A trendy expression that is increasingly used in fitness circles is the so-called "core" or you may hear someone tell you, "you need to tighten your core musculature". This is good advice, especially if you have frequent complaints of low back pain, but what does core actually mean and more specifically which muscles make it up? In this article, we'll give you the answer to that question and throw in some sample exercises you can try for yourself.
Let's first start by answering the basic question - what is the core and what muscles make it up? In the simplest terms, you can think of the core as a cylinder that is located in your lower back area, it surrounds this area with the upper side covered by the diaphragm and the lower side enclosed by the pelvic floor muscles.
The main muscles that make up this cylinder are:
The transversus abdominis, multifidi, internal and external obliques, spinal extensors, diaphragm, pelvic floor muscles and of course the rectus abdominis (which forms the "plates" of the abdomen). It may be a big surprise to some, but an important muscle group that is included in the "core" are the gluteal muscles.
This muscle cylinder that is formed by the listed muscle groups has an important role in terms of stabilization of the lumbar spine i.e. the low back. The word stability refers to the ability to control the position and movement of the lower body segment.
The workouts and exercises that aim to stabilize the "core" target the deep muscles that make the connection between the spine, pelvis and shoulder girdle, which are also involved in maintaining good posture and provide the stability needed for proper upper and lower limb movement.
What would these exercises be? Maybe some of you are already thinking about abdominal crunches as a type of exercise to improve the strength of your abdominal muscles. This is partly true, abdominal crunches engage the abdominal musculature, but they mainly load the large external muscles and not so much the deeper layers of musculature and especially the short muscles of the spine. To be able to master and maintain this stability of the low back you need to incorporate more isometric loading (there is contraction of the muscle, but no movement) and abdominal crunches are basically concentric loading ( there is contraction of the muscle, but there is also movement of the body).
We suppose it sounds a bit complicated, but we promise you it's not. We'll give you some sample exercises that you can try for yourself and feel the difference in the workload.
