Open the pages of any fitness magazine and more than likely, you will find an article on some type of “core training”. Core training is a fitness buzz word that can encompass a wide variety of activities ranging from Pilates, yoga, Stability ball exercises, BOSU ball training and many more. With a promise to “flatten your abs in less than 10 sessions” or give you a six pack that rivals the latest celebrity, many women are drawn to core strengthening programs. The benefits of improving your core strength are well beyond the cosmetic benefits. Understanding how it can improve not only how your body looks, but also how it performs, so you avoid injury, is extremely important for women.
As a physical therapist and Pilates instructor, I have worked with many women of all ages who have been riddled with back pain at some point in their life. It doesn’t matter how fit or unfit they are, due to the design of our bodies, most women are at risk for back pain at some point of their life. Women are designed to have a naturally wider pelvis and typically more flexibility in our joints to prepare for child bearing. This creates excessive movement in the hips and lower back. Add on various stresses to a woman’s body such as the physical demands to stay thin, which sometimes leads to excessive exercising, more women performing in competitive sports from a young age, pregnancy, and body changes associated with menopause and you can see why women are a target for lower back and hip pain.
“The core” as it is referred to frequently, is the group of muscles surrounding the mid section, pelvic area and lower back. These include the upper, lower and oblique abdominal muslces, muscles of the hips and gluts as well as the lower back and pelvic floor.
Whether you are a high level athlete training for a marathon, trying to get back into your pre baby figure or a woman trying to fight the physical changes of menopause, developing a program that includes some core strengthening can be beneficial.
There are many types of ways to train the core and to determine which type of activity is best for you depends more on your lifestyle and interests.
Some good places to start are with group classes or one on one instruction with exercise specialists. Pilates has been noted as the exercise of choice for toning the abs but it also has many other benefits for women because it really retrains how your body moves. This is a good place to start because you can learn some basic concepts on how to align your spine to really be able to target the core muscles properly. The idea behind Pilates is that every movement is initiated with control through the abdominal area so you are always contracting the abs as you are exercising. The concepts you learn about how to hold your spine and how to properly contract your abdominal muscles can then be carried over to other forms of exercise and activities such as running, golf, weight training or even just carrying your children!
Here is an exercise to get you started – if you have any medical issues please consult your physician first before attempting.
1) The “Dead Bug”
Lie on your back, knees bent and feet flat. Find a neutral position of your back, which means your back is not tucked under and flattened completely but also not arched with space underneath your lower spine. Your lower back should be in contact with the floor in a comfortable position. Pull your navel inward to your spine firmly – think about drawing in and up as if you were pulling on a tight pair of pants.
Keep pulling in tightly and raise one leg to 90 degrees with your knee bent. Exhale and raise the other leg up to meet it. Try to keep your abs pulled in as you raise the second leg so your back doesn’t arch away from the floor.
Inhale and as you exhale lower each leg back to the floor, again keeping your abs engaged so your back doesn’t lift. If you cannot keep your back flat to the floor during the movement, just lift and lower one leg at a time until you can build up to both legs.
Repeat 8-10 repetitions.
