The Truth About ‘Core Training’

As a personal trainer, you really can’t get away from hearing the key words ‘core training’ over and over. All of a sudden the media and the fitness industry has jumped on the bandwagon that promotes core strength as the be all and end all of fitness programs. Classes like Pilates and innumerable other classes offered at health clubs across the country cash in on this seemingly new trend in exercise. Personal trainers now focus on exercises involving balance balls all in an attempt to strengthen the core muscles of their clients. As much of a frenzy is made about the need for development of core muscles, it is a bit ridiculous to believe that by doing these movements on a ball or on one leg that somehow that will make your central muscles stronger than someone following fundamental resistance weight training exercises in a properly structured manner.

Core Training- The New Magic Word

The whole ‘core’ idea comes largely in part as a great way to market to those interested in improving their overall health and fitness levels, but don’t want to work too hard to get it. Weight rooms can be intimidating for many, especially women and so the powers that be figured out that by promoting classes and exercises that focus on the part of the body that most people have a problem with, it would appeal to a broader market.

The marketing goes something like this- that somehow Core strength has been something of a missing link when it comes to general fitness and exercise routines and that somehow while the core muscles, as stabilizers, can help determine how far you can throw a ball, their development is often secondary to the other, the focus of conventional exercise routines ins on the more visible muscles in your limbs. They go on to say that the only people who have had the right idea about core strength all this time are dancers and Yoga practitioners since they have developed their core as part of their training. The blurbs go on to say that professional dancers and Yogis generally stay fit well into old age and stand straighter and have more energy because of their core strength.

Core Training Without Progressive Resistance Cannot Make You Much Stronger

As much as this may sound like a plausible truth, it is complete hogwash. To start, any fundamental weight training exercise that involves free weights requires a tremendous amount of work by the stabilizer muscles in the center of your body. ‘The core’ refers to the collective muscular system of the torso area, both the muscles of your lower back and spine from your Transverse Abdominis muscles behind your "six-pack", the obliques and your erector spinae muscles, and all of these muscles come into play when you do a squat, a shoulder press, a bench press, a row, a curl, or a pushdown- basically any of the types of push-pull movements done during weight training. Except there is a big difference. Dancers and yoga practioners do not have the option to continually increase the stress on their muscles by increasing the resistance. As a result, there is a limit to how strong there back and abdominal muscles can get, whereas with someone involved in resistance exercise can do so and in turn has the potential to be far stronger in that area.

A Dancer or Yoga Enthusiast Cannot Have Stronger Core Muscles Than A Weightlifter

There is a marked degree of absurdity if you think about it rationally. Could the core muscles of a dancer or yoga enthusiast be stronger than that of let us say a weight lifter? The argument about core movements on a ball or stretching being somehow superior falls short when you look at the level of central muscle development that allows a long time weight lifter to be capable of lifting a car?

It is an accepted scientific fact that muscles are made stronger by being subjected to increasing resistance, such as is possible through intense weight training. Other forms of exercise may serve to initially strengthen muscles, but due to the limited degree of resistance, the long term results are incomparable.

As a personal trainer that has also trained numerous professional dancers, yoga instructors and Pilates teachers, I can tell you from experience that all of them came to me because of a very tangible realization that they were not as strong or as developed as they wanted to be. None of them demonstrated any significant differences in strength over members of the general population in terms of core strength, but they did tend to have greater endurance levels and better overall flexibility.

Posture And Core Training

As for the overall posture correction properties of 'core training', I can personally attest to the fact that a properly executed weight training program will go a long way in improving your posture. As a boy, I suffered from sclerosis, and walked with a very noticeable slouch. I began martial arts training at the age of nine- which is based on many of the very 'core exercises' that are in vogue now, however it did not do anything to correct my posture.

It was only when I began weight training several years later was there any significant difference. Proper weight training works to equally develop all of the muscles of the body, through the use of exercises that require the employment of the very stabilizer muscles that are claimed to be worked only during specialized core exercises. With this comes a balancing of the overall musculature, with imbalances evened out and posture improved.

The other great and often unheralded beauty of weight training is that it will keep you fit long into your twilight years. Dancers don’t usually do too well after a career of punishing their joints, while older weight trainers can remain injury free and in better shape than the average 25 year old well into their seventies. Take a look at my good friend, Kenny Hall, whose has been training for the past 60 years. Kenny looks fantastic all the way into his eighties and can credit his lifetime of drug free training to account for it! This is the central idea behind the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™ as well, to create real differences in the body that will last for years to come.

So if you are serious about improving your core muscles, keep in mind that the best way to do it is through a proper weight training routine. Do yoga and Pilates classes as an adjunct to your weight training only because you like doing it, but do not rely on it exclusively if strengthening your torso is your real goal.

Information contained in this article is not meant to treat, diagnose illness, nor substitute for medical counsel and is intended for purposes of information and education only. Consult your physician before modifying your diet or starting any exercise program.

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The Truth About ‘Core Training’.By Kevin Richardson, NYC Personal Trainer

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