Have you always wondered what ‘the core’ actually is? Have you been told to ‘strengthen your core’ to help with your back pain? Are you looking to strengthen your tummy after pregnancy? Or maybe you just want the knowledge to move better?

If you want to know more about the core and how Pilates can help strengthen your core muscles, this is the article for you.

Knowledge is power, so understanding what happens when you are doing your abs exercises will help you to move better, work more efficiently and ultimately get a stronger core!

What is the ‘core’?

The core is often referred to as the muscles that wrap around and pull in your stomach. However, it is a lot more complex than that.

The pelvis is the centre when looking at transferring load and weight around the body. In standing, your centre of gravity sits naturally just in front of the sacrum (see the spine anatomy handout).

When looking at ‘the core’, the diaphragm and trunk are essential in movement control and support. It has been well documented that if your head, rib cage, and pelvis are lined up around your centre of gravity then you will use the least energy during movement. This is often known as a ‘neutral spine’. This area surrounds a space which can change the volume within it by expanding and contracting. The diaphragm divides this space into the thoracic and thoraco-abdominal-pelvic cavity. The latter is our ‘core’.

Functional mechanics of the core

There are three important things to think about with a healthy ‘core’.

  1. Breathing
    This generates intra-abdominal pressure and natural stability around the spine.
  2. Postural control
    Balanced activation between the muscles on the front (flexor) and the back (extensor).
  3. Control of the pelvis
    Pelvic control directly links to how you control the flexor and extensor muscles.

Having good co-ordination of these three systems gives you complex patterns of control and includes many deep muscles and structures including:

  • Diaphragm
  • Pelvic floor
  • Transversus abdominis
  • Multifidus
  • Interspinales and intertransversarii (small muscles between your vertebrae)
  • Psoas and iliacus
  • Quadratus lumborum (particularly the medial fibres)
  • Internal oblique
  • Deep hip rotators

These muscles create a sleeve around you which adapt to provide ‘core control’.

Your core does lots of important things including:

Regulating internal pressure changes

This means that when you sneeze, laugh, blow your nose, or are sick, it adapts to the load automatically. When you run or jump it also helps with continence.

Breathing and postural control

Breathing is described as the most fundamental motor pattern and linked inextricably with postural control. For us to stand against gravity, we need to develop postural control. In our developmental sequence, breathing becomes integrated into our evolving patterns of movement control. As a result, breathing and postural control support each other.

A healthy breathing pattern is said to be one of lateral expansion of the lower rib cage. To get the ribs to ‘push out’, you need to be able to generate enough intra-abdominal pressure. When you have pain or poor posture your breathing changes. However, if posture is good then breathing is facilitated and vice versa.

Pilates and the core – what is the connection?

Pilates has also become strongly linked with the ‘core’, although Joseph Pilates never used the term. He focused on whole body health and complete co-ordination of body, mind and spirit. After his move to America, his work was mainly with elite dancers and athletes and looked at high load exercises. In 2002, Unagaro described the Pilates method as ‘the powerhouse’ which gives you the image of large powerful muscles rather than internal structures. Again, you can see how ‘the core’ has changed.

The core - A female lying on her back in a pilates studio with her arms extended above hoer holding a circle

Background information

‘The core’ has become popular in both the medical and fitness industries, with both at one point, assuming that the core is only your abdominals and by strengthening them you will reduce back pain. However, there is no science behind this. This article is a great way of helping you to understand exactly what the core is, why it is not just the abdominals, how it functions normally and how it is commonly changed in people with spine or pelvic pain.

A lot of clinicians find that people who have spinal or pelvic pain, or a combination of both, cannot organise the basic elements of ‘core control’. As a result, a patient will often try to strengthen their abdominals. However, this could be further imprinting poor movement patterns and strategies. The debate around what the ‘core’ is and how it could help began around 2008. Despite this, it is difficult for people to give an exact definition of what ‘the core’ is.

The core - Two females wearing gym clothes sat cross-legged on mats in a studio adopting the lotus position in yoga

5 Pilates Core Exercises

Core Pilates Exercise 1- Femur arcs

Lying on your back on a mat or comfortable floor. Take a moment to take some breaths, feeling the back of your head, back of your ribs and tail bone heavy into the floor beneath you.

Sigh out and float 1 leg into table top. Sigh out again, and float your second leg to join in double leg table top.

Arms resting by your side, as you sigh out, let one leg come down to the floor and then float it back up again as you breathe in. Alternate sides.

You should be able to breathe easily throughout this movement and feel your tummy, head, ribs and tailbone remain relatively still. Do as many as you can until you feel this becomes difficult, then rest and try and complete 3 sets in total.

View our Femur Arc tutorial here.

Core Pilates Exercise – Dead bug

Lying on your back on a mat or comfortable floor. As above, bring your legs into table top, one leg at a time. Bring both hands to point towards the ceiling.

As you sigh out, extend opposite arm and leg away from you and then breathe in to draw your arms and legs back to starting position. Alternate sides to begin. The lower your leg goes to the floor, the harder the exercise will be.

Ensure the back of your head, tailbone and ribs are staying relatively still and that you can keep breathing or hold a conversation.

Try 2 sets of 10 extensions of opposite sides, then try and perform 2 sets of 10 extending away on the same side.

View our dead bug tutorial here. 

Core Pilates Exercise 3 – Side to Side

Start by lying on your back on a mat or comfortable floor. To warm up, put your knees and feet together and let your legs fall to one side as your head looks in the opposite direction. Sigh and let your legs move across to the other side.

Once you’re comfortable, bring your legs up into tabletop. Bring your legs together by pressing your big toes and inner thighs together.

Tip your legs over to one side, your pelvis will follow and then your abdominals. Let your head roll to the opposite side. As you sigh, press your bottom inner thigh muscles towards the centre and bring your legs back to the centre in table top. This movement will help activate your side tummy muscles.

Try 3 sets of 10 (5 each way). If you find this exercise difficult, try it first with your feet on the floor.

Core Pilates Exercise 4 – Full Pilates Chest Lift

Lying on your back on a mat or comfortable floor with your knees bent and feet flat, place your hands behind your head.

Pick up your head, lifting it just off the floor.

As you sigh, send your gaze to your pubic bone and roll your ribs to come up into a chest lift.

Grab the back of your thighs with your hands and reach your elbows wide to come up a little higher.

Stay in that position for a few seconds, then place your hands back behind your neck and slowly roll your spine back down until the last thing to touch the mat is the back of your shoulders.

Try and repeat 10 of these, really working on the slow and controlled lowering back down to the mat.

View our chest lift tutorial here. 

Core Pilates Exercise 5 – Knee hover

Using a Pilates mat, set yourself up one all fours with shoulders set above hands and hips above knees, with your eye gaze between your hands.

Spread your fingers to create a good base of support and curl your toes under your feet.

Breathe out and press into your hands and feet until your knees hover about an inch off the floor.

Keep breathing as you hold and slowly lower. Repeat this 8-10 times if you’re holding for under 15 seconds, or 4-6 times if you’re holding for 30 seconds or more.

Try and increase how long you can hold for as you keep practising.

View our Knee hover tutorial here. 

Why not try a 15 minute core class on our YouTube channel today?

‘Core control’ and intra-abdominal pressure

The spine is the backbone of the body and helps us to move and bend freely. However, there are a lot of things which need to happen for it to be supported.

Intra-abdominal pressure has been looked at for many years when analysing adding weight to your body. These studies focus on trunk strength rather than control. However, later studies show this pressure is important in the posture and support required in normal activities of life.

Intra-abdominal pressure is generated when the diaphragm descends. A co-contraction of the known transversus abdominis and pelvic floor is created. This is an automatic response which acts like a ‘pre movement’ stabiliser. It is important that the activity level and timing between these are well balanced. Problems occur when there is not only underactivity, but also overactivity, for example gripping or bracing.

Breathing

For healthy people the amount of intra-abdominal pressure that you generate should be appropriate for the task. This means that the pressure should increase in proportion to the forces that your limbs are generating. For example, if you are lifting an extremely heavy weight, you need to splint the abdominal wall and sacrifice good breathing patterns to generate enough intra-abdominal pressure for appropriate support.

Your spine stiffness will also change through your breathing cycle. Holding your breath at the end of inspiration increases your intra-abdominal pressure and creates spine stiffness. However, breathing throughout movement creates optimal pressure which reduces the risk of unwanted spinal compression.

Variation

Importantly, intra-abdominal pressure is constantly variable. This means that it is buoyant and gives you the natural internal stability to help you maintain an upright posture against gravity. Because of this constant change in pressure, the deeper muscles work constantly but at a low level to achieve this postural uprightness and at the same time generate the support required for activity.

In movement, you can see if you have underactive or overactive abdominals. In underactive, the abdomen will protrude or dome and the ‘neutral’ spino-pelvic posture is lost as well as the relationship between the thorax and the pelvis changes.

When the superficial abdominals are too strong, the neutral spino-pelvic posture is also lost, the thoracic opening is constricted and intrabdominal pressure is constricted, also loosing stability. This is why the balance between the systems is so important.

Is the pelvic floor part of ‘the core’?

In short, yes. The pelvic floor must contract during tasks which require higher intra-abdominal pressure to both help contribute to this pressure but also to maintain continence. More and more research is showing a link between continence and poor breathing patterns.

It is about co-ordination rather than strength

As plenty of research has shown, the ‘core response’ is about muscle activation and co-ordination rather than strength. It is reliant on sensory input and is the activation of many muscles which produce complex patterns of control and movement, not the strength of an individual muscle. No muscle can work alone and trying to do this creates dysfunctional spines and poor movement. To re-train ‘core control’, you must train basic muscular patterns.

What can go wrong with your core?

All it takes is subtle changes to this fine balance to create problems. In people with chronic lower back pain it is heavily documented that their spines move less and with excess superficial muscle tension and effort. The deep system is also uncoordinated, and people hold their breath.

You can often see when there is something wrong by looking at posture from the side. A larger curve in the lumbar spine generally facilitates breathing from the upper chest and expiration is shorter. The muscles in the extensor system over-recruit, and those in the anterior under-recruit.

In rehab these people need to have more activity in their abdomen. However, not through multiple sit-ups or crunches. The best way to do this is in training the exhalation and trying to lengthen it. This must then be maintained whilst performing a task. The easiest place to start this is on your back with the hips flexed.

In people with a flat lower back, in general they are more anteriorly dominant with overactivity in the upper abdomen. This is generally a bracing response. Normally people here rely on slumping to generate stability. Again, there is an upper chest breathing pattern. In rehabilitation this group needs to down train their pelvic floor and upper abdomen to encourage better diaphragm activity.

What all this means

‘Core’ problems are common in patients who have difficulty sitting up and breathing properly. Pilates can help correct breathing patterns that in turn can help to improve ‘core control’, as it is a fundamental part of the intrinsic stability mechanism. Once breathing has been re-trained, it is important to then load the limbs in order to challenge this patterning and re-create movements that mimic what you need day to day, whether that be a hard-core HIIT class or a cycle along the canal.

Overly focusing on the abdominals alone without looking at the timing and mechanics of the trunk and pelvis, can further increase this dysfunction creating more instability and pain. Even those who do high intensity exercise benefit from Pilates training to help improve their breathing dynamics and stability, helping them create more efficient movement.

In order to have a well-functioning ‘core’ you must expand your knowledge and thoughts of what the area is and understand the timing. Most importantly, you must remember that like Goldilocks and the three bears, the activity should be neither too high, or too low, but just right.

Conclusion

If you would like any more advice and guidance around Pilates and ‘the core’, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Why not come and try a studio class of Pilates in Kensington or 1-2-1 session with Complete Pilates at any of our studios? You can also visit us at our Pilates studio on Fulham road or our Pilates studio in the City of London.

Education is key:

These blogs are designed to give information to everyone, however, it is important to remember that everyone is different! If you have not seen one of our therapists and have any questions about injuries, what you have read or whether this may be useful to you, please just ask. We are more than happy to help anyone and point you in the right direction. Our biggest belief is that education is key. The more you understand about your injury, illness and movement, the more you are likely to improve.

If you are not sure whether this is for you, simply get in touch. We are here to help!
Did you find this useful?
YesNo