Thursday, 13 August 2009
Extract from the Manual for Heavy Lifting with Kettlebells
Abdominal Bracing and the Core
A lot of time is spent by fitness professionals and coaches discussing the necessity to use our core and there are a lot of terms thrown out there on the ways to train it and activate it.
Firstly I want to discuss what the core really is and this I think, needs clarification as too many people get caught up on the core and working it and then forget about the rest of the body. Yes it’s an important area and needs to be strong, but we can strengthen our core by lifting and moving the way we're designed to. The actual true core is made up of the deep musculature surrounding the spine and not the outer muscles like the obliques. When training the core it is pointless to perform hundreds of crunches all this is doing to you is strengthening your six pack muscles, tightening your hip flexors and weakening your posterior chain. All things that are completely detrimental to lifting and optimal performance. This has often been the exercise of choice when training the core and yet all it does is give us bad posture, restrict our breathing and weaken our bodies' kinetic chain. So hopefully this will change any thoughts of doing crunches or an ab session in your next workout!
So how do we really strengthen the core?
Well firstly let's get rid of the word core, it's pointless using it because we don't want to think about just training the deep musculature of the spine. What we want to think about is the TORSO and training the torso. This includes the inner and outer muscles, the longitudinal, transverse and rotational muscles, basically everything!
Our torso is needed whenever we move, when we pick something off the floor we need torso strength, when we walk or run we need torso strength. It all comes back to the phenomenon of 'stiffness' if we can create stiffness in our torso we can create a strong structure to move against. I like to use the analogy of a super car v's an old banger, I've left car brands out to avoid embarrassment to any readers, but I'm sure you can envisage what I'm thinking! Now if those two cars were ask to turn a corner at high speed, lets say 160 kph (100mph) the old banger doesn't have the chassis strength to take the forces applied to car when turning so it will buckle and crash. The super car however, has a solid chassis that can take these high levels of force and thus it will glide through the corner with no trouble.
Our body is very similar to this, think of your torso as a car chassis, if it's strong like the super car it will withstand any forces thrown at it. If it's weak like the old banger it will collapse as soon as we try to pick any significant weight off the floor.
And that's why torso strength is important!
So to create this stiffness we need to train and train hard! We can drop the old core sessions where we spend time performing minute after minute of front and side planks. Yes they will help but if we want to with stand the huge forces placed upon our body when lifting heavy kettlebells we need to prepare in that way. So we need to move and lift to train our torso. We need to put our torso under stress to allow it to adapt and develop.
To download your copy of the 'Manual for Heavy Lifting with Kettlebells' please click here
A lot of time is spent by fitness professionals and coaches discussing the necessity to use our core and there are a lot of terms thrown out there on the ways to train it and activate it.
Firstly I want to discuss what the core really is and this I think, needs clarification as too many people get caught up on the core and working it and then forget about the rest of the body. Yes it’s an important area and needs to be strong, but we can strengthen our core by lifting and moving the way we're designed to. The actual true core is made up of the deep musculature surrounding the spine and not the outer muscles like the obliques. When training the core it is pointless to perform hundreds of crunches all this is doing to you is strengthening your six pack muscles, tightening your hip flexors and weakening your posterior chain. All things that are completely detrimental to lifting and optimal performance. This has often been the exercise of choice when training the core and yet all it does is give us bad posture, restrict our breathing and weaken our bodies' kinetic chain. So hopefully this will change any thoughts of doing crunches or an ab session in your next workout!
So how do we really strengthen the core?
Well firstly let's get rid of the word core, it's pointless using it because we don't want to think about just training the deep musculature of the spine. What we want to think about is the TORSO and training the torso. This includes the inner and outer muscles, the longitudinal, transverse and rotational muscles, basically everything!
Our torso is needed whenever we move, when we pick something off the floor we need torso strength, when we walk or run we need torso strength. It all comes back to the phenomenon of 'stiffness' if we can create stiffness in our torso we can create a strong structure to move against. I like to use the analogy of a super car v's an old banger, I've left car brands out to avoid embarrassment to any readers, but I'm sure you can envisage what I'm thinking! Now if those two cars were ask to turn a corner at high speed, lets say 160 kph (100mph) the old banger doesn't have the chassis strength to take the forces applied to car when turning so it will buckle and crash. The super car however, has a solid chassis that can take these high levels of force and thus it will glide through the corner with no trouble.
Our body is very similar to this, think of your torso as a car chassis, if it's strong like the super car it will withstand any forces thrown at it. If it's weak like the old banger it will collapse as soon as we try to pick any significant weight off the floor.
And that's why torso strength is important!
So to create this stiffness we need to train and train hard! We can drop the old core sessions where we spend time performing minute after minute of front and side planks. Yes they will help but if we want to with stand the huge forces placed upon our body when lifting heavy kettlebells we need to prepare in that way. So we need to move and lift to train our torso. We need to put our torso under stress to allow it to adapt and develop.
To download your copy of the 'Manual for Heavy Lifting with Kettlebells' please click here
posted by Tommy Matthews @ 11:47
1 comments
1 Comments:
Very pleased to see an attack, and a sound one, on the fad of core training.
At 70 I was able to beat allegedly top standard under 20 athletes from many sports on a battery of so called core strength exercises.
The tutor asked coaches present if we tested our atletes for core stability. I was the only one to reply, saying 'yes'. He asked how. I said I get them to Clean & Jerk bodyweight overhead, and then stand on one leg. He agreed it is a valid test.
But the key issue is that lifting weights overhead automatically stresses all the muscles that maintain posture. There is no need for vain attempts to isolate Transversalis, nor to pull in the naveletc.
Brian Hamill, Weightlifting coach, Woking
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