New Thoughts on the Core

. But not until the last couple years did I start to rethink my approach. I follow well known strength coach Mike Boyle. He is an advocate of the core training approach I am about to mention to you.

When you look at the core one of the primary purposes involves the word anti. One of the current thoughts on the core is about anti rotation, anti flexion, anti extension. In other words the job of the core is to lock in that core area so that there is limited movement. Traditional core training actually trains the core for movement. Think about the sit up for example; you move right? What about the crunch, do you move your core muscles? Of course in both of those you use your core muscles to move. I am not saying the crunch is a bad exercise but it doesn’t really train the core like the facet I am referring to, anti movement.

So we know a purpose of the core is to stabilize the spine, and other areas of the lumbo pelvic hip region. We also know the core is there to stop rotation, flexion and extension movements-We call this stabilization. If stabilization is a goal then we need to train that way which means with limited movement of that area. To be clear I am not saying every core exercise should involve stabilization. But, as you approach your core training be sure to incorporate stabilization training so all your core training is not only sit ups, crunches, and v ups.

In part two of this series I will introduce some of the important exercises to lock in the core.