What is your ‘Core?’
Your core muscles comprise those in your trunk forming the basis of movement for your arms and legs and are responsible for your posture.
It includes: pelvic floor, transverse abdominals, multifidus, external and internal obliques, erector spinae, rectus abdominals, longissimus and diaphragm.
How does it help your movement?
Most movements engage the core on some level. Whether you are sitting and typing, swinging a tennis racquet, sitting or walking, you are using your core. Its strength and mobility will determine how well you flow through the different movement planes and directions throughout your body.
For example, a lack of core strength would affect posture while sitting, and on the other hand affect your ability to generate power in an athletic movement such as a sprint or jump.
A lack of core mobility would affect your range of movement and rotation in everything you do. For things like bending down to tie up your shoes, turning around to look behind you while driving, to good technique and correct muscle execution while exercising.
In a nutshell, your core acts as the underpinning pillar for every movement you will ever do.That’s why some call it the ‘powerhouse’ or ‘centre’ in Pilates.
How does your core relate to back pain?
At some time it’s likely you will experience back pain. Back pain can be caused by muscular imbalance, injury, chronic conditions, overuse of muscles and more.
And it’s also likely that when you see a physiotherapist or any health professional about your back pain they will tell you to ‘strengthen you core’ as part of your treatment plan.
I won’t go into all causes and effects here for back pain reasons, but in terms of general achy back pain caused by too much sitting or postural muscles, you can connect that back to a weak core.
If you start to strengthen and stretch your upper and lower back, you will decrease back pain. And remember your core includes your back muscles, not just your ‘abs.’
If you also include full core strength, stretching and mobility in your routine for back pain, then you will start to really improve this plus be strengthening the most important pillar for your movement and exercise all round.
Think of it as the centre of your body, the powerhouse for where movement begins and ends. I like to teach clients your core is like the scaffolding of a building. Without a good foundation, the rest around it will collapse.
When you start to do core work to help with back pain, you will by default help your whole body rebalance itself and create a good foundation for movement in general, helping relieve your body of postural imbalances.
Can building my core help the pelvic floor?
Yes it can. But be careful you are working your core in a way that does not push the pelvic floor sling downward especially if it is weak! (Check out my Beginner Pelvic Floor routine here!)
Your pelvic floor forms the sling underneath all the other core muscles, so always be lifting your pelvic floor ‘upwards’ whenever you engage in other core exercises.
Avoid the mistake here of overworking the rectus abdominis and squeezing so hard into the tummy if your pelvic floor is weak as you can make the problem worse in this case, pushing the pelvic floor further down.
If you have ever fallen into the trap of focusing on every muscle in your body, like toning arms, legs, butt or even purely focused on weight loss and neglecting your ‘core’ as a main part of your exercise, then now is your chance to build your core once and for all and feel better for it.
One of my clients said it beautifully when she discovered her core strength. You see, she was super strong and toned but never really did core work (other than some situps where her hip flexors were over-activated anyway and no real core strength was built).
After a month or so at my program she said, ‘It’s like I’ve discovered the missing link to my whole body. I feel so much more balance, flexibility and better movement for all my other exercises now. I get why you have talked about this all the time Vanessa.’
Yep, I do talk about it alot because it’s important for all of us! Any age, male and female, any fitness level. Your core does matter.
And now you know why I sign off my blog posts as I do…
Power to your core,
Vanessa Bartlett xo
aka Pilates Police
Join me on social
0 Comments