The Basic Four For The Core Training Program

The traditional road to building strong, tight-looking abdominal muscles was simple: lose fat and do thousands of sit-ups and leg raises.

- Thomas Fahey, ED.D.

This was a practical approach that seemed to work, at least if you believe the people with nice-looking ab muscles. For decades beginning in the early 1900s, it served as the foundation for abdominal development in power athletes, bodybuilders and the average person.

These exercises destroy the back! They place tremendous loads up and down the spine that can injure and rupture spinal discs and give you a lifetime of agonizing back pain. Also, they isolate only a few “look good” muscles, and do a poor job of developing functional fitness in core muscles that link the upper and lower body and provide the foundation for whole body movements.

As alternatives, spine-saving exercises in the Basic Four for the Core Training Program build the core muscles without injuring the back. They tone muscles without damaging the fragile spinal discs and will give you a lean, toned midsection and functionally strong core muscles that work together and maintain a pain-free spine that will last a lifetime.

The torso region needs stability and stiffness to transmit forces between the upper and lower body. During any dynamic movement such as smashing a tennis ball or lifting a bag of groceries, the core produces force in some muscles, reduces force in others and stabilizes the midsection. When specific core muscles are weak or tired, the nervous system steps in and uses alternative accessory muscles to produce movement. This causes abnormal stresses on joints, loads sensitive spinal discs, decreases power and increases injury risk.

TRAIN MOVEMENTS— NOT MUSCLES