Why Should You Train Your Core

What’s the core: importance of core strength

The core is the part of our body that comprehends the lumboabdominal muscles. These muscles are responsible for providing support to the spine, these muscles help keep some of our most vital organs protected, a healthy core even enhances the functions of these organs. For example, a strong core helps our lungs by improving our breathing abilities to breathe more deeply or to hold our breath for longer, and so on. The core provides balance and support not only to the spine but to the body. Having a strong and healthy core can also help us prevent injuries.

There are so many benefits from training the core, it can improve your posture, boost your circulation, develop your coordination, increase your whole-body strength and so many others.

How to train the core

Knowing all the benefits that a healthy core provides; it is recommended to train these muscles regularly. However, training the core is not about doing many pushups. Pushups are probably the least effective exercise for the core and most of its versions can be harmful to our backs.

If you don’t know where to start or if you’d like ideas of exercises different from pushups, here are two exercises that you can practice for strengthening your core more efficiently:

• Planks: the challenge while planking comprises maintaining your body steady against gravity’s pressure. There are some variations of planking, but the basic posture consists of lying with your belly facing the floor. All the body is separate from the floor except for the forearms and the toes, which have the role of holding the rest of the body weight for a significant period. The hands should be in the same direction as the shoulders and the feet should follow the same direction as the hips. You can start planking from 10 seconds and increase this time as you notice progress.
• Cat-camel: This is a common yoga exercise that consists of bending and flexing the core muscles. This exercise doesn’t only help strengthen the core, but it can also help you improve your posture, treat back pain, and more. To do this exercise, you must lie on the ground on all fours. You will slowly move your pelvis and back to the center while lifting your chest and head tall, then revert the movement by bringing your back out in a slightly curved position while bringing your chest and head slightly to the center.

Both exercises focus on improving your resistance. Therefore, these are not fast-paced exercises, don’t focus on making many reps but on holding a correct posture during each movement. Move slowly and try to hold each pose for relatively long periods of time. 

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