“Great looking” abs are marketed as a key to confidence and success, and many of us buy into that illusion.  An overwhelming majority of magazine advertisements and articles tell us to isolate the core - primarily the muscles that line our torsos - to achieve a six pack, among other muscular markers, but these messages express several fundamental misunderstandings about the core. Three of them are:

1) Isolated core exercises lead to a strong core.
2) Our core is supposed to look flat/ripped when it’s strong. 
3) The core is the foundation of exercise.

This week’s blog will address the first misunderstanding, and look forward to future posts that address other misunderstandings about the core.

“Isolated core exercises lead to a strong core.” Simply put: they don’t.

Isolated core exercises lead to strong isolated core muscles, but strong core muscles don’t necessarily mean you have a strong core (by “strong core,” I mean that it performs tasks well). 

Let me clarify: the core grows stronger through performing complex, functional tasks rather than through muscle isolation. 

There’s a saying that “no man is an island,” implying that no person lives a mentally healthy life when isolated like an island.  Our muscles, including those in our cores, behave similarly: they are not at their most healthy when they are isolated.  They LOVE being used in groups in order to perform a function: grouping core muscles is what improves their performance rapidly.  That’s how we as humans learn to function well.  This concept of “functioning well” depends very much on two other concepts: intra muscular coordination, and inter muscular coordination.  I’ll define and apply them through the example of two different people who try to run. 

Person A wants to run well and focuses on movements isolating different components of his legs and arms that are essential to running well.  However, Person A doesn’t run much. He/she will have great intramuscular coordination, or good coordination within the muscle. Person A may be tone and thin and look like a runner, but Person A will not run well because his body did not learn intermuscular coordination, or coordination among a group of muscles.  The timing of a stride, the length of a stride, the amount of swing from the arms, all these elements are not learned through intramuscular coordination. 

A practiced runner, person B, let’s say, learns good intermuscular coordination and uses that muscle education to perform the task of running well.  So, Person B will run better than Person A because he has better intermuscular coordination appropriate for running.  His brain and muscles have developed the wonderful communication necessary for running.

How We Can Apply This To Our Own Lives

How do those two concepts of muscular coordination apply to the average person’s core?  Well, our cores love intermuscular coordination because that helps the core muscles better handle the daily grind.  The most health-beneficial function of our cores is to mitigate movement above and beneath it in order to protect our spines, which require good intermuscular coordination.  Our midsections keep our spines aligned during complex movements, while our upper bodies and lower bodies are doing different things. 

Complex movements include passing a basketball, lifting a box, climbing up stairs, chopping wood, or throwing a baseball. What our bodies do NOT like are isolated core exercises, which focus on intramuscular coordination.  Working on intramuscular coordination within the vast system of abdominal and back musculature is like asking a battalion to fend off a large opponent by sending one or two soldiers at a time - over and over and over.  Eventually, the army will exhaust its manpower and lose.  Similarly, over prolonged periods of time, isolating core muscles to perform a task without any support basis can create muscular imbalance and lead to back pain and dysfunction.  Sending the core army - or developing good intermuscular coordination in our cores - is the best approach to building a functional and pain-free back and midsection.

When You Should Isolate Core Muscles

Core isolation exercises aren’t completely inappropriate; they have their time and place.  One of those instances is corrective exercise or rehabilitation from an injury.  Many adults in the workforce suffer from some sort of postural distortion pattern that requires stretches and exercises focused on creating a flexible and stable core.  Note that these isolated exercises are not intended to flatten or tailor the abdominal muscles; rather, they correct or prevent an existing musculo-skeletal problem so that we can make it through the day, pain free.  Such exercises include the one explained in this week’s tip, which is specifically aimed at back pain prevention. 

Another spatio-temporal moment for isolating core exercises is implementing them as a new way to challenge ourselves.  Such an instance occurs when someone wants to achieve hypertrophy, or muscle growth.

Question: Isolated ab exercises can help hypertrophy, but why do our abs need hypertrophy? 

Answer: vanity.

So we all have some level of vanity - we’re not perfect.  But the ab-isolating exercises designed to satiate our selfish desires shouldn’t be implemented for long periods of time, as they’ll increase the risk of back pain and dysfunction.  It’s also important to note that, should these exercises be added to a routine, they should be performed only after a core is deemed optimally functional. 

This second issue brings up the connection between core and appearance, which leads us to our next misunderstanding:

2) “Our core is supposed to look flat/ripped when it is strong.”

Both the second and third misunderstandings are addressed in the second post in this two-part series on the core.

Remember why it’s important to pay attention to your body’s core, though. Without functionality in our cores, we aren’t as happy as we can be because a lack of functionality can lead to back pains and puts us at a higher risk for personal injury.

Make sure to check out the latest blogs and tips.

Andrew is a Certified Personal Trainer from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. He teaches people to listen to their bodies and helps them thrive as they find the connection between health and happiness.

If you are interested in a free fitness consultation, please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and he will be delighted to teach you how to start enjoying fitness and making it a part of your life.