the time you are a helpless newborn to the time you can walk. If you've had a baby, this development will be easier for you to follow since you've seen it, or will see it, firsthand. Even if you haven't, the process makes sense and is easy to grasp. Our bodies are constantly undergoing change, no matter how old we are. But as babies, the growth and development that take place are remarkable and fast. The nervous system (brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves) doesn't fully develop until we are well into our twenties. So a newborn has only some primitive survival skills and appears to make random movements, basically responding to the environment. And those responses are immature and largely ineffective. Newborns can't withstand the challenges of gravity, much less move against it. They can't hold their heavy heads up, not only because their muscles aren't strong enough yet, but also because their nervous systems aren't completely formed. As the newborn and her nervous system mature, she is able to control movement and eventually master it. The development starts proximally (trunk) and proceeds distally (extremities), starts with gross motor movements and proceeds to fine motor control, and starts with head control and proceeds to postural control.

A baby must reach certain developmental milestones as she grows in order to proceed to the next stage. For example, an infant doesn't walk before she can crawl and doesn't use a fork before she can hold a bottle. As a matter of fact, infant motor development is divided into four stages: mobility (0 to 3 months), stability (4 to 6 months), controlled mobility (7 to 9 months), and skill (10 to 12 months). Within these phases are specific motor developmental milestones that a baby goes through, some faster and some slower than the average.

So what does all of this baby talk have to do with strength training? Motor learning doesn't only take place from birth to the age of 12 months; it takes an entire lifetime. We can't play tennis if we have never held a racket in our hands, and we can't hold a baby in our arms if we've not skilled enough to hold a bag of flour. We are in a constant state of learning, developing, and refining that development. If we teach our body to sit on the couch, then it will adapt to sitting on the couch. If we teach it to lift weights, then it will adapt to that too. If we lift heavier weights, our body will accommodate us. But don't ask it to lift heavy weights when it's been sitting on the couch-that's when we get injured. Our bodies can learn many wonderful and complicated skills, but they need a base on which to build. That base is your core.

Understanding Trunk Anatomy

Creating a Functional Core

Abdominal Exercises

Low Back Exercises