Tag Archives: core training

Want a strong core? Skip the 3- minute plank

Posted on by


Recently, I walked by a packed evening kettlebell class, a room full of participants doing a terrific plank variation—slowly sliding a heavy weight in front of them from left to right, and vice versa. A plank is one of the gold standards for working the core in which you assume and hold a position. Sit-ups and crunches are no longer the norm for a great set of abs. Traditional core training sought to isolate a single area, such as the six-pack, which is problematic.

All movement originates through the core. The core is an integral part of the protective mechanism that relieves the spine of harmful forces during activities. Deep stabilizing muscles allow a protective mechanism for posture control and athletic performance.

The main reason sit-ups don’t help you is that they can damage the spine. The traditional sit-up, writes Dr. Stuart McGill in “Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance,” imposes about 730 pounds of compression on the spine. Those participants in the evening workout were shown ways to retire old concepts and learn from a great coach, in her presentation of fresher research: plank variations.

Secondly, planks recruit a balance of muscle from the front, sides and back of the body, as the core goes far beyond a six-pack. Even though Cher boasts about holding a three-minute plank, you don’t need to hold a plank that long. There are better ways to get strong. Once you can perform a 20-, 30- or 60-second plank, you can advance from a stability level to light loads and additional stimulus in a plank.

Here are two simple stability tests to determine your core strength before you add additional stimulus, as in that kettlebell class.

Forearm plank, 20 seconds

Forearm plank. All photos by Connie Aronson
  • Lie on the floor, with the feet flexed, toes towards the shins, and the elbows and forearms under the chest area. To begin, lift the body off the floor in a position in which the arms are perpendicular to the floor, and the elbows directly under your shoulders, hands under your face.
  • Brace the core, lock the knees and tighten the glutes.
  • Have a friend or partner place a long stick or broomstick in line with your spine.
  • Start the clock only when you are in straight body alignment.
  • Hold for 20 seconds.

Fail is any part of the body sagging away from the stick.

Pass is if your torso remains in full contact with the stick for 20 seconds without any noticeable quivering.

Anti-rotation Bird Dog

  • In a kneeling position with hands on the floor, have a friend or partner place a stick or broomstick in line with your spine.
  • To begin, raise the right arm up and extend it parallel to the floor.
  • Simultaneously raise the left leg up and extend it backward, also parallel to the floor.
  • Touch both the arm and foot back under the body to touch left elbow to right knee.
  • Return to the fully extended position for six repetitions. Repeat on the other side.

Fail is if at any point during the test, the body sags away from the stick, or it rolls off the back.

Pass is if you the body is in contact with the stick, and control is maintained throughout the test.

Straight arm plank with feet elevated

Example of an advanced plank, with increased involvement of the stabilizing muscles of the core.

Check out Idaho Mt. Express –

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-want-a-strong-core-skip-the-3-minute-plank/article_72f3c06c-ded5-11ed-aea5-7f0302c07a5a.html

Five everyday movements you need

Featured

Posted on by

Good habits contribute to optimum health. When it comes to your health, preventing injuries in any sport or activity you enjoy is crucial. No one likes being injured. With a New Year fast approaching, here are five injury-preventing moves to help you get fit without getting hurt. Whether you are a seasoned athlete, or just want to stay in shape, incorporate these moves into your day.

Activate the Core

Include daily core exercises! The core muscles help stabilize the spine and support movement. The following 2 core exercises activate the core in different ways to help initiate all movement, and contribute to strength capacity.

Side Lying Hip Lift

Side Lying Hip Lift -The core muscles help stabilize the spine and support movement.

• Lying on your right side with knees bent (or straight for advanced variation), place right elbow under right shoulder. Push shoulder away from ear to engage shoulder girdle ) .

• Avoid letting rib cage slump toward floor; maintain natural curve of spine.

• Exhale and lift right hip off of floor, and hold for 3 counts.

• Slowly lower to start. 10-12 reps. Switch sides

Heel-on-Toe Crunch

• Begin with your legs straight, left heel on top of right foot.

• Bring left hand behind your head for support, and lift right arm straight up from shoulder.

• Curl up, raising head, neck and shoulders blades off mat, tightening abdominals.

• Slowly return to start position. 10 reps. Switch sides.

Stretch tight hamstrings

Stretch tight hamstrings -Photo by Connie Aronson

Tightness in the back of your legs may be a sign of instability in your core, causing the leg muscles to overwork and shorten. As well, hamstrings are an important muscle to stretch if you have back pain, as they attach to the pelvis, which attaches to the back. An excellent move to ease the tension and strengthen your torso is the inverted hamstring stretch. This move engages your core muscles to help keep you balanced.

• Stand on your left leg with your arms extended to the sides.

• Extend your right leg behind you while hinging your torso forward, keeping your back straight, and slowly return to standing.

• Do 5 reps each side

Foam Roller Alignment

Foam Roller Alignment- Photo by Connie Aronson

We’re all guilty of bending forward while scrolling on our phones, resulting in a “forward head.” For every inch that your head is forward there’s 10 more pounds of pressure on the neck. Reset your alignment by lying on a foam roller.  Lengthening the lumbar erector spinal muscles helps encourage neutral alignment.

• With your knees bent, lie on a roller, head supported and neck in a neutral position.

• Tighten the abdominals.

• Gently roll side to side for 20-30 seconds

The Sock Test

Losing your balance as you get older is no joke. Research has shown that the ability to stand on one foot drastically decreases after the age of 60, along with a rapid increase of falls and injury. The ability to stand on one leg is imperative for gait and function.

The sock test takes the move a step further, and is a fun challenge to build strength capacity and balance.

• Holding a sock, stand on one leg, knee slightly bent.

• Bring your leg up towards you as you put your sock on

• Lower the leg to the floor and repeat with your left foot.

Include these movements, everyday, if you can, to stay fit and supple. Happy healthy New Year!

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-five-everyday-movements-you-need/article_35aaaaf4-86d3-11ed-83e5-6b842192aaff.html

Fix your back pain; don’t forget your glutes

Posted on by
Through proper exercise, movement, and posture, you can help low back pain.

Kevin Mullins, a master instructor for Equinox Sports Club in Washington, D.C. understands low-level chronic back pain and found three recurring issues that personal trainers can address with their clients. Excess bodyweight, sedentary lifestyles, and improper exercise selection, are areas a trainer can help a client with, all factors having a correlation to low back pain. It is estimated that over 84 % of the population will experience an episode of LBP, from children to the elderly, at some time during life.

As well, age, stress, occupational factors, lack of flexibility or hyper-mobility, sports, postural habits, and smoking are other contributing factors.

Recovering from low back pain is a long complex road. If you are in pain, but not dealing with any diagnosed or diagnosed medical issue, you fall into the category of mechanical low back pain, or LBP.

Unlike a car, says Dr. McGill, one of the most widely respected spine researchers in the world, where you change one thing and it’s fixed, fixing a back is different. Back pain is more complicated and is much more than just fixing one part. Because, McGill notes, it comes down to cold hard science.

How the  spine functions and it’s relationship the rest of the body is the key to being free of back pain. Through proper exercise, movement, and posture, even disc bulges can be made less painful, and usually pain-free, he notes. 

Of course it’s hard to stick to a program if you are in pain. You lose the very conditioning that could help treat LBP, or even more frustrating, gain unwanted weight.That extra weight is the number one reason clients turn to a trainer, with or without low back pain. Healing starts to occur when you keep the bigger picture in mind; a good diet,adequate sleep, and a matched activity/ training program.

Tip #1 The Big Picture 

A traditional strength training can improve strength and muscle mass. Overall body strength as well as a daily walking regime are important part of a client’s program to become free of back pain.

Tip #2  Bend at the hips, rather than the spine 

There is a direct correlation between posture and pain. You can reduce episodes of back pain by reminding yourself to bend at the hips, which is a ball and socket joint, not the back. The spine does bend, but repeated spine bending, whether it’s picking up a weight in the gym, or swinging a kettlebell, could eventually lead to delaminations in the layers of the discs. Someone swinging a kettlebell, along with their back, instead of stabilizing the spine while doing so, to protect the spine, risks further trauma to an already sensitive back. When you’re performing squats, for example, sink your hips back towards your heels, like sitting onto a low park bench. Keep your eyes forward. Use your hips rather than round your back.

Tip #3  Rethink the core 

To enhance back fitness, you need a strong focus on core strength, as theses muscles play a protective role. The internal and external obliques, transverse and rectus abdominals, and the erector spinae are arranged around the spine and act as guy wires to allow the spine to control movement, bear loads  and facilitate breathing. But all too often you see good athletes and gym members entirely focused on just the rectus abdominis, commonly known as the “6 pack”. If we go back to our car analogy, focusing on only one part won’t solve back pain.

The core musculature extends to the entire body,  from the upper back down to the pelvis, not just the 6 pack.The lats, trapezius, the gluteals, hamstrings, hip flexors and inner and outer thighs all have an impact on the spine. 

Typically what happens with someone experiencing low back pain, is that that pain hasn’t allowed them to adequately train. The outcome is weaker core and gluteal muscles. This is where science comes in.

To see how important the glutes are for strength, try this exercise; Stand on one leg and balance. Then sink your hips back slightly, behind your heel, and see how much more stable standing on one leg feels. This is a great demonstration of the role the gluteals play regarding core strength.

Your progression, with an awareness on good movement patterns, including planks, back rows, squats and bridges, for example, should be aimed at strengthening more and more of your whole body, back to health.

( edited )https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_d44c4e26-d581-11e9-bddf-b7175436d170.html
F

Why Full Sit-ups Can Back-fire

Posted on by

Core training is the foundation of great athletic performance, whether you’re a seasoned pro or week-end warrior. The core consists of the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex, and the thoracic and cervical spine-not just “abs”. 29 muscles attach to this powerhouse allowing   efficient acceleration, deceleration, and stabilization during dynamic movement. The abdominal wall, part of the core, is like an anatomical corset which also includes the deep transversus abdominis, which are below your belly button, internal obliques, the lumbar multifidus, pelvic floor muscles and the diaphragm. In any athletic move, these muscles work together, like a large stable column, to fire quickly and efficiently. This core, the body’s stabilization system, is like a good foundation on a home: if it’s not built right, the house will have problems somewhere down the road. In the gym, for example, someone lying on a weight bench lifting a bar for a chest press might have their lower back several inches arched in the air, demonstrating an inefficient core. So there is some misunderstanding of what kind of ab exercises work best to keep your mid-section strong .The full sit-up, for example, can place devastating loads on your spine. Simply modifying the sit-up to a partial curl-up, with the head and shoulders lifting a few inches off the floor, would be better.

In a New York Times article last month, titled Core Myths, the belief that the core means only the abs was challenged, for there is no science behind the idea. Stuart McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics and chair of the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo in Canada, compares the spine to a fishing rod supported by muscular guy wires. If all the wires are tensed equally, as in the whole lumbo-pelvic –hip complex, the rod stays straight. A core exercise program should emphasize all the muscles that girdle the spine, not just the abs, to ensure balanced strength. In his lab, he’s demonstrated how an average sit-up can exceed the limit known to increase the risk of back injury in normal American workers. In fact, in 1991, the safety of the full sit-up test was deemed no longer recommended for school-aged children as a means to test their abs. Instead, the partial curl was recommended.        

The full sit-up is 3 muscle actions: neck flexion, spine flexion, and hip flexion. It’s important to be able to sit up, no doubt, but repeated sit-ups   can place hundreds of pounds of compression on the lumbar disks. Hooking or holding the feet down places even greater stresses to the low back. Ironically, the bent knee sit-up has been taught to minimize the action of the hip flexor in the sit-up, though it is not correct. The abs can only curl the trunk. The sit-up is a strong hip flexor exercise whether the knees are bent or straight.

 Instead of full sit-ups, research shows that although there is no ideal exercise for each individual, the traditional crunch, or many variations of a curl-up, with the head and shoulders lifting a few inches off the floor, holding briefly, is a good exercise to challenge the abdominal muscles while imposing a minimal load to the lumbar spine. Speed of movement has an impact also. In The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research May 2008, curl-up speeds were shown to have a significant impact on spinal loads, and that the combination of slow and moderately controlled speeds  is generally recommended for health and fitness programs. In their opinion, at the competitive level, coaches can choose fast explosive trunk exercises, but to also aim for a more varied program that includes trunk endurance, strength and good motor patterns that ensure spinal stability.

McGill says that 3 exercises, done regularly, can provide a well-rounded core stability program: practice the curl-ups, learn how to do a side-plank (lie on your side and raise yourself in a straight line, and the “bird dog” (from all fours, hands and knees, you raise an alternate arm and leg level  for 4 or 6 seconds) .

 

 Connie Aronson is an ACSM Health & Fitness Specialist in Ketchum, Idaho

Printed in the Idaho Mountain Express August 28, 2009