Core Blimey!

by
Alan Runacres
FCollP. FISM. BSc. Hons. DipHMan. MICM Dip
Director of Training
WABBA Qualifications
 

Now here’s a thought provoking article for Workout Readers! Why do trainers keep telling us that if you don’t (and I quote) “engage the core” the exercise ‘won’t work properly & give you any results’. How have we ever managed to train in the past without this wonderful piece of advice?

When it comes to any kind of resistance training with weights or your own bodyweight, muscles only grow stronger, bigger, or more toned over a period of time through muscular overload. This can happen in three ways, firstly by lifting a heavier weight, secondly by doing more repetitions with the same weight, and lastly, by targeting the muscle to be worked as directly as possible, rather than draining valuable energy into loads of surrounding muscle groups. 

If you are training your chest or your legs, or indeed any body part, forget about ‘engaging the core’ (there is a time and place for that later in this article, and later on in your workout too!) and put all your concentration into the muscle you are trying to work. Focus intensely on making every repetition count force the muscle to repeatedly contract to a point of fatigue by the end of the set, without having to worry about balance and falling over! Remember, while your mind is thinking about ‘can I keep my balance’ it’s not thinking about ‘is my muscle working properly’? If you divide your energy and concentration levels into 4 or 5 muscles at once you end up with 20% effort on each muscle, but if you place all your energy and concentration levels into 1 major muscle group at a time it gets 100% effort and overload leads to quicker and more noticeable results get the idea?

If you want more “Core Stability & Strength” then by all means let’s train for it, but let’s train for it properly! Use a variety of Oblique, Abdominal & Lower Back Exercises at the end of the workout session to specifically target these ‘Core Areas’. Studies show that abdominal crunches on a Swiss ball can work your abs harder than the same movement done on the floor, or when trying to ‘engage the abs’ during an exercise for another muscle group. Plank exercises will give ‘Static’ core strength, but not ‘Dynamic’ strength as there is no movement involved.

Strength athletes and Powerlifters can never be accused of having weak core muscles, yet never do specific ‘core exercises’. They do however train on the ‘king of lifts’, the Deadlift, which ironically is the best all round dynamic core stability & strength builder available as It utilizes the entire trunk as a major synergistical group during the movement. But please people, ensure the weight starts from, and returns to, the ground. Not off a bench as I have seen in some gyms recently, this limits the ROM and nullifies the effectiveness of the exercise! Powerlifters including myself would use blocks in certain instances to improve on ‘partial ranges of the movement’ (hence why this technique is called Partials) but this is for serious amounts of your 1RPM and not for building core stability & strength. Until next time, train the core. Spread the word and keep training real.

Author:  Alan Runacres has over 35yrs gym experience, been WABBA director of training for 14 yrs and is the author of 3 books, and over 100 published articles.

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