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Core strength training is beneficial for a cartload of reasons. The author of The Complete Guide To Core Training tells us that the core muscles are involved in every form of physical activity. Whether you’re whipping up a sweat during a spin session, suffering through a circuits class, or competing in a CrossFit event, your core is quietly keeping you in the game.
Beyond the pursuit of pure fitness, strengthening the core can improve performance in many sporting disciplines. This explains why coaches are integrating more core exercises into their athletes’ training routines.
You might be wondering how it’s possible that training one area of the body can deliver such a broad range of diverse benefits. How can core training, for example, improve a powerlifter’s snatch technique while enhancing the effectiveness of a golfer’s swing?
Though these are completely different sports, the fundamentals of each action share several similarities. Snatching a heavy barbell and swinging a super-light golf club both require balance, coordination and precision body control. The slightest slip during either movement could have a massive impact on the end result. In the case of the powerlifter, it could be a failed lift. For the golfer, it could cause them to fall short of the green.
This logic can just as well be applied to any other activity. All resistance and cardio exercises rely on balance and coordination. The benefits derived from core strength training can even help make everyday tasks and household chores easier.
Core strength training
To help you tap into the benefits associated with a stronger core, I’ve compiled a list of training tips. Once you master the key techniques of a selection of core strength training exercises, you’ll no doubt want to integrate them into your workouts. As with everything, there’s a right and wrong way to do this.
The following simple tips can help you avoid making common mistakes while enabling you to maximise the fitness-enhancing benefits of core strength training.
Core strength training tip #1: Technique!
Prioritise the application of safe techniques. Performing an exercise incorrectly puts you at risk of incurring an injury. In the NSCA’s Guide To Strength Training, ‘poor form’ is identified as one of the most common causes of exercise-related injury.
With that said, your first priority is to ensure that you can competently and safely perform any core exercise that you include in your workouts. But that’s not so easy for those who don’t have the luxury of a personal trainer or exercise at home. How do you master the key techniques without an instructor?
One simple way is to use these core exercise tutorials to start acquiring the basic movements. When learning a new exercise, it’s helpful to break it down into sections. (For example, the first section of stability ball roll-ins would simply be getting your body into the right position.) Once you have split an exercise into its constituent parts, work on each section separately before piecing it back together.
Another effective way of improving technical performance is to video yourself while practising an exercise. Using either your mobile phone or an iPad, record your technique. Then compare it to these core exercise teaching descriptions or an online tutorial.
Essential training kit: Improve core strength with a BOSU Ball >
Core strength training tip #2: Workout structure
It’s good practice to position core stability exercises early on in your workout. (This advice should be applied to all complex compound lifts as well.) The justification for this tip is outlined in the NSCA’s Guide to Tactical Strength & Conditioning. The authors note that core strength exercises are typically technically challenging. Technically challenging exercises put us at greater risk of incurring an injury.
To ensure that correct form is applied, such exercises are best performed when we are least fatigued – which is at the start of a training session. Of course, when our muscles are fresh, we have more energy available. And more energy means we can maintain better control throughout the full range of movement.
An additional reason for placing multi-joint exercises at the start of a routine is that this is when we have the most mental energy. Toward the end of a workout, we start to switch off. When our focus weakens so will the quality of our technique. As we discussed above, poor technique is a precursor of injury.
While this cannot be avoided completely (more’s the pity), paying heed to Tip #2 will certainly reduce the risk. Here’s an example of a session plan (and core dumbbell workout to try).
Related: Ready to try this Kettlebell Core Workout?
Core strength training tip #3: Warm-up
As I explain in the article Why warm up before a workout?, warming up is arguably the most important part of any training session. In his book, The Complete Guide to Sports Training, Jon Shepherd outlines scientific studies showing a strong link between warming and a reduced risk of injury. Athletes that warm up for 5 to 10 minutes as part of their training routine, suffered significantly fewer muscle strains.
And even though the studies were conducted on semi-professional footballers, the benefit translates to other sports and exercise disciplines. The logic runs as follows.
Warm muscles are more flexible and thus can travel through a wider range of motion. In addition to preparing muscles for the demands of exercise, a warm-up improves focus and concentration. When it comes to the execution of correct techniques, these are indispensable factors.
Other benefits of warming up include:
Increased joint mobility
Increased blood flow throughout the body
Increased aerobic metabolism
Elevated core temperature
Decreased lactic acid production
Increased maximum power output
Improved mental focus and training motivation
(List adapted from Watson’s – Physical Fitness & Athletic Performance – pp. 79/80.)
Core strength training tip #4: Don’t over train
Also on the NSCA’s hit list of exercise-related injury risk factors is overtraining. Defined as training an area of the body too frequently and/or not providing adequate time for recovery, overtraining prevents tissues from fully repairing after exercise. Over time, the damage to muscles, ligaments and tendons accumulates. As well as impairing performance, this increases the chance of suffering a pull, strain or tear.
If you regularly participate in sport and exercise, you’ll be engaging the core multiple times throughout the week already. As I said in the introduction, the core is involved in almost every physical activity.
To avoid overtraining the core muscles, we should aim for around two weekly core-specific sessions. Each session need not last longer than 15 minutes. To ensure that all the core muscles are targeted, workouts should be comprised of different exercises. Core training can consist of standalone sessions – where we focus exclusively on the core – or integrated naturally into our general routine.
Below, I’ve put together a basic core strength training program for you to try. The program consists of a mix of three non-specific fitness workouts and two core-specific workouts. Of course, the program is completely modifiable. So don’t hesitate to adapt it to suit your current regime.
Core strength program
Structure of the core
The core is comprised of several muscles. They encase the spine and abdominal organs like the layers of a leek. Together, they enable us to perform many functions – from the facilitation of bowel movements to complex powerlifting exercises such as the clean and jerk.
But in terms of the number of actions the core muscles support, we’ve not even peeled back the first layer. (Think of the incredible control of a judoka, the grace and dexterity of a ballet dancer, and the statue-like poise of a surfer as they ride the riptide. Couldn’t be done without the core.)
Now we’ve explored some of the associative benefits of a stronger core, let me quickly introduce you to the primary muscles that comprise it.
Core muscles
Rectus abdominus is an outer layer of the core that, for a lucky few, is visibly identifiable. If you keep up your cardio training, abstain from ultra-processed food, and include plenty of leg raises and flutter kicks into your workouts, you too will be able to flaunt a sleek six-pack poolside. This muscle does more than confer aesthetic appeal. The rectus abdominus enables us to flex the spine and depress the rib cage while improving stability when walking or running.
External (and internal) obliques are a lattice work-like structure of muscle that fans out from the iliac crest up to our lower eight ribs. The obliques support abdominal compression in addition to facilitating lateral rotations (twisting movements).
Transverse abdominus is a tightly packed section of muscle that helps ‘support the abdominal viscera against the pull of gravity,’ (Concise Book of Muscles). Which is a technical way of saying that it keeps your guts in place. An added bonus of the transverse abdominus is that it aids lateral rotation, side bending, and upright stability – when seated and in motion.
Quadratus lumborum is a small muscle deeply nestled in the inner core. It originates at the iliac crest and spans four lumbar vertebrae. Yet though seemingly a minor muscle, the quadratus lumborum boasts a mighty range of actions. According to the Concise Book of Muscles, it laterally flexes the lower vertebrae collum (facilitating pelvic tilt – such as when performing the cat stretch), stabilises the diaphragm (which apparently helps singers exercise voice control), extends part of the vertebrae collum as well as providing lateral stability.
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About Adam Priest –
A former Royal Marines Commando, Adam Priest is a content writer, college lecturer, and health and fitness coach. He is also a fitness author and contributor to other websites. Connect with Adam at info@hungry4fitness.co.uk.
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