Getting to the Core of the Matter

Ahhh, the abs. The core. The six pack. A sure-fire way to show that someone is in shape and athletic. A beacon of healthiness. Proof that someone is strong and ready to do whatever they need to do. Unfortunately, we have become such a “reductionist theory” country that we always look for simple, single factor to be a magic bullet and try to emulate or blame that single factor. Usually, the simpler, the better. We look at the very athletic “specimens” who walk around with their shirt off and what do we see? A great six pack. It must be that a great six pack will lead to being a better athlete, if not a great one. If you look the part, it must be. So we try “to be” and in order to “look the part”, we start doing exercises that we think will help us. As coaches, trainers or athletes, we never want to leave a stone unturned or not do what our competitors are doing for fear that will be the reason for our defeat. We simplify what we think the abs do and create an exercise to make it work even better. And, we do lots of the exercise. Some enterprising types then find a way to package these exercises through a routine or a machine and sell them to prey on our thoughts that we could be doing it better. And when we get bored with one exercise, we switch to another. The core has become a multi-million dollar industry that vigorously attacks anyone who doubts what they are preaching. The ones who shout the loudest usually are the ones that need a closer inspection.

To start with, what makes a six pack? We all have one. It is just that most people have theirs in their cooler. A six pack is really a lack of body fat. Most elite athletes do have very low body fat. Some people are even lucky enough to have inherited low body fat. But, we like to think you can crunch our way into a six pack. Even if you could, what does that get you? Does the flexing of the rectus actually make you a better athlete? Stand up and crunch your torso. Can you get better hip flexion in that position? Do we want to run like Ichabod Crane? How many crunch masters have poor posture? What if all the muscle mass that is built through all of our core training really impedes other athletic movements? What if all the planks that we do where we pull our rib cages into our hips actually impedes our ability to rotate because the rib and hip have become so close together? These are all great questions to ask when adding exercises to our workouts. If the old standards may be counter-productive, what might be something to train the core?

First, if we are to add exercise, we should ask why we are doing it. If we have no purpose to doing an exercise other to say that we are training the core, should we add it? For most of my workouts, I don’t do any core exercises. Unless I see an athlete having a breakdown in their form, I don’t add anything. Remember, exercises can have negative consequences. Let’s look at what we need the core to do in athletics.

In any kind of movement, the magic of athletic ability is the power created in rotation and the ability to stop and reverse the rotation. Just watch Usain Bolt run. The muscles of the trunk wind and unwind to create and diffuse energy. Maybe for a split-second on the ground, the entire core musculature may contract, but it also has to let go to allow our other muscles to do their job. If you stay braced, nothing else moves very well, which includes breathing. But if we make our core so anchored through exercise that it can’t rotate, we become less functional. And if the whole body is pulling down into one piece, what does that do to our cross-crawl pattern? Doesn’t there need to be a synchronizing of the different muscles of the trunk to allowing the hips to move? I see that with runners that have done too much core work. They’ve gotten so strong at pulling the ribs down to their hips they can’t find rotation in their torso when they run. To get some kind of forward movement with their torso, they over-exaggerate the swing of their arms and become inefficient runners. Their torso doesn’t wind and they lose power. A coach can certainly see it. These athletes that look stiff when they run. I have seen people try to train rotation in the weight room with various twisting motion on a cable, but they are so anchored that the hips and shoulders move together and there is no real rotation. It’s nothing more than a plank with a rotation of the feet.

So, have I gotten rid of all traditional core training? I have. We don’t crunch or plank. We actually achieved better times when we didn’t spend the last part of practice doing core. Does that mean I have gotten rid of core training altogether? No. I have went full Frans Bosch on core. Why? Because I actually see improvements in my athletes. I try to add variations to movements that will challenge the ability to rotate or counter-rotate. For example, we will do any of our drills, boom variations or even high knees, with the torso rotated 45 degrees while moving down a line. Just like sprints with hands over the head, it creates tension in a chain. As we progress, we will quickly rotate into one knee as it comes up and snap back to neutral when the other leg cycles through. To make any of these drill more difficult, have the athlete hold a stick on their shoulders in the rotations. Another good one is carioca with a stick on the shoulders. The stick should stay in position while the lower body is forced to rotate. The hip motion should be exaggerated. My new favorite is with the Lila Exogen torso suit, a tight-fitting torso sleeve that can be loaded with very small Velcro weights. I will load one side to force the athlete’s body to counter rotate. It is much harder than it looks and not very invasive. The fixed rotations also challenge the cross-crawl pattern. And we know, the more you challenge a reflexive pattern, the more effective the exercise.

These exercises are good start. They are more effective if the athlete actually needs them to improve. But isn’t that the case with most things.