When you go to doctors or physical therapists because of your injuries, you often hear them suggesting you to strengthening your core. And when you explain that to your trainer they often show you an exercise that will help improve your abdominal strength.
Is this wrong? Not really. But not correct either.
What is Core?
When you train yourself and progressively start increasing your load, you will realize that the posture or form of the exercise is one of the most important factor in improving your strength. Whether it is bench press, squats, deadlift, overhead press, or pull ups, without proper form and posture you will hit the plateau pretty quick.
Reason for lifting with poor posture and form lead to early plateau is because of what we call energy leak. Energy leak is happening because you are not able to utilize many of the muscles that are responsible for keeping your posture and form correctly is not working optimally.
What does this has to do with core? Well, muscles that are supporting your posture and form are what I consider as core muscles. In another words, core muscles are any muscles that are responsible for supporting your spine including pelvis and scapula placement. That is a lot of muscles. So when your form is poor, you are not utilizing those core muscles effectively.
Is abdominal strength a core strength?
So abdominal strength is core strengthening exercise but it is only part of it. It is important though. Rectus abdominis is muscle connected from front lower portion of pelvis attached to bottom part of your sternum, which is your middle of your chest. When abdomen is weak you may experience phenomenon called "butt wink" when you go down for squat especially below your knee line. "Butt wink" is not just from weakness in abdominal strength but it is part of it. Reason for some lifters experiencing lower back issue is caused this.
What are other core muscles?
Trapezius is another muscles that I have my clients work on in order to improve their core strength. Functions of trapezius are rotation, retraction, elevation and depression of scapula. That is why many lifters utilize shrugs and face pulls to work adding mass and strength to trapezius.
Reason why I consider this as one of the core muscles is because of it's function. Squat for example, requires the trapezius to work in order to rack and stabilize the bar on the back. Weak trapezius will cause forward rounding of the shoulder and will make it difficult to support the bar on your back.
Gluteus Maximus is another muscle that I consider as core muscle. It's main function is external rotation and extension of hip joints. To understand Gluteus Maximus you should also know psoas muscles or hip flexors.
Reason why you should know these two together is because they have opposite function. When you are sitting, psoas muscles are in flexed and Gluteus Maximus is in extend. Of course when you are standing it would be opposite. When you have sitting job, you are consistently engaging psoas muscle and it gets tight. Gluteus Maximus on the other hand is in stretched position which eventually weakens. This is where many people are experiencing tightness in their lower back.
For athletes Gluteus Maximus is the power generating muscle for sprinting and jumping. However, with weak gluts and tight psoas muscles, it is difficult to improve athletic performance.
Is plank a good core exercise?
I personally like plank because it is simple. It is also great since you don't have to shorten your hip flexor especially if you have lower back pain.
Main focus of plank is not so much in how long you can hold although this seems to be becoming a trend. It should focus more on how much many muscle group can you engage in one exercise.
When you are planning to do a plank next see how many muscle groups you can engage. Some of the muscles you should be able to engage are abdomen, lats, traps, pec, biceps triceps, gluts, quads, hamstring, calves and so on. See if you can figure out to engage them.
If you can hold more than 20 seconds without shaking or breaking a sweat you are not
utilizing the muscles well enough.
Kota Shimada
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