The Importance of Core Strength

When people people think of core strength, they may just think about your abs, but core strength is so much more than just strong stomach muscles. Your core is your abs, obliques, back, chest, and hips. They all work together to support your body, and there are many reasons why it is important to build up and maintain core strength.

Stability and Protection:

Your core is what supports your spine. When all of your core muscles are strong and working together they keep your spine stable. This protects your spine no matter what activity you are doing. Sitting, standing, walking, running, jumping, all of these activities involve the spine. If the spine is not stable and protected this leaves it vulnerable to injury. Good core strength protects the spine and ensures it is stable as you go about your daily activities.

Posture:

We all want good posture, and good core strength is important for this to happen. Our core muscles are what allow us to maintain a good upright posture, so if these muscles become weak and imbalanced, our posture is going to suffer. Your upper back may start rounding and your lower back might starting straightening out or over extending. Prolonged bad posture leads to wear and tear of the spine.

Less pain:

As mentioned above poor posture leads to wear and tear of the spine. This, along with poor stability of the spine can lead to spinal pain. A spine that is surrounded by strong, supportive muscles is going to move and work better, and have significantly reduced chance of aches and pains. A poorly protected spine is also more vulnerable to injury, and these injuries are unlikely to heal correctly if your spine is not properly supported, increasing the chance of pain lasting long term.

Overall strength:

In order to be able to effectively build up strength in other parts of your body, such as your arms or legs, you also need to have a strong core. A strong core is needed in order to stabilise your body so you can activate muscles in your arms and legs. If you do not have a strong core you will not be able to stabilise properly and you will not be able to get the best use out of the muscles in your arms and legs. Especially if you are using weights to strengthen muscles, having your core stabilise is what allows you to lift heavier weights in order to build up strength elsewhere, and to do this without causing injury.

Good core strength is essential in ensuring that our body stays strong, stable and healthy. It is important to make sure you are strengthening all parts of your core, not just your abdominal muscles. If you are just starting to do exercises to strengthen you core make sure you ease into it, as doing too much too fast can cause an injury. If you need some advice or exercise ideas to build up core strength please come in and see one of our chiropractors, as they will be able to assist you in building a strong, healthy core that supports your spine.