Health & Fitness
Core Strength... What Does it Mean!?
Do you know how to truly strengthen your "Core"?
The "core" of the body is, in this opinion, a vastly over-used and evidently, completely misunderstood term.
The "core" in fitness-speak refers to the middle of the body, specifically the abdominals, obliques and the lower back. There is little doubt that this area of the body is, along with the cervical spine, the most vulnerable area of the body.
Contrary to popular opinion, the "core" of the body needs very little exercise. However, for optimum results, the exercises MUST be isolated and direct.
The most important exercise for the "core" is direct exercise for the muscles that extend the lumbar spine (lower back).
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This necessitates anchoring the pelvis to remove any hip involvement. If hip strength IS involved, the HIPS will produce the force and the lumbar spine will be exposed to that force.
The muscles that rotate the torso almost always suffer from dis-use atrophy as does the aforementioned lumbar spine. Like the lumbar spine, these muscles (which include the internal and external obliques, the rectus abdominals, the lumbar AND thoracic spine) must be trained directly in isolation to stimulate a meaningful response. Thus, again, restraints MUST be in place to eliminate hip involvement. Finally, the abdominals should be trained by exercise that works by shortening the distance between the sternum and the pubic bone( the function of these muscles).
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One set, trained HARD to momentary muscular failure, each approx. 10 reps of 60-90 seconds will do more for the "core" of the body in 3-5 minutes ONCE a week than any amount of "planks," leg raises or any other so-called "functional" exercises performed in a week, or more!
Main Line Health and Fitness is a premeire fitness club in the Philadelphia area offering multiple options for strength training, but especially the most revolutionary strength training equipment- X-Force. If you would like to learn more about Core strength and strength training in general contact us for a tour to see what we can do for you. 610-527-2200 or contact@mlhf.com.
