Why are Core Strength & Stability so Important?

Core strength is a term that is used often, but I am not sure that it’s well-explained WHAT it is, and WHY it’s important.  Core strength and stability ARE so vital in keeping your spine, particularly the lower back, healthy and pain free throughout your life, and I hope my explanation here will inspire you to give more time to your tummy toughness!

In the fitness world, there are many types of exercise, techniques and systems that work on developing strength, power, flexibility, coordination, agility, and resiliency - and yet I think that THE most important component of fitness to develop before all of these is STABILITY. When the joints of the spine, shoulders and knees, are stable, you can develop every other factor of fitness (power, strength, flexibility, etc) more SAFELY. Knee, shoulder, and  spinal injuries often occur in people who are very strong externally, who have a lot of power, but whose deeper muscles, that function to stabilize the joint, are not very strong or active. Likewise, people who work to develop their flexibility can do so to excess and impair the integrity of their joints, which can cause chronic instability and pain.

It is often the smaller, forgotten muscles surrounding the joints that are involved in stabilisation, and the exercises that target these muscles often require bringing mindfulness to HOW the body is moving, which is not always easy if your main activity is a sport, like golf, tennis, or soccer, or is a demanding training regimen that focuses on developing external strength, as can happen with weight training or even with vigorous yoga practices.

All the joints of the body have a certain safe range of motion, and our tendons and ligaments help to preserve that. But they can’t do the whole job on their own. They need these deeper muscles to help stabilise the joints as well if we really want to prevent injuries, and if we want to keep our joints in good shape so we can stay active for our entire lifetimes.

Core stability is actually a big topic that involves several muscle groups acting in concert,  but here I will just focus on the the deepest layer of the abdominal muscles, the transverse abdominals, which wrap around the whole abdomen, hold the abdominal contents in, and help to stabilise the spine, particularly the lower back. Core strength and stability are vital in preventing and  reducing low back pain. For example, when we pick up something heavy, or are pushing or throwing something with a lot of force, we need our  core muscles to help stabilise the spine and manage the load, so the discs and the ligaments of the spine are not overloaded and strained.

Our core muscles do get stronger with many daily activities, but as we spend more time sitting, often in a bad posture, these core muscles are not stimulated and they start to get lazy. Then we reach to pick up the trash bag and we instantly feel a ‘pop’ in our lower back, because the core muscles have not been used to firing. Often, when we strain something in the lower back, all of the muscles sieze up. This is an attempt to ‘brace’ the spine, and is actually a good short term, emergency strategy. But there is a better way. If we make developing core stability a regular habit, we can maintain our strength and our mobility, and not fear moving.

Also, our culture often places excessive value the superficial aspect of things - including the development of physical fitness. We can become out of balance when we spend too much energy on developing our outer strength, and not our inner strength. With core training, we not only improve our inner strength, we can learn how to take care of ourselves from the inside out. We can learn to value how we feel, and not just how we look - although I would argue that strengthening from the inside out will make you look great too :)

 When our core is strong, we can move with more confidence, and we don’t need to tense the outer body so much. We can relax on the outside, trusting that we are strong on the inside, and this is a wonderful feeling.

 My latest Youtube video leads you through a safe, effective core stabilisation exercise. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YD5e6dpIMc