Health blog Category: core strength
Weak Core Muscles Could be the Reason for Your Slouching
Do you ever find yourself slouching in a chair, slumping at the computer or your belly sticking out after standing for awhile? This is a sign of core weakness that can negatively affect your health and create long-term back or neck pain.
What are Your Core Muscles?
Your “core” is the group of muscles that help stabilize your body and give a strong anchor point from which your skeleton can move properly with good posture.
Core Strength and Improved Balance
You may be wondering how core strength can help improve your balance. Well here’s your answer: When the “core” muscles around your trunk are strong, they prevent chronic lower back pain and many other injuries, but they also keep you from losing your balance and falling down. A stronger core will help to keep you upright — especially as you age and start to become more at risk of falling.
How Core Strength and Balance Are Linked
There are three systems in your body that help to control your balance.
Read full blogCore Strength Helps Ease Lower Back Pain
Having core strength is important in your every movement and even ‘non-movement.’ Whether you’re sitting watching TV or moving around, a strong core is critical. It makes performing physical activities as well as daily movements easier. A strong core impacts how our upper and lower body functions. Think of a tree, a tree must have a strong trunk so that it can hold up with branches and support its roots underground. Without a strong trunk, the tree would bend over or break from the weight of the branches.
Read full blogCommon Reasons for Back Discomfort
How is your posture? Irritation to the nerves that emerge off the lumbar spine can cause burning and shooting pain down the legs and into the feet. Could poor posture be to blame for your chronic back discomfort and pain? Chronic back pain and discomfort can also cause poor posture, making it difficult to walk, sit, drive, and perform routine activities such as laundry, and dishes; to name a few. Chronic back pain and discomfort is a debilitating condition that will affect the majority of Americans at some point during their life. In fact, chronic back pain is one of the leading reasons people go to the doctor and employees miss work.
Read full blogStrong Core means Healthy Back
Poor posture from core weakness contributes to neck, back, shoulder or hip pain which can then contribute to issues and pain further down the upper or lower extremities. This can make everyday things difficult, such as:
- bending over to tie your shoes.
- sitting while working or driving.
- simply getting dressed in the morning.
A strong core means a healthy back.
When most people think of the core, they think of the abdominals and doing sit-ups and generally know that one needs to have good core strength.
What Our Core Workout Should Also Include
The core must be one of the most complex features of the human body. Everything we do involves the core. What is the core exactly? A lot of people think it’s those wonderful six-pack abs. But really that’s not the core, that’s only a small component of the core. So what else makes up the core?
- Your abdominal muscles
- Your hip muscles
- Your back muscles
- The muscles that surround your pelvis
You need all those muscles to be working well together as a team in order to have good core strength.
Read full blogWhat are the core muscles and what do they do?
By: Rachel Herrmann, DPT, PT
When most people think of the core, they think of the abdominals and doing sit-ups and generally know that one needs to have good core strength. Beyond that, most people don’t know much else about the core.
So what are the core muscles and what do they really do?
The core muscles consist of the muscles surrounding and providing stability and postural control to the torso, abdomen and pelvis.
Planking Our Way to A Full-Body Workout
It’s true! You can get a full body workout with one exercise. It may sound like a myth, but there is one legendary strengthening and stabilization move that will simultaneously work your arms, shoulders, chest, upper and lower back, abdominals, gluteals and quadriceps: the plank!
Physical and Mental Challenge
Holding a plank is certainly a physical challenge, but it’s often just as much of a mental workout. It’s easy to psych yourself out and quit when you start feeling “the burn” before you truly reach muscle fatigue.
Read full blogMoving Differently Because of Discomfort?
By Kieran Loving, ATC
Core is defined as the central or most important part of something. When it comes to the CORE of the human body what comes to mind? Most people think a rocking six pack of abs means a strong core! This is a huge misconception. The core of your body actually means the central most important part of your body and the average body space is a lot bigger than just your abdomen.