Turning Movement Into Music: Facts and Myths About Your Core

You can’t pick up any health or fitness magazine these days without seeing an article about “strengthening your core”. Usually flanked by pictures of well-muscled models with washboard abs doing planks or sit-ups. The idea of the core has become so misappropriated in the media that I am often reluctant to even use the term with my clients because it has too many false notions attached to it. But if you have been watching my videos over the past few weeks you will see that I have dedicated the last 3 sessions to “core” work. So let’s talk about your core! What it is, why it is important, and how to train it, and also bust some myths along the way.

Your core is comprised of any muscle that can assist in stabilizing your spine. That is a pretty broad category and in fact, will include the majority of muscles in your body. You read that right, most muscles in your body should be categorized as core muscles. It is very common these days to have “core muscles” be synonymous with the abdominals, but it also includes your trunk extensors (that do the opposite of what the abdominals do), the pelvic floor, the diaphragm, the intercostals, the muscles of the scapula (shoulder blade), the hip flexors, the neck and jaw muscles, and on and on. Since the core is comprised of so many muscles you can see why the popular phrase “strengthen your core” is so misleading.

What does it mean to strengthen your core? It is often inappropriately used to mean strengthen your abdominals, but in reality, it doesn't really have any meaning at all. Since the core is a combination of so many different muscle groups it cannot be thought of monolithically and therefore cannot be strengthened. What can be trained however is core stability. Core stability is the ability to control the spine in a manner that allows force to travel through the body to the external environment most efficiently. Imagine a baseball player hitting the ball. When the ball and the bat make contact the ball has a force trying to push the bat backward and the bat has a force trying to push the ball forward. Whichever object has more force will move the other. In this case, the bat has more force moving forward to launch the ball into the field of play. Force is generated from the body into the bat to hit the ball. If the core is held loosely at the time of contact, the spine will absorb the force of the ball and diminish the amount of force going to the bat. The result is a less effective swing and vulnerability of the spine to injury. But if the legs, hips, core, shoulders, elbows, and wrists are held stable, all the force of the swing will be delivered through the bat, back into the ball sending it flying. This is the benefit of a stable core. This idea isn’t just important for athletic performance, but for any activity that requires the body to generate force or has a force acting upon it.

I often illustrate this point with my patients by standing behind them and pushing down on their shoulders or top of the head. If that downward force causes them to “break” or arch in a specific area of their spine it indicates that the area is a point of instability. I will then have them reposition their bodies to elongate and align their spine so the downward force of my hands is transmitted downward through their skeleton and into the floor and not forward into an arching position. The direction someone needs to adjust to become more stable in the spine can vary from person to person, but most often it requires a drawing in of the belly and slight backward tipping of the pelvis. I demonstrate this extensively toward the end of this video. That new position is a position of greater core stability because it allows them to stabilize the spine for more efficient force transfer. 

It must be noted that the ability to become more stable was not through a monumental effort or excessive muscle contraction. This increase in stability didn’t require any strength training at all and was able to improve instantly. The improvement in core stability came from an ability to engage and coordinate the right muscles in the right way to accomplish the task at hand. In most of our daily lives, it does not require massive amounts of strength to achieve adequate stability, merely the right amount of muscle contraction from the right muscles at the right time. That is why the term core strength is so misleading.

Strength does play an important role in your ability to keep a stable core. Typically, the stronger a muscle is the more readily you can engage it and the more force it can generate. Please don’t take this article as an excuse to drop your strengthening routine. Stronger is always better. However, I find that there is such an emphasis on strength that it is often overlooked how important coordination and control are to healthy movement and function. Doctor's offices are filled with lots of very strong people out there that are unstable because they do not know how to use their muscles together in harmony to move efficiently. There are many resources available to help you strengthen your muscles, but precious few that help you train coordination and control. It is a key piece that is so often missing for people with persistent pain and the motivation for me to create this site.  

Our bodies are like an orchestra, and it takes more than a bunch of individually talented musicians to play a brilliant symphony. It takes a skilled conductor to get all of those gifted musicians to play well together so they may make beautiful music. Your brain is the conductor, your muscles the musicians, and movement is the music.