When most people think of training the core, they usually think of doing crunches. While crunches are a great way to strengthen your abdominal muscles, they are only a small part of the equation. Most of your core muscles lie deep within your torso. They generally attach to the spine, pelvis and muscles that support your shoulder blades. These muscles work to stabilize your torso and create a solid base of support.
A strong core improves your sports performance and decreases your chances of injury. Training your core muscles also can improve your posture. The biggest benefit of core training is to develop functional fitness - that is, fitness that is essential to both daily living and regular activities.
Contract Your Transverse Abdominus
Core training begins with learning to contract your transverse abdominus (TA) muscle effectively, because this is the key muscle in supporting your torso. The TA muscle is located beneath your rectus abdominus (the “6-pack” muscle you see on fitness models).
To learn to contract your TA, lie on your back with knees bent. Keeping your back naturally curved, breathe in deeply and relax all your stomach muscles. As you breathe out, draw your lower abdomen inwards as if your belly button is going back towards the floor. Hold the contraction for 10 seconds and stay relaxed, allowing yourself to breathe in and out as you hold the tension in your lower stomach area. Repeat 5-10 times.
Once you have mastered this contraction lying on your back, practice it lying on your front, four-point kneeling, sitting and standing. In each position get your back straight before you perform the contraction.
Having learned to recruit the TA muscle correctly in various positions, which can take anything from one session to one month or more, it is time to revisit your crunches. You will find they will hurt you on a whole new level once you engage that TA muscle.
Fly Like Superman
Also known as a prone back extension, the Superman is a great lower back exercise that helps balance out abdominal training. Lie face down on the floor with your arm stretched out directly overhead (like Superman flying, hence the name). Raise your arms, chest and legs off the floor and hold it there for 2 seconds and squeeze. Lower yourself back to the ground and repeat. You can make this exercise a little easier by alternately lifting your opposite arms and legs off the ground.
Although this exercise is great for improving lower back mobility and reducing lower back pain resulting from poor posture, I need to leave you with this cautionary note: if you have lower back pain, consult a physician before attempting this exercise.
Use a Stability Ball
Rather than isolating a specific joint as in most weight lifting exercises, stability ball exercises focus on working the deep muscles of the entire torso at once. So try your crunches on a stability ball.
Sit on a stability ball and walk your feet forward until your shoulder blades are resting on the ball. Keep your hips up in the air and in line with your chest (think flat like a table top), and contract your glutes and TA to stabilize yourself on the ball. Place your arms across your chest and raise your shoulder blades off the ball, lifting your chest towards the ceiling. Lower yourself slowly downwards (never release your abs and let gravity bring you back down).
To increase intensity, you can place your fingertips behind your ears, raise your arms above your head, bring your feet closer together, and/or keep the stability ball under your mid-back instead of under your shoulder blades.
There are countless other core exercises you can perform on the stability ball. In fact, you can also perform exercises that strengthen your arms and legs on the stability ball, which means that your core muscles will be engaged during the exercise as well. Consult your local bookstore or library for books that cover stability ball training exercises.
Balance on a Wobble Board
Whenever you work on exercises that require you to balance, your body is recruiting the use of your core muscles to keep you from falling over. Try standing on a wobble board and tilting the board in a controlled fashion from left to right, front to back. You can work up to rotating the board in a circular pattern, then to other exercises like pushups or kneeling on the board.
The best part about exercises on a wobble board is that they’re fun. They can add variety to your workouts and keep them interesting.
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the core of everyday life
Your core muscles are the foundation for all the movements you perform from playing sports to carrying groceries. Countless books and magazine articles promise great abs, and though many of them have terrific exercises that I believe in, they're of little use unless they are done in conjunction with exercises aimed at integrating your entire core.