Why do you need to know the benefits of strong core muscles? Do you know the true meaning of core muscle strength? Many people are unaware about the importance of core muscles, and they are also not aware of how to sufficiently build core strength.
First, let’s talk about why strong core muscles are so imperative to a solid exercise regimen. Core muscles consist of abdominal muscles, the obliques, the lower back muscles and inner muscles of the trunk of your body. Core muscles are one of the most important group of muscles in our body since they provide posture and form to our body. Also, the majority of our movements start in the core muscles.
All of these muscles help you in bending, twisting or performing other movements all day long. Hence, keeping your core muscles active is a great way to help with every day movements.
The Benefits of Strong Core Muscles
- With improved strong core strength, you can improve your posture. Weak abdominal muscles can make you lean forward, and in the same way, other weak muscles will compensate which in turn will result in poor posture. The majority of back problems can be traced to having weak core muscles. Also, in my experience, having strong core muscles can help stabilize the spine and decrease the frequency one may have in visiting a chiropractor.
- Strong core muscles help increase the strength to lift more weight. This is because such muscles stabilize the rest of your body while lifting. If you are doing multi-point lifts such as squat or bench press, then strong core muscles are extremely beneficial. For many sports personalities and athletes, a strong core is crucial in improving athletic performance.
- Strong core muscles reduce the risk of injury and pain—especially the back pain that occurs due to long periods of sitting. They also reduce the possibility of injury when lifting heavy weights or other items in our normal routine. You will be able to handle more weight and stabilize yourself and your body.
4 Exercises for Strong Core Muscles
- Planks are by far the best core muscle building exercise out there. They develop all the core muscles instead of isolating individual muscles. Some people don’t believe that planks can build core strength because they are such an incredibly simple exercise to perform. However, when done correctly, planks will tax the muscles like no other. And there is a multitude of different plank movements that will keep your body constantly guessing.
- Crunches are a tried and true movement that develop the front ab muscles. For people who are advanced in core strength, regular ol’ sit-ups are a great movement as long as you don’t crank on your neck while doing the sit-up.
- Hyperextensions and various forms of supermans are great for the lower back. Just make sure that your body is in perfect alignment and that you are not over-extending when coming up.
- Both stability and medicine balls are great tools to use when developing strong core muscles. You can hit those muscles from all different angles with the medicine balls. With the stability balls, your stabilizer muscles will come into play as you try to keep your balance.
Although there are a ton of “ab” building programs out there, all the tried and true movements mentioned above will develop your core sufficiently.
Stay away from core building programs that tout losing fat as the sole reason for developing your core. It’s a bunch of nonsense. Weight loss is 80 percent nutrition. So if you are eating bad and doing all these core building exercises, you are NOT going to lose weight. To get six-pack abs, you need to watch what you eat, follow a exercise routine that incorporates both resistance training and cardio and stay away from quick fix nonsense.