Strengthen Your Core
By Joseph P. Cannon, MS | 9/21/2006





If you have been working out, you may have encountered the concept of the "core" and how keeping it strong can help you stay healthy and pain-free. The core essentially consists of the trunk muscles — those of the abdominals, low back, hips and upper back. It is the muscles of the core that help to protect and stabilize your spine when you place a demand on the body — such as during exercise or household activities like pulling the lawnmower out of the basement. While washboard abs may be all the rage these days, having a strong core is even more important.



"Like everything else, we are only as strong our weakest link. For many of us, the weakest link is our core," says Brian Lange, MS, CSCS, director of personal training at the Healthplex Sports Club in Springfield, Pennsylvania. Lange explains further that "the loss of core strength has been implicated as a contributor of low back pain, which 60-80 percent of Americans will suffer from at some point in their lives." It's worth noting that persons who are overweight are also at increased risk of low back pain — yet another reason to shed those extra pounds! A strong core may result in less low back pain and hence a better quality of life.

Types of Core Exercises
"People are getting smarter and are no longer impressed with empty promises of rock-hard abs in just two minutes a day," says Lange. They want real results, and strengthening the core is one of the ways to get them. This has resulted in an increase in core-specific fitness classes popping up in health clubs around the world. It has also led to the development of a wide variety of exercise equipment designed to target the core. One such device is the stability ball, which is essentially a big vinyl ball filled with air. Because of its unstable nature, the stability ball allows one to challenge the core much more effectively. While commonly used by many who do crunches to provide an extra challenge to the abdominal musculature, the stability ball also lends itself to a variety of other core-related areas of the body, such as the upper and lower back regions.

The next time you go shopping for an exercise DVD or video, look for those that feature stability balls as part of the workout. Stability balls come in different sizes and are measured in centimeters. For most people 5 to 6 feet tall, the 55-centimeter size is perfect.

While a multitude of gadgets and exercises (The Body Blade®, The Reebok Core Board, Pilates, etc.) are available to help you train your core, they are not necessary. A simple exercise for the core that requires no equipment would be lifting your right arm and left leg in the air in a straight line (i.e., parallel to the floor) while you are on your hands and knees.

When to Perform Core Exercises
Core-strengthening exercise should be done at the end of your exercise routine if you will be doing activities that require a strong core during your workout. For example, some strength-training exercises, such as pressing a weight over the head, require a strong core to perform properly. Other exercises that involve the core include dead lifts, reverse flys and pushups (see this site's Workouts section to view these exercises). And be careful: Fatiguing the core with core-specific exercises before doing exercises that require a strong core could place you at risk for injury.

Joseph P. Cannon, MS, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, is an exercise physiologist at the Healthplex Sports Club in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.