Many people who exercise focus on leg and arm strength to maintain mobility, but the strength of the muscles of your torso—your core muscles—determines how effectively you use your arms and legs and indeed your entire body. That goes for essential activities of daily living, such as getting dressed, making meals, and being able to stand up and sit down with ease, as well as for more demanding movement, from picking up a heavy bag of pet food to playing with your grandkids.
There’s also an important relationship between fracture prevention and core strength: If you have good core strength, good alignment, and good awareness of your spine, you’re less likely to experience a fracture. That’s because a strong core supports balance, protecting against falls that can cause a bone break.
In addition, core strength helps prevent back pain, which can result from poor core muscles and can be quite debilitating. What’s more, that pain signals the nervous system to shut down core musculature activation. When the core muscles turn off, superficial muscles contract as a substitute. People often think that a massage brings back pain relief, but if you don’t follow through with core strengthening, you can open yourself up to injury.
More than your abs
You might think of your core simply as your stomach muscles, but it’s actually a group of muscles that completely girdles your torso. Think of your core as a cylinder of support with the diaphragm at the top, the pelvic floor at the bottom, and musculature that wraps around your midsection, notably the transverse abdominis, or deep layer of abdominal muscle that protects the front of the body, and the multifidus, the deep back muscle that cradles your spine. If your belly is pouching out, regardless of whether there’s a fat layer, that’s a signal that your core muscles aren’t doing their job.
Get in line
One of the simplest ways to activate your core muscles is to maintain proper head posture. In fact, if your core is not working, it’s probably because your head is forward, a position that causes slouched shoulders, a rounded back, and a core that collapses. Put your head back in alignment, and you’ll feel your abs contract: Balance your head right over the rest of your body, not in front of it, pull your throat back, and elongate the space between the ribs and pelvis. Try to maintain this alignment at all times, including when standing up and sitting down, walking, and doing vertical exercises like heel raises. A good test is to hold a broom stick behind you: Your head, mid-back and sacrum should all touch the stick.
Another everyday way to engage the core muscles is through deep breathing. Take a deep breath, purse your lips, and push the air out of your lungs. You’ll immediately feel your abdominal musculature start to contract. The diaphragm and the pelvic floor work together: When you inhale, you should feel the diaphragm flatten and the pelvic floor drop. As you exhale, they lift.
Strengthening your core: leg lift series
A progressive series of leg lifts, done lying on your back, is great for activating the core muscles. Crunches, on the other hand, target only the rectus abdominus and don’t actually help a belly that’s pouching out.
Prepping and proper form both matter. When you lie down, press your back and pelvis into your exercise mat, then try to create as much elongation as possible between the ribs and pelvis. This helps you avoid using your hip flexors rather than core muscles to do the work.
A simple tool to make sure you’re doing exercises correctly is to place a yoga strap or a folded dog leash under your lower back. Maintaining contact with the strap will keep you from arching your back as you raise and lower your legs.
Breathing is a tool, not a rule: Use your breathing—inhalations and exhalations—to help to engage the abdominals. Some people benefit from a full exhalation before the lifting movement while others prefer to inhale as they lift. Do whatever works best for you.
Finally, do these exercises barefoot, because the weight of even light sneakers can make it harder to maintain proper form.
Build from 5 to 10 repetitions for each exercise (on each side when doing single leg lifts).
Leg Lift #1
Start by bending your knees, with your feet flat on the floor. Keep your left foot flat on the floor as you lift the right foot, bringing the knee toward your chest. Keep your knee at a 90-degree angle, with your shin parallel to the floor (the tabletop position).
Use control and slowly return to the starting position. Repeat, and then switch legs.
Leg lift #2
Start with both knees in the tabletop position. Keep your left leg steady as you lower the right heel to tap it on the floor. With control, slowly bring it back up to meet the left leg. Repeat, and then switch legs.
Leg Lift #3
Start with both knees in the tabletop position. Keep the left leg steady as you extend your right leg out, and then with control slowly bring it back to meet the left leg. Repeat, and then switch legs
Leg Lift #4
Start with both knees in the tabletop position. Lower both heels to tap them on the floor, and then with control slowly bring them back to the tabletop position. Repeat.
Leg lift #5
Start with both knees in the tabletop position. Extend both legs straight out at a 45-degree angle to the floor, and then with control slowly bring them back to the tabletop position. Repeat.
Leg lift #6
Start with both legs extended straight out at a 45-degree angle to the floor. Lower both straight legs by a few inches, and then with control slowly bring them back to the starting position. Repeat. Note: At first, you might not be able to lower them much, but, over time, work to increase the amount.
As you progress, consider adding three-dimensional exercises to your routine, such as side lifts and planks of increasing difficulty.
Weightlifting
As we age, we lose muscle strength (as well as bone density) simply because we get out of the habit of lifting heavy objects. This is especially true for women. One of the best ways to retain strength and activate core control and the pelvic floor is with strength training and lifts in particular, with the right body mechanics of course. Doing body-weight exercises, like lunges and heel raises, also keeps bones strong. So does traditional weightlifting using a barbell (called a deadlift), back squats with a weight on your shoulders, and overhead raises with weights.
Even when picking up a basket of laundry or a just-delivered box, you want to lift with the right form, using your core and not your back. Here’s how: With your trunk in proper alignment (remember the straight line between your head, mid-back, and sacrum) and your spine elongated, maintain that elongation between the ribs and pelvis and position yourself right over the item with your feet on either side of it. I always tell women to imagine the position you’d get into to pee in the box—an image that’s hard to forget, but it works! Hinge the upper body downward with bent knees, use your hands to pick up the item, and then straighten legs to stand.
When to get help
If it’s been a long time since you lifted weight or if physical roadblocks, such as the inability to maintain proper alignment or not knowing the right body mechanics to use, are keeping you from progressing, get the right guidance from a physical therapist or credentialed trainer. Their know-how can be especially helpful if existing back pain, knee pain, or arthritis are keeping you from successful core work.
If you’re having specific problems with your pelvic floor—it can be tight, making it hard to initiate urination, for example, or weak, leading to incontinence and/or prolapse— seek out a physical therapist specifically trained in pelvic floor issues who can do an internal evaluation to determine whether your pelvic floor is functioning correctly.
