Core Training: Training for Everyone
The accumulation of belly fat is the main source of body anxiety. Core training is everywhere. It’s not just a fitness class but training for everyone. Whether it is young people who notice lower back pain after sitting for a long time or even more, middle-aged and older adults, core training can ensure the continuation of high-quality living conditions. It is also suitable for mothers who have just finished giving birth and need postpartum repair. Core training has a crucial role in adjusting body composition and improving physical health. Body fat percentage is an essential component of body composition. So it can be analyzed easily using the latest software technology of 3D body scanner like Visbody.
Know your core
The core is the abdominal muscles and a collection of skeletal muscles in the center of the torso. They conduct power and support the human body to complete daily activities. You may need to coordinate your pelvis and hip muscles when you are standing and walking. When you conduct squats and deadlifts, you need to transmit lift from your feet to the upper limb straps. This is because you are using the core of your body.
But many practices make core training quite limited. For example, the core training is used as abdominal muscle training for crunching, plank support, and high leg raising. Functional training using wave balls and elastic bands endorse core training, and even spine hyperextension, abuse of unstable planes. The concept of core training is expanding the risk of injury.
Any training is core training
Core training is most related to daily “running, jumping, and standing”. However, the human body differs from reptiles, and the lumbar spine’s principal injury is due to the weakness of the spine muscles.
Second, the core is the driving force for completing fitness exercises. Regardless of the definition of ACSM’s exercise chain or the abdominal breathing in the strength training, the three items of the core muscle group realize the embodiment of muscle force transmission.
It is even said that TRX, battle ropes, and other sports that need to maintain core stability and the core’s effect on deep muscles in group classes actually reflect that core training is one of the elements of fitness exercise. So essentially, any training is core training.
What is Core?
The concept of core originated from rehabilitation sciences. In 1985, the concept of spine stability was first proposed and evolved into the idea of core stability. It’s the ability to maintain the central region of the intervertebral area within the limit. In China, the “four sub-system structure” was also proposed. “Model” takes the four significant factors of nerves, muscles, skeletal ligaments, and respiratory regulation as factors that affect core stability.
In more detail, many academic journals have defined the core of the body anatomically as the lumbopelvic-hip complex LPHC. The center of gravity of the entire body is the core part and the starting point of all exercises.
Core training
As for the core, training extends the different perspectives of general physical training, competitive sports, and sports rehabilitation. For example, in general, in physical training, NASM proposes advanced training of stability, strength. It burst based on the best performance training model OPT Model, from maintaining static spine, isometric muscle contraction to completing the spine, extension, and lateral flexion. Rotating dynamic strength training and then transitioning to explosive exercises that increase the rate of movement productivity.
Competitive sports
In competitive sports, experts pointed out in the “Sports Science” that core stability needs to be adjusted in time. According to external forces, emphasized the importance of exercise breathing, coordinated with movements to increase intra-abdominal pressure, and improved stability the lumbar spine and trunk. Experts in the “Journal of Physical Education” also combined specific characteristics to elaborate the branch structure of core training.
Sports rehabilitation
From sports rehabilitation, “Medical Hypotheses” discusses solutions to LBP low back pain. It works on the basis of the theory of the proponent of spine stability Panjabi.
There are different core training methods, but all focuses on make the body more stable in “running, jumping, and standing”. With the promotion of core training, core training is not a tiny enthusiasm in the fitness field. For example, core training as fitness category ranks in top 20 in the ACSM2019 and 2020 China Fitness Trends Survey.
Fitness class
But under the heat, core training seems to be developing into a limited fitness class.
The theory that “core training is to train the abdomen and lower back muscles” is not uncommon. Some online course platforms and offline group exercise courses use “core stimulation, core fat-burning” as the course content, although there is an improvement in user proprioception. However, to a large extent, it weakens the real training purpose of core training for improving athletic performance.
As an element of functional training, core training seems to be the exclusive noun for gadgets such as wave speedballs, elastic bands, medicine balls, etc. It is pointed out in the article “The Origin and Status of Core Training” of the Sports Science Forum, The use of small tools for training on unstable planes, unilateral movements, and static confrontation training is dominating. On the contrary, barbells and dumbbells are not common. The body fat percentage should be calculated regularly when doing core exercises. The overall body composition scale can be effectively measured through the method of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA).
Core training is not easy
Finally, there are unreasonable advancements in core sports, which may be risky for the general public to improve physical fitness. For example, in the book “Functional Training in Sports” by Michael Boyle, it is proposed that most people’s torso does not require additional rotation range for movements. So training, including dynamic bent-leg torso rotation, straight-legged abdomen rotation, etc., is unnecessary for everyone. It is to be able to control the scope of their existing activities. Hence, core training is not as simple as a fitness class.
Core Training Everywhere
Essentially, any training is core training. At least in terms of human anatomy, the lumbar spine, which is highly vulnerable to injury, is the reason for the need to complete specific core training based on daily activities.
The human lumbar spine, almost perpendicular to the ground, bears greater weight pressure than reptiles with limbs. Unlike the thoracic spine, which has ribs and sternum support, and the hip joint, which has the pelvis as a pillar, the lumbar spine is more dependent on the surrounding muscles. The group comes to protect and complete the functional anatomy.
According to the principle, it’s clear that there have been more “crawling therapies” in China to try to treat lumbar intervertebral disc injuries. Similarly, in a statistical study on chronic diseases in China published by Springer Plus in 2016, the rate of lumbar strain was 24.42%. The proportion ranks third.
Different human body's natural activities, different core training
Core training will also change according to the human body’s natural activities that focus more on the sagittal plane. As mentioned above, excessive trunk rotation training may increase the inherently fragile risk of lumbar spine injury.
As mentioned in the book “Functional Training in Sports” the overall range of lumbar rotation is about 13 degrees, and the rotation between T10 and L5 is 2 degrees. For people with weaker physical fitness, in other words, lumbar spine rotation may do more harm than good, and even say that instead of developing dynamic rotation power, it is better to improve the anti-rotation ability.
Furthermore, core training is also a push to complete the “squat, push, and pull” for hardcore bodybuilders who train with barbells and dumbbells. Remember that while shaping and toning your body muscles you can also figure out your body composition from the body composition analysis techniques.
The core is to complete the guarantee of force transmission
For example, In ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal that by using barbells and kettlebells for weightlifting and other multi-joint exercises, the core muscle groups such as hamstrings, gluteal muscles, and erector spinae combines. Integrate with the entire rear side chain.
Breathing is the core method that hardcore trainer are using
As compared to core training of large and small muscle groups, the ups and downs of breathing, actually the core method that hardcore trainers are using
Take a common phenomenon as an example. The accidental closing of the force during strength training is primarily due to the increase in abdominal pressure, which allows static pressure to be transmitted to the spine. As a result, the spine’s position consolidates, which facilitates the realization of high-efficiency force transmission. As for the gym, it is more. The common phenomenon of wearing a belt also strengthens this consolidation effect.
However, indirect apnea represented by Valsalva, which may cause a rapid increase in heart and brain blood pressure, poses a potential risk and is also being questioned by the American Heart Association.
In the high-intensity training system, changing the resistance moment, the size of the support surface, and the implementation of the training movement arrangement completes through the human body’s core. The same pattern proceeds in the hardcore gymnasiums of China’s TRX and battle ropes, foreign countries, F45, OTF, etc. Continuously produce training methods that gradually adapt. In general, core stability training exists in almost any human activity.
The Future of Core Training
Core training is becoming a curriculum trend. The concept “core stability” is more used in the personal training system, the “core training” label appears more in group courses. Perhaps it is because the stable effect of core training has some new commercial value. But back to the basics, core training still serves the training purpose of the trainer.
Although isolation training effectively improves proprioception and activates muscles. But it shouldn’t build up as special training for bodybuilding and abdominal muscles. On the contrary, core training should be an individual course. EXOS, an American sports service organization, includes pillar preparation and strength- Power and eight major training components. Among them, core training is a training method for athletes to deal with emergencies on the field. For more trainers who enhance muscle strength and endurance, complete the activation of core muscle groups before training. It is a core training method in itself.
Barbells and dumbbells are actually good tools for core training. Bench presses, squats, and deadlifts are not just strength training. These resistance exercises involving multiple joints throughout the body are core training to exercise control and force transmission.
Generally speaking, core training is widely used, and coaches and more trainers are not trained to do a set of actions called “core training” but should be based more on their physical fitness. Missing, develop a dedicated training goal.