Core Stability Training
–new exercise tips, techniques & training routines that boost your body’s core strength and stamina
Click here to order now and save £10.
Dear Colleague
Core stability is an essential determinant of success for all sports people, be they cyclists, runners or swimmers, football or rugby players, golfers or rowers. That’s because the body’s core muscles are the foundation for all other movement.
The muscles of the torso stabilise the spine and provide a solid foundation for movement in the extremities. These core muscles lie deep within the torso. They generally attach to the spine, pelvis and muscles that support the scapula. When these muscles contract, we stabilise the spine, pelvis and shoulders and create a solid base of support. We are then able to generate powerful movements of the extremities.
The biggest benefit of core training is to develop functional fitness - that is, fitness that is essential to both daily living and regular activities. However, training the muscles of the core also corrects postural imbalances that can lead to injuries. Indeed, core stability is now seen as an essential attribute for any player who seeks to keep their chances of sports injury to the absolute minimum.
So today I’m delighted to announce the imminent publication of our latest in the Peak Performance series of practical workbooks:
Training for Core Stability brings together, in one practical 86-page report, the conclusions of recent evidence-based research into the building of core stability for sports-people – how best to build core body strength and stamina, then how to maintain and use it to best effect.
Some of the scientific findings are sure to surprise you – if only because they go against some firmly held training beliefs.
You see, every page of this brand new 86-page report draws on recently-published sports science research that probably won’t percolate through to the general sporting press for many, many months, if they make it at all…
But because of our access to a wide range of academic sports science journals, we’re able to bring this new, evidence-based thinking direct to you. Now you can assess these new findings for yourself, and decide how best to integrate them into your core training and conditioning regimes.
Order your copy of this new report today and use these new training insights to build new levels of core stability and strength:
• How can you actively counteract the effects on your levels of core stability of your largely sedentary day job?
• Core Stability training strategies – what are the exercises that every athlete should consider building into their regular conditioning programs?
• Pilates is an increasingly popular form of core stability conditioning – but done incorrectly it poses the risk of chronic injury. How sure are you that your Pilates instructor knows the right methods?
• Which core stability training exercises are best done with a Swiss Ball – and which should be avoided?
• What’s the best way to train your low back and pelvis for maximum core stability?
• How can your improve your running performance simply by strengthening your butt muscles?
• Swimmers: what’s the link between core stability and shoulder injury – and what practical steps can you take to avoid future problems?
As you’re signed up on our Peak Performance web site to receive our weekly email newsletter, you qualify to receive this workbook at a greatly reduced price when you order your copy today.
What’s more, you get free postage & packing. And you’ve got 30 days to decide whether or not you want to keep the book or return it for a full refund.
Given the growing understanding amongst athletes of the fundamental importance of core stability, this practical work book is sure to be of great interest to a wide range of people. So do make sure you order your copy today as our print run is limited.
Yours sincerely
Sylvester Stein
Chairman: Peak Performance
The Effects of a Sedentary Life-Style – is your day job undermining your chances of sporting success?
Sitting for long periods during the day can adversely affect your performance in your chosen sport and is quite often a predisposing factor in injury.
Most of us are not professional athletes and spend large chunks of our day sitting hunched over a computer, in a vehicle or slumped on the sofa.
Such prolonged sitting can cause all or some of the following problems:
• tight hip flexor, hamstring and calf muscles
• tightness through the external hip rotator muscles, which can lead to restricted movement at the hip joint
• reduced extension through the lower back, causing stiffness in the mid (thoracic) spine
• tight and hunched shoulders with weak lower shoulder muscles
• tight and weak muscles at the back of the shoulder
• “poked chin” posture and muscle imbalances in the neck and upper shoulders
Prolonged sitting has also been linked to acute muscle strains in dynamic sports, in particular hamstring strains. That’s because the lower back stiffness associated with sitting leads to altered nerve input into the rear thigh. This can manifest as increased muscle tone of the hamstrings, which will increase the risk of strain.
While for swimmers and triathletes, muscular imbalances and weaknesses in the shoulders and mid-spine – caused by spending much of the day hunched over a computer screen – can lead to a shoulder impingement/tendinitis injury.
Training for Core Stability explains what active measures you can take, first to recognise the impact of your working environment on your physical condition, and secondly, how you can counteract these – and thus ensure that your day job is not undermining your efforts to achieve sporting success.
The chapter ends with a description of five exercises designed to help you build and maintain flexibility. All of them can easily be performed at home or in the gym as they require no special sports equipment.
Building core stability - practical training menus for every athlete
Within the repertoire of core stability there is a large range of exercises, the suitability of which will vary according to the injury and therapeutic needs of each individual.
There are three major groups of exercise:
• those focusing on getting the small deep lying stabilising muscles (such as the lower abdominals and deep spinal muscles) to work properly. These exercises are often taken from clinical Pilates.
• static bodyweight exercises that concentrate on developing stability and/or strength endurance in certain postures. These need you to learn how simultaneously to work your small stabiliser muscles and the larger mobiliser muscles. One popular example is the ‘plank’.
• traditional dynamic strength exercises for the main movement muscles of the trunk, often performed on the floor or Swiss ball.
While sports therapists use a variety of approaches, it is common to start you off working on the first type of exercise (how to use the smaller stability muscles properly) and then progress to more strength-based work as your injury improves.
Core stability work is by no means confined to the rehab clinic, however. Sports physicians, physiotherapists and strength and conditioning coaches also recommend that their clients perform regular core stability or trunk strength exercises to prevent injury. The rationale for prophylactic training is that increased recruitment of the stabiliser muscles and increased strength of the prime movers (main movement muscles) will carry over into better posture and more control, both in daily life and in sporting movements.
So it is very likely you will have come across some core stability exercises through your local sports club, gym or any other general training context. Most of us tend to have a list of three or four of these exercises that we include in our workouts each week.
While this prehabilitative strategy is well intentioned it has two limitations.
• The first is behavioural. Core stability exercises can quite quickly become ‘bore stability’! It takes self-discipline to do 20 to 30 minutes of the same exercises three or more times a week over a long period, so most of us lapse, or at best skimp on this part of the workout after a while.
• The second limitation is physiological. The key training principles of specificity and progression apply to core work in the same way that they do to any other aspect of physical fitness. It is quite common for an athlete to perform the same core routine over a long period and get very good at four or five movements or ‘holds’. But teach the same athlete a new core exercise and they will find it difficult, simply because it’s a new stimulus. The message is that progression and variety are key to optimising benefits of a strengthening programme.
For these reasons, the scheme of core training menus presented in Core Stability Training aims to overcome the problems of non-compliance and lack of challenge. In so doing, it provides a system where an individual can follow a prophylactic or rehabilitative core stability and strengthening programme using a wide variety of movements to maximise adaptations for improvement, and which muscle groups are targeted for training.
The system is designed for those who have already developed some basic skill in using their all-important lower abdominal stability muscles (transversus abdominis) and who are familiar with a number of core exercises.
NB: this is a challenging programme, covering all of the trunk and pelvic muscles, and running from basic recruitment to very advanced strength movements.
The training system contains 10 exercise menus, each using a single piece of training apparatus. A menu contains three to four exercises, which between them target most trunk and pelvic muscles. Some of the exercises involve resistance, some bodyweight, some a simply about muscle recruitment.
Within a menu the difficulty of exercises varies; a couple of the menus are very advanced (and therefore not within the competence of all readers). Coaches, therapists and individuals should set the number of sets and repetitions for each exercise according to the normal principles of training fatigue and overload.
If you are in doubt about how many sets and reps you should be performing, consult a qualified trainer or (if recovering from injury) a sports therapist, so that you are not working pointlessly or, worse, in an unsafe manner likely to lead to injury.
Pilates Conditioning – are you practising it correctly? And is your instructor up to scratch?
Fitness Pilates is a method of exercise and physical movement designed primarily to stabilise the trunk (the “core”), producing more effective stretching, strengthening and balancing of the body.
Through systematic practice of specific exercises coupled with focused breathing patterns, Pilates has proven itself invaluable as a fitness endeavour and an important adjunct to professional sports training. It was developed in the 1920s by the German boxer, circus performer and exercise innovator Joseph Pilates, and began to gain a following when dancers he was working with discovered it could create long, lean muscles and a strong, streamlined physique.
Pilates’ system didn’t really hit the big time, however, until the 1990s.
After years of high-impact, feel-the-burn fitness workouts, there was great appeal in a slower, safer approach to health and wellness. Fitness Pilates can condition the body from head to toe with a no- to low-impact approach suitable for all ages and abilities. It requires patience, attention to detail with your body and consistent practice, but results are guaranteed to follow if one sticks at it and does it right.
In Training for Core Stability, you’ll learn exactly how to use Pilates safely as a method of enhancing your body’s core stability. And you’ll learn the core principles behind the proper practice of Pilates – so you’ll know how to recognise a good Pilates instructor from a bad one.
Because when practised badly, Pilates routines can lead to pain and long-term injury – the very opposite of what its creator intended.
Using Swiss Balls To Build Core Stability – what are the advantages and disadvantages?
In the past 10 years large inflatable plastic balls variously known as Swiss Balls, fit balls or stability balls have become de rigueur gym equipment. Ranks of them line the back walls of class studios, a couple always lurk in the abs and stretch area and, increasingly, they are kept in the free weights room. They will also be found in any self-respecting sports physiotherapy clinic.
Over a very similar period of time, “core stability” has invaded the world of recreational sport and fitness, transforming traditional approaches to training and keep fit at all levels of aspiration. And in the realm of core stability, Swiss balls have become indispensable, almost synonymous with the very concept. If you are serious about core conditioning, you work out using a Swiss ball. But can these cheap, cheerful, oversized ‘space hoppers’ justify their popularity in terms of effectiveness?
Core Stability Training reports on several recent sports science experiments into the role Swiss Balls can play in achieving real improvements in trunk strength. The research sets out the types of exercises in which the use of a Swiss Ball is advantageous – and those types of exercises where the use of such equipment is at best of dubious value, and at worse potentially dangerous.
The research concludes that Swiss Balls are of undoubted value as part of a properly-planned core stability program, but that such equipment is often used in an uncritical fashion.
The chapter ends with a discussion of which exercises are most usefully performed with a Swiss Ball, complete with full diagrams and suggestions as to the most appropriate number of sets and reps.
Myofascial Slings – How to train your low back and pelvis for maximum core strength and stability
As the stream of new fads in equipment and training styles shows no sign of slowing, it is useful to return to basics and gain a little education about how the low back (lumbo-sacral spine) and its supporting muscle system work.
Core Stability Training introduces some important research done in recent years which helps us gain a much clearer practical understanding of how the low back and pelvis work, and therefore what kinds of training are most likely to have a positive impact on core strength and stability.
The discussion focuses on the anatomical concept of “myofascial slings”.
The concept of myofascial slings comes out of the work done on sacro-iliac joint (SIJ) stability. Contrary to what old rheumatologists will tell you, the sacro-iliac joints – which connect the fused section of the lower spine (the sacrum) to the pelvic/hip bones on either side – do need to move during normal daily activities such as walking and running.
It is both necessary and desirable that the sacro-iliac joints move, because they need to act as shock absorbers between the lower limbs and spine, and also as a way of providing proprioceptive (body positioning awareness) feedback for co-ordinated movement and control between the trunk and lower limbs.
As the SIJ is capable of movement, that movement needs to be properly controlled, as with any of the body’s joints. Some control comes through the natural architecture of the low back and pelvis, but more is possible by using the surrounding muscle, ligament and connective tissue system (myofascial slings) to provide compression on the joints. This is important because we can influence the effectiveness of the compression through exercise and re-training after injury.
The three muscle systems or ‘slings’ that help to stabilise the pelvic girdle are known as:
• the posterior oblique sling;
• the anterior oblique sling; and
• the posterior longitudinal sling.
In Core Stability Training you learn the three core principles when training myofascial slings – as well as the cardinal importance of good training technique (There are six crucial dimensions of correct technique that you must bear in mind.)
Three program levels are provided – beginner, intermediate and advanced – and the exercises come complete with full text explanations and accompanying diagrams.
Runners – did you know that firming up your butt can boost your running performance?
How many regular runners would suspect that the upper buttock muscle (gluteus medius) is the culprit in very many running overuse injuries?
This fact is less surprising once you understand that during running you are always either completely in the air or dynamically balanced on one leg – and in both circumstances the gluteus medius is a key muscle.
Situated on the upper edge of the hip, the gluteus medius is responsible for lifting the leg away from the body (abduction), helping it to rotate inwards and outwards, and, crucially, keeping the pelvis stable in certain situations, including the stance phase of running.
During right stance phase, for instance, the muscle contracts to slow the downward motion of the left side of the pelvis so that the pelvis doesn’t tilt heavily towards the ground. If the gluteus medius is not functioning well enough to achieve this control, the athlete is said to have a “Trendelenburg gait”.
Often, but not always, the same weakness may be noticeable in walking, producing a waddling motion or, in extreme cases, a limp.
Runners who have a weak or easily fatigued gluteus medius are likely to make various adaptations to their technique, which can hide the true reason for a running injury.
Core Stability Training reports on a recent sports science study into the implications for runners of having poor dynamic pelvic stability.
The research shows how runners unconsciously adapt their stride and other aspects of their running technique in order to compensate for weaknesses in their core stability – and what the implications are in terms of impairments to their running performance – and even injury.
The chapter concludes with a discussion of what steps runners can take to improve their conditioning – in particular the types of core stability exercises that will be of most use to anyone looking to strength the gluteus medius and related muscles. The exercises are described in detail, and each one is fully illustrated.
Core Stability and Strong Shoulders – an object lesson for swimmers and other over-the-shoulder athletes
Throughout Core Stability Training the emphasis is very much on hard fact, analysis and easy-to-comprehend explanations of the core concepts and principles behind core stability training.
The chapter on shoulders is just one example of this. It deals in considerable detail with an individual case study concerning a swimmer called Anna (not her real name).
Anna experienced ongoing problems with aching, and sometimes tight shoulders. They also tended to click, and occasionally felt like they ‘popped out of joint’, particularly during a hard sprint session.
Core Stability Training takes you step by step through the testing and diagnosis of Anna’s complaint. Then it sets out the treatment program that was prescribed, complete with explanations and diagrammatic illustrations of the exercises that were used to fully rehabilitate Anna and bring her back into competitive swimming.
It contains valuable lessons, not just for competitive swimmers and triathletes, but also for other athletes for whom shoulders are an essential component of their competitive play.
Details of your online discount offer
As a user of our Peak Performance web site, you qualify for a copy of Core Stability Training at a special discount. Place your order today and you pay just $38 (£19.99) instead of the full price of US$58 (£29.99). You save 1/3.
Core Stability Training is the latest in a series of special reports from Peak Performance, the sports science newsletter. This book is not available elsewhere.
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