At LivLimitless, we exercise many different muscles to do many different things.
One set of muscles that sometimes gets ignored or sometimes undervalued is the core muscles.
That’s right your abs are for more than just looking sweet with your shirt off. Your core also consists of more than just your abs, it consists of all the muscles all the way around your midsection from your sternum to your pelvic region, including your back and sides.
You use your core muscles in just about every movement we do, from back squat to pull-ups, you just may not realize it. In movements such as the power lifts your core supports your upper body and keeps you in a good tight position as you squat, deadlift, and press.
If you’ve ever done a heavy squat and suddenly noticed that your leaning forward more than you should its probably because your core was loose. Powerlifting with a weak or loose core is taking the combined weight of your upper body and the barbell and trying to support with a column that shifts like sand or jello.
In addition to being a support column, your core muscles also act as a transmission in essentially every movement we do. This is because they are incredibly powerful and effective. We use our hips to get an incredible amount of work done. Your hips power everything from kipping pull-ups to wall balls to clean and jerks.
However, have you ever considered how that power travels from your hips to the medicine ball or the barbell? The power that you create when you snap your hips in a heavy clean must travel through your core. Once again trying to get enough hip pop to throw a one rep max load overhead with a loose or weak core is like trying to translate that force through sand or jello.
That means that a pretty good bit of the power will dissipate before it reaches where it needs to go.
So what does all this talk of core stability and sand jello have to do with you?
It’s simple, everyday when you are going through your movements, focus on keeping your core tight.
Also in workouts that have some sort of core movement such as toes to bar or sit-ups, focus on doing those movements correctly and doing the harder version of the movement if possible. Proper movement will lead to quicker, and better results.
Lastly, don’t skip movements like squats, wall balls, overhead squats, deadlifts, all of those things develop your core. In fact, most of the movements that we do that are hard, also develop your core, so skipping workouts because you’re not good at a movement is a surefire way to stagnate progress.
If you feel like your core is abnormally weak, or you feel like you need extra work talk to a coach. Don’t just jump on the GHD and go until you can no longer move your midsection.
What is your favorite direct core movement? Least favorite?
Did you realize how much you used your core before reading this article?
