The Art Of Mastering Movement

Picture taken from Diane Lee’s Pelvic Girdle Text

The Core is a very popular word these days if you read fitness magazines or have a personal trainer.  Some people may have a different definition of the word core, so it is always important to ask your trainer or fitness instructor what they mean by using your core.

In our work, we use the term core to mean the relationship between the transverse abdominal, pelvic floor, multifidi and diaphragm.  How these four things work together and coordinate creates what is called intra-abdominal pressure.  It is that pressurized system that stabilizes the pelvic, lumbar and sacral regions.  To go a little further in the area of biomechanics, the core acts as part of the inner muscular system that supports the joints.

Now it may begin to make sense to you why we started with the alignment of the bones.  The way the bones fit together, their size, shape and way they relate to each other through cartilage and ligaments is called form closure.  How those bones stay together is called force closure.  Force closure is your core.  The force the core uses to support the bones needs to be complete and consistent.  “Adequate compression through the joint must be the result of all forces acting across the joint if stability is to be insured and load transferred efficiently and safely (Lee, p. 53).”  If your core is not acting in a balanced and consistent way around joints that are in a neutral position, you body will not be able to organized itself efficiently and that may lead to injury.

It is important to note for our purpose of functional fitness and movement in general, that these muscles are not held or clenched when performing movement.  These muscles work together in a well organized synchronization to provide support and strength for the joints and hence the rest of your body.  Gravity produces both vertical and horizontal shear forces that must be transferred through the system. Stability is not only about the quantity of muscular contraction or end point of your range of motion, but the quality and control of the systems that allow the load to be transferred and movement to be smooth and effortless (Lee p. 54).  The core is a perfect example of a group of muscles that works best in relation to each other.  Their relationship allows for your brain to determine how much force is needed when and for what activity.  A lack of this relationship would result in possibly too much or too little force over the joint system and that would not allow for smooth and effortless movement transfers or coordination.

Coordination or motor control is referring to your ability to engage muscles with sufficient timing or synchronozation and correct amount of force for the task.  There was a study done that found a timing delay in the transversus abdominis.  The muscle failed to contract prior to the initiation of arm or leg movement in the in people with chronic low back pain.  Isn’t interesting that the people who need their core support the most are probably the ones that don’t use it?

A significant motor control deficit is present in people with chronic low back pain which is primarily associated with the control of contraction of the transversus abdominis.  The failure of the stabilization mechanism with subject in the low back pain group indicates that the normal strategy used by the body to control intervertebral motion and stiffness is inefficient(Hodges and Richardson, 1996).

This means that if the core is not organized and firing seconds before movement occurs, then the body has to find another, less efficient way to accomplish what you want to happen.  This might not be a problem the first few times you do the task, but over time this compensatory pattern can wear on the system and can lead to a chronic injury.  It would be the same as trying to push your car around the corner rather than getting in the car to drive it around the corner.  Using compensatory patterns means you work harder for worse results.

How do you connect into the core so that you can reduce the risk of a compensatory pattern? Here are a few things you can do that we have gone over in class, and in this short discussion.

1. Check that your joints are in a neutral position.  It doesn’t mean that you have to be scared and only stay in neutral.  Of course you need to belly dance, bike ride, play tennis and surf.  What is does mean is that for the majority of the time that you are dealing with gravity, stay in neutral.  Think of it as your home base.
2. Start getting really familiar with the muscles that make up your core.  Read these blogs so you can get information on all the pieces of the core and how they interact. Get out an anatomy book and notice where these muscles are located on your body.
3. Think quality rather than quantity.  As stated earlier, the core muscles work to create a pressurized system across the joints of the pelvis, lumbar and sacrum.  That does not mean that you clench your muscles to the extent that they interfere with your movement.  On a scale of 1-10(one being lowest and ten being greatest), the core maintains an consistent and steady 5-7 of muscular contraction.
4. The core works in relationship to itself and the whole of your body.  Although you may learn about the core one muscle at a time, in the end they all work together to give you strength and stability.
5. Slow down and work less.   You have to slow down and recreate a neural pathway to the brain informing it that you want the core to connect before you move.  Remember the study about people that suffered from chronic back pain.  It may sound silly, but the brain does not work as fast as you think.  Any new movement takes time for the brain to coordinate.  Let it have that time, do not fight this process by becoming impatient.  You will have these concepts intellectually before your body gets them physically.  Do not give up.
6. Take this information into your daily routine.   Another part of movement learning is to take it out of the classroom and incorporate it into your daily life.  Periodically check during the day if your pelvis and spine are neutral.  I used to check every time the phone rang, or someone called my name.  Connect with you core before you turn over the car ignition, before you answer the phone, before you pick up a bag of groceries.  This all helps you wire this pattern more quickly in the brain.

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of the core muscle group and why it is so important to the rest of the body.  The core is not just necessary for the aesthetic look of a bathing suit model, but for the function of how the body transfers load placed on it through movement and gravity.  In the coming weeks, I will be writing about each one of the muscles in the core.  If you have any comments, please let me know and I will attempt to fulfill your desires.  For example, maybe you would like more anatomical detail?  Or maybe more exercises? I will do my best to accommodate you.

Contact me at:  stephanie@stephanie-spencer.com

Looking  forward to talking to you soon!

References

Hodges, P W, Richardson, C A. 1996. Inefficient muscular stabilization of the lumbar spine associated with low back pain.  A motor control evaluation of transversus abdominis. Spine 21(22): 2640-2650.

Lee, Diane. 2000. The Pelvic Girdle. Harcourt Publishers Ltd. Edinburgh, UK.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Core, So Says Yoda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.