The C word

Spend time around me at the gym and you will hear people taunt me by using one of the c words. Usually it’s the four letter word core that makes me cringe and they know it. Like most other fitness buzzwords it drives me insane. So let’s talk about why. 

First the “core”, what is it? Well, that depends who you ask. In short, it’s the muscles of the midsection--the abs, the internal and external obliques, the diaphragm, and the erector spinae. Other muscles that can be included are the muscles of the pelvic floor and the lats, traps and glutes—essentially every multi-joint muscle from the butt to the shoulders. 

Loved by therapy and the functional movement world, the core musculature is thought to be crucial for a healthy back. The feeling is the ability to activate the core will help keep you from that dreaded low back pain that afflicts so many.  It has become gospel at this point but this is supposed to be science so we should do actual science. 

The core preventing low back pain is simply a hypothesis and we need to test it. Does core activation change or lead to less low back pain? Do core exercises help those in low back pain? For those answers we turn to the literature. It turns out exercise helps with low back pain but the type of modality doesn’t seem to matter. Some research suggests there may not even be a difference in core activation between those with low back pain and healthy people who are asymptomatic. 

The truth is back pain is far more complex than being an issue of a weak core.  The prognosis is based on things like specific inflammatory biomarkers, sleep, diet, physical activity and mental state. Moving, eating well, sleeping and taking care of your mind  will have more of an influence on your back pain than those planks. You can read a good summary  on pubmed here of the research on low back pain and core exercise. 

Now let’s be honest with each other. If you aren’t a Physical therapist or you aren’t currently experiencing low back pain you might claim you are doing core work to help keep you healthy but let’s be serious, you want a six pack. Surprise! You already have one. You just can’t see it. 

Your abs are there. They are just under a layer of subcutaneous fat. You need to lose the belly if you want to see those abs.  Training abs will not help you lose belly fat. That’s called spot reduction and is a nonsense theory that has been discredited for decades. If you want abs you either need great genetics or you need to work on the same factors that help with low back pain namely diet and sleep. 

Abs are made in the kitchen and the bedroom (sleep + genetics)

But wait! All these people I see on Instagram with abs do all kinds of core work! Everyone with abs DOES core work, but so does everyone without abs. Everyone loves to do abs. Almost no one has a six pack. Let’s not forget that those people on insta are usually selling something to help you look like them or they simply want you to follow their workouts. Ab work outs are usually accessible and don’t require equipment and again people love them. They promote their ab work outs to make money. It’s marketing. 

Now I am not saying we need to completely ignore the “core”. In fact I am in favor of training the core daily. A strong trunk and core is vital for performance in sport and in life. Here is the thing though the current core exercises are not the most effective way to train the core. 

We are in the business of functional movement. Most of the core exercises are not really functional. Think about all of your favorite core exercises. How many of them involve positions you are in at any point in the day after you get out of bed? Not many. 

Most core stability exercises involve being horizontal. We live our lives mainly vertical. That strength most likely doesn’t transfer well from laying down to standing up. They certainly don’t transfer as well to vertical positions as say doing core exercises while you are up, right?  

The problem though is how do we execute core exercise if we aren’t on the ground? The solution is simple-- we treat everything we do in the gym as a core exercise. Squats, press, cleans, even pull ups are all basically moving planks.  Stabilize your spine while loaded and through full ranges of motion and you can build an actually strong core. In fact studies show these exercises are better than traditional core exercises for loading the core muscles. Why separate the core when we can train it more effectively with every loaded movement in the gym. 

 Either everything is a core exercise or nothing is.