Core Strength for Whole-person Confidence
The core is the center of your body, the center of your whole person. It's where all the action takes place from digestion, elimination, circulation, as well as connection and intuition.
Your core muscles are the center of your ability to Move Well, with less strain and stress and greater strength and stability. Its the center of your ability to Rest Well and Nourish Well too. Restoring a healthy connection with your core is the key to moving through life with whole-person confidence.
Yet this part of the body is one of the most misunderstood. Your core is central to the care of your body. Before planning health goals, habits, and resolutions, this article is to help you know your core, and trust your core so you can be whole person healthy and well.
The Muscles of the Core
The core contains a group of muscles and connective tissue perfectly designed to provide stability and protection, while still maintaining mobility in the middle of the body. When they are working well, they allow you to move in a wide variety of ways with ease and confidence.
For your core to work well it needs to stabilize your center while you move. It is designed perfectly for this job. However, when these muscles are seen as individuals, not part of a team, and isolated rather than used together while you move, your whole body does not work well at all. The misinformation about how your functions and the results promised from core exercises can lead you down a detour to being strong and confident in yoru body.
Below I present the muscles of the core individually so you can visualize each member of this team but they are not meant to be isolated. I'll share the red flags 🚩 that can detour your best intentions to care for yoru body. I will provide the science-based truth about the function of your core muscles, so you can enjoy greater whole person strength and confidence as you start the new year.
The Movement Science and Marketing Science of Core Exercises
The pelvic floor is the floor of the core: The core is really a bowl of muscles and the pelvic floor muscles are the bottom of that bowl that holds everything up and in. Its job is to stabilize and support so the other muscles can do their job too.
🚩 Strengthening the pelvic floor. When the pelvic floor muscles are strengthened separately such as in Kegel exercises, they don't learn to be part of the team. That means that when the abdominal muscles contract during a sneeze or laugh, the bottom of the bowl falls out and we call that "stress incontinence". In reality, it is a lack of brain/body connection with these muscles and the rest of your core. When the pelvic floor muscles are part of the core contractions, the core muscles learn to work together and the pelvic floor stays strong, by incorporating them into strength exercises, not by isolating them.
The transverse abdominal muscle is the corset: This is the deep muscular support wrapping around the center of the body. Like a built-in back brace, this muscle is a foundation of stability and protection for your spine while in and out of your natural alignment.
🚩 Targeting belly fat. One of the biggest misconceptions about core exercises is that they will give you a flat, chiseled middle. We have exercises that target the love handles, muffin tops, and back fat. This concept of trimming your middle through core exercises is 100% marketing science and 0% body science. I wish it were true that you could do core exercises and slim your middle, but it is just not the way the body works. When you do an exercise, your body does not use the fat in the cells next to those muscle cells. It may feel like you are burning fat when your muscles are burning, so it's easy to believe those tough core workouts are targeting fat there. What fat stores your body use and how much is more complex than just moving certain muscles and burning more calories than you take in. We just dont have as much control over where our body burns fat as the media says we do. (sorry!) Click here to read the science-based solutions.
The rectus abdominis is the anchor: This muscle's job is to anchor the rib cage to keep it from lifting and overarching the back with movements such as reaching overhead. It's known as the "six-pack muscle", but its function is more important than its looks.
🚩 Sit-ups for a strong core. Sit-ups were invented to test fitness in large groups of people (ie: military). They were never meant to be an exercise to improve strength. The core muscles are not made to lift your body weight and flex the spine. Getting up from lying down in this way separates the connective tissue running between the core muscles, and puts extra pressure on the spine. Looking at the rectus abdominus it's easy to see how sit-ups could be thought of as a way to strengthen these muscles. Knowing the core muscles do not work in isolation to move your torso, but together, to stabilize your center, it is clear sit-ups, crunches or any core exercise that flexes your spine does not build muscle memory for stability while moving your arms and legs. Think about it, babies dont do sit-ups to strengthen their core. Your body already knows sit-ups and exercises that mimic this movement will not give you a strong core.
The obliques are the side stabilizers: The internal and external obliques' job is to stabilize your torso. When used correctly, provide important stability when your body is off balance. Their secondary job is to support the rotation of the spine, but stability is their main role in the team of core muscles.
🚩 Get rid of love handles. The obliques can be ‘strengthened’ with twisting motions like twists, oblique crunches, Roman twists, or the obliques machine at the gym. When the spine is in a rotated position, it is in its weakest position. Adding speed and resistance to this movement makes the spine more vulnerable to injury and less likely to do its main job of stabilizing when off balance. Plus since you cannot choose where your body burns fat, rotating the spine to burn off love handles has a low return on your investment in time and energy. We need to be able to rotate the spine for function in daily life. Mindfully doing rotation can improve both mobility and strength, but for love handles, and other areas of belly fat, use movement science-based solutions.
The Transversospinalis are a tether: This muscle group runs on either side of the spine in the back of your body. They are thin and long, designed to support the other core muscles in doing their job.
🚩 Improve back strength There are exercises and machines to strengthen these muscles, however, they are still designed as part of the core team. Most of the time, back pain is caused by overusing these muscles in daily life. When you sit or stand with a rounded back you are asking the tiny Transversospinalis muscles to do most of the work to hold you up. Back pain is often these muscles screaming "I am not designed to hold you up, please stop over-using us!". When you shift into your natural alignment and pain is reduced, these muscles are saying “Ahhh, thank you! Now we can recharge so we can support your core”. For more science-based information about back pain click here.
Trust Your Core, Reconnect to Your Natural Strength
What we know about how to exercise is highly influenced by what is marketable rather than what is movement science-based. When doing an exercise involves moving your body in ways it is not designed to move by isolating muscles or to "target problem areas" like belly fat, your brain disconnects from what your body knows. Over time this can reduce the ability to hear the messages from your body about how to move well.
Muscle isolation is used by bodybuilders to create a certain look in their body, not to improve function. Muscle isolation is used in physical therapy to strengthen weak links. However, once these muscles are back online, they need to be re-wired into the symphony of muscle actions that create movement.
As you listen to and see all kinds of exercises online, and are offered solutions to the "problem" of belly fat, back pain, or a weak pelvic floor, base your decisions about what to do on the way you are designed. Listen to your body. If it does not feel good, your body is trying to tell you something. If it does not not align with movement science principles, its not worth your time.
Keep your core as the center of your strength and stability for moving your whole body. The first step is to rewire the muscle memory, the brain-body connection that coordinates these muscles to work together to support your middle.
Click here to view an excerpt from the Start Well Program where I show you how to use your core for support.
By avoiding the red flags that are based on misinformation about your core, and rewiring this muscle memory for using the core as designed, to support while using your body, you restore connection and trust in a vital part of your whole-person health.
Share this with someone you know who wants to celebrate December in the Well State.
Why wait until January? Be Well Now!
Exercising Well is so much more than an exercise program. It's a pathway to rewiring mindsets so you know how to Be Well Now. This is a short-term program that gives you lifelong skills for moving well, nourishing well, and resting well. Move on with confidence in your self-motivation skills. even when you are limited by pain, medical issues, stress, or lack of time.
