You’ve heard the term “engage your core” in your gym, in yoga classes, or even from your personal trainer. But what does that really mean? Understanding how to attract the core can help you not only work out, but also in your daily activities.
But what should we clear before we dig deeper into the way. Your core refers to a complex set of muscles. Many are hidden beneath external muscle tissue.
Knowing how to properly engage these muscles can have a big impact on your strength, stability and overall fitness.
What does it mean to attract your core?
Being involved in your core means to strain all the muscles in your mid-center to allow them to stabilize your body and perform different movements.
During physical activity, it is similar to providing your body with a sturdy central link and supporting balance and stability. This is fundamentally different when you just strain your abdominal muscles and bend your abdominal muscles.
While ABS is an important part of the core, they are just one aspect of it, explains Teresa Marco, PT, DPT, MS, Board-certified orthopedic clinical experts, who owns Marco Physical Therapy in New York City. She suggests that your core thinks “like your mid-center box.”
If your abs are only on one side of the box, bending them involves the muscles only on this side. “To be involved in the core” means recruiting all the muscles in this box, but especially the lateral abdomen. “The lateral abdomen can be thought of as a belt in that it is level from the back to the front, helping to stabilize the middle,” explains Marco.
Core Muscle Anatomy
Your core is not made up of one muscle. Instead, it consists of various muscles that work together to support your spine and allow you to move your body:
- Natural Abdomen: This muscle is in the middle of your abdomen and is usually what people think when they talk about abs. Marco explains that the abdominal abdomen helps to bend and bend the torso, essentially helping to work from head to toe.
- Lateral abdomen: These muscles help to wrap your body horizontally and stabilize your spine. Marco likens it into a hug for your inner organs. It is also your deepest core muscle, saying, “Maintain your pelvis and stabilize your lower back.”
- External abdominal oblique: These muscles sit on the sides of your abdomen and in front of you. They not only play an important role in stabilizing your core, but also allow you to twist and bending your trunk sideways.
- Internal abdominal oblique: These muscles lie just below the external oblique muscles (to avoid dropping deep into the body, towards the legs). These muscles support many functions. Stabilize the core, bend the trunk and bend, maintaining internal abdominal pressure when you go to the toilet.
Understanding this anatomy is key to implementing effective core engagement. By working in synergistic ways, these muscles contribute to overall strength, posture and balance, both in training and in everyday work.
Tips for attracting the core
Activating this section of the body into the deep muscles of the core is a single movement. Here are some clues to proper core engagement, as Marco and Green recommend.
Start with a quick cough
If you’re a little unsure of what it’s like to attract your core, Green suggests you “cough fast.” Even if you’re just starting out at work, your body knows how to attract your core and does it naturally when you cough.
When coughing, be careful of your core. “It’s your core engagement to squeeze at the end of your cough,” explains Green.
Braces for punches
When you cough, that core engagement occurs immediately and is released immediately. But once you understand that, you can proceed to replicate that engagement in a slower, more conscious way.
To attract your core, Green suggests, “Squeeze your abs like you’re bracing for a stomach punch.” What you want to do is “tighten and prevent it,” says Marco.
Add your hands
“Also, I have my hands placed on my stomach to feel these muscles,” explains Marco. Feeling your AB muscles involved in your hands can also help you train your movements until you become muscle memory.
Practice other core movements
Sometimes people don’t know how muscles move between the three basic core movements – push out, suck, tighten. Marco suggests passing through all three movements (putting hands over the stomach) to feel the difference in one session.
How to get your core to work step by step
Now you can bring all these techniques together and create a five-step procedure on how to attract the core.
- Find a comfortable stance: Stand up or stand upright. Make sure your feet are shoulder-width apart and your spine is in a neutral position.
- Breath properly: He lets his stomach stolen as he exhale deeply. It gets sucked in a bit and my abdomen gets swollen. This is a basic process and aims to become familiar with the “feel” of the core.
- Breathing deeper diaphragm: Make sure you are inhaling “belly breath” instead of shallow breath that will lift your chest.
- Pull your stomach to your spine as you exhale: Imagine tug your belly button to your spine as you exhale.
- Wait a second: Keep this engagement for at least 1 second before relaxing.
If you find it difficult to maintain your engagement core, you can slowly add time to the final step with each practice. Ideally, you should be able to take another breath without losing the involvement of the deep core muscles.
Benefits of Core Engagement
Being involved in your core is more than a great AB photo (and we don’t reduce how great a good AB photo is). Exercise for deep core muscles can be difficult and frustrating, even for regular campaigners.
However, they deserve frustration and practice perfectly due to the ripple effects that can have on your athletic performance (competitive or considered hobby) and everyday movements.
Increases balance and strength
“The more enthusiastic the core, the more balance, strength and power you get while carrying out movement and exercise,” says Green. This is because your core muscles act as the center where all the other muscles in your body function.
You can see that strengthening these will greatly improve the strength and balance of your whole body.
Increases energy and power
A strong core “where did the centre of your power come from?” says Marco. She suggests drawing golfers wielding clubs to understand connections. “To drive the ball far, the core must be in good stability and strength,” she explains.
Helps to reduce back pain
Learning how to attract the core can also help reduce back pain. One study pitted core training, including exercises to engulf these muscles in traditional resistance training and stabilize them, and core-specific training did a better job and helped with lower back pain.
Promotes better posture
Finally, core engagement plays an important role in helping you stand tall and straight in your daily life. This is because the muscles involved can significantly affect your alignment and reduce the chances of disrupting and promoting a more confident, healthy posture.
Exercises Practice core engagement
It takes time and practice to get involved in the core. The list of exercises below will become increasingly difficult, so try the simple ones first and focus on the core engagement of the movement.
1. Spine Side 90 degree leg hold
Do not breathe while doing this. Marco emphasizes that you must continue to breathe gently.
- Lie on your back with your legs lifted and your knees bent, forming a 90-degree angle between your legs and hips (laid the knees on your knees with a glow parallel to the floor).
- Place your hands on your stomach or the floor.
- An imaginary punch brace to the stomach. This activates the lateral abdomen
- Hold it for 3-5 seconds then release it.
- Repeat several times.
2. I’ll march
Marco considers this exercise to be the next step after the 90-degree legs on their back hold. This movement builds the ability to activate the lateral abdomen.
- Spread your legs hip-width and slightly bend your knees.
- Enter the core and bring one knee towards your chest until your thighs are parallel to the floor.
- Hold your foot in this position for 3-5 seconds.
- Slowly lower this leg to the floor and repeat with the other leg.
- Repeat this process several times.
3. Alternating taps on back heels
Let’s consider this an advanced version of Supine 90 degree leg hold and a version that fixed a dead bug.
- Lie down on your back with your feet lifted and your knees bent, forming a 90-degree angle (shins parallel to the floor).
- Extend your arm towards the ceiling and wrap it around the core.
- With your knees bent, slowly lower one foot until your heels cover the floor. Without lifting your hips off the floor, extend the opposite arm as far back as possible.
- Make sure the core is involved and make sure the other legs stay in place in the air.
- Slowly return the lowered leg to its starting position.
- Repeat with other legs and other arms.
- Cycling on both sides 5-7 times.
4. Dead bug
Focus on maintaining your hips on the floor while performing this exercise.
- Tilt your pelvis downwards and lie down on your back, sealing the space between your back and the alcove. Lift your feet off the floor and bend your knees, forming a 90-degree angle. You need to stack your knees on your hips. You reach your arm straight to the ceiling.
- Lower your right arm behind your head, and at the same time extend your right leg long in front of your eyes. Hover both your arms and legs off the mat.
- Return to the starting position. The alternative side to complete all the personnel.
When should I join the core?
Ideally, you should be involved in the core whenever you move. “Your body is already clever and your core should naturally be attractive when you move,” says Marco. This includes exercise and daily activities. However, factors such as lifestyle habits, weak muscles, and poor posture can prevent this automatic activation.
That’s where core exercises come in handy. It helps to train these muscles to be properly involved, allowing them to carry over sufficiently to activities in daily life.
The benefits of attracting your core will be carried over to many everyday activities, even if you are not aware of it. They pick up and carry groceries, play with dogs and children, and sit at their desks while maintaining proper posture. All of these are easy and less likely to get injured when working with the core.
Marco emphasizes that intentional body control should be practiced in the same way as breathing in and controlling breathing. Coupled with automated things, this conscious activation works in tandem to strengthen the core and improve your overall physical health.
