Modern day lifestyles can be highly sedentary, meaning certain core muscles may become inactive. If you don’t exercise your core muscles regularly, you will lose the ability to engage them instinctively while performing everyday movements such as bending and lifting. The Core Strength Training Book is packed with more than 150 exercises with additional variations and progressions to make each as versatile and challenging as possible. Clear annotations will help you achieve the best possible form, and precise anatomical illustrations include details about the location and function of each of your core muscles – and how they work together in body movements. Loaded with step-bystep, user-friendly instructions, this is the definitive guide to building a stronger core.
CORE STRENGTH TRAINING BOOK
The Core Strength Training Book
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK • Used together, the two sections of this book offer an integrated, user-friendly guide to core training. The introduction provides an excellent platform for the exercise section, which features a comprehensive range of stretches and coretraining movements.
INTRODUCTION 1
WHAT IS THE CORE? • The core is the foundation for your movements, enabling mobility in the upper and lower body, directing power efficiently to your limbs, and stabilizing your spine, ribcage, and pelvis against the stress of those movements, or of external forces exterted upon them.
THE KINETIC CHAIN
THE SPINE
HOW THE SPINE WORKS
THE ANTERIOR CORE MUSCLES
HOW THE MUSCLES WORK
THE POSTERIOR CORE MUSCLES
HOW THE MUSCLES WORK
WHAT IS CORE TRAINING?
CORE TRAINING - KEY AREAS
CORE TRAINING AND EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES • Every day, you perform numerous corerelated movements. In addition to obvious activities like exercise or sport, work-based tasks and chores, such as sitting at a desk or carrying bags, all place demands on your core. Building and maintaining good core strength is therefore essential.
CORE STRENGTH AND EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES
EXERCISES FOR EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES
CORE TRAINING AND POSTURE • The lumbar region is crucial in developing core strength. Consequently, it is important to keep your lower back healthy by maintaining good posture. The best posture for you is the one in which your back is put under the least strain. Whether you are standing or sitting, the muscles in your back should be relaxed without being slack, and your spine should be gently S-shaped.
STANDING POSTURE • Posture has a direct impact on joints and muscles. Aim for a balanced upright posture, with your body weight evenly distributed from front to back.
POSTURAL PROBLEMS
ACTIVATING YOUR CORE
CORE TRAINING AND SPORT • Core training is important for sport, as all sports involve core-based movements of one form or another. Because training your core helps your mobility, stability, and strength (»pp.18–19), it will increase the power, efficiency, and consistency of the movements you make, while improving your stability and balance, and reducing your chances of injury.
CORE MOVEMENTS AND SPORT
CORE TRAINING AND PREGNANCY • Core training during pregnancy can help improve strength, stability, mobility, and balance, all of which may contribute to an expectant mother’s overall sense of wellbeing. It will also help relieve back tension and accelerate the recovery of the abdominal muscles after birth.
PREGNANCY AND POST-PREGNANCY CORE-STRENGTH TRAINING
ASSESSING YOUR CORE • Regardless of your core-training goals, you will achieve much more if you think carefully and strategically about achieving a balanced training programme from the start.
DEVELOPING YOUR CORE • The primary purpose of the core is to provide mobility, stability, strength, and balance to the mid-section...
