Abs

Core Muscles - Balance Between the Back and Abdominals
By Anita Boser

During a recent Hellerwork session, I confused a client when I informed her that her core muscles were abnormally strong, yet her core was weak. Say What!?

Sturdy muscles ran throughout her body, giving her an overall athletic anatomy. Despite this, a disparity between the strength of her abdominal muscles and the weakness of her core was the primary cause of her lower back pain.

The core consists of four muscle groups: the diaphragm, the pelvic floor, the transverse abdominus, and the multifidi. Together these muscle groups work like a cylinder to stabilize the lower back and abdominal cavity. The diaphragm forms the top of this cylinder, the pelvic floor the bottom, and the transverse abdominus and multifidi shape the cylinder walls. This cylinder of muscles stabilizes the skeleton and allows other muscles to gain leverage.

Using superficial muscles like the rectus abdominus, pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, quadriceps, and gluteus maximus without participation from the core will pull the skeleton out of alignment and create injury to ligaments and spinal discs.

Unlike superficial muscles such as the rectus abdominus (six-pack abs) worked at the gym, core muscles are designed to work slowly and for an extended period of time, which is why many people fail to find or develop their cores when using common exercises such as the plank and crunches.

Here is a simple exercise that compels you to use your core and stabilize your low back (which is the core's primary function) as you lift your legs. It also engages the core hip flexors, the psoas, and the iliacus muscles -- but that's a different article.

Easy Core Exercise:

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your arms at your sides.

2. Tilt your pubic bone up toward your chin by drawing your belly button toward your spine. This pushes the top of your sacrum and low back into the floor. (Your sacrum is a triangle shaped bone wedged in the back of the pelvis that serves as the base of support for the spine.)

3. Now tilt tailbone back and up toward the base of your skull, so your low back lifts off the floor slightly. This also lifts the top of the sacrum off the floor.

4. Repeat this process, tilting back and forth a few times. Stop in the middle so that your sacrum is fully and firmly on the floor.

5. Do not let your sacrum or hips move off the floor or rotate -- not even one millimeter (this is the key) and lift your left leg so that your knee comes toward your chin, only as far as you can without moving your sacrum.

6. Repeat with the right leg.

7. Alternate lifting your legs and stop as soon as you cannot stabilize.

To learn how to take care of your muscles and regain your vitality, visit http://www.vitalselfinc.com Anita Boser is a Certified Hellerwork Practitioner, Professional Structural Integration Practitioner, yoga teacher, and author of "Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation." You can read her weekly blog articles at http://www.undulationexercise.blogspot.com

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