Seeing as sports injuries and particularly back pain have been the topics of a few recent articles, I asked a friend, what advice he could give us. Well known fitness and bodybuilding expert Nick Nillson gives us a few tips, to dramatically improve sports and weightlifting performance and say goodbye to lower back pain! Plus, you’ll learn two exercises you can do at home, that directly target the muscles of the core.

If you were to ask me, which muscle group in your entire body, you could work, to get the greatest benefits, in the shortest amount of time, I would tell you without hesitation, “the core.” Strengthening the core can realize tremendous benefits to anyone, regardless of his, or her training experience and can do so very quickly.

But what is the core?

The core, as it’s known in strength training circles, consists of all the muscles in your abdominal and lower back areas. This includes all the abdominal muscles (rectus abdominus, internal and external obliques, transverse abdominus and intercostals) as well as the muscles associated with the spine (the erector spinae group) and the hip flexors (iliacus and psoas, collectively known as the iliopsoas).

These muscles all work in harmony, to provide stabilization for your body and to transfer power from the legs, to the upper body and vice versa. The core muscles also function to keep your insides in, where they belong!

And why is strengthening the core so important?

Weak core muscles contribute to all kinds of problems in the body, the most prevalent of which is lower back pain. By strengthening the muscles that help support the spine and improve posture, you can dramatically decrease the symptoms of lower back pain.

Picture your spine as a column of soda cans, stacked one on top of the other. If you wanted to keep that column standing up under stress, what do you think would work better: a “tenser” bandage (as is used for wrapping injured ankles) or Scotch tape? Sure the tape would keep the cans together, but the cans wouldn’t receive a whole lot support, would they?

When you strengthen the muscles of the core, you are in effect turning that Scotch tape into a nice, tight “tenser” bandage, increasing the amount of support that your spine gets.

Core training also has the potential, to greatly improve sports performance. Watch a baseball pitcher throw a pitch, in slow motion. The power of the throw starts at the legs, gets transferred through the abdominal area (a.k.a. the core) then ends up in the arm, where the ball is released. Imagine how much speed and power would be lost from that throw, if the core muscles couldn’t efficiently transfer the force from the legs, to the throwing arm.

The core is the one area of the body that will always give you a great return on your investment.

So how do I train my core muscles?

Exercises that work the abdominals and the lower back, are the staples of core training. Also, exercises that target the stabilization and power-transfer duties of the core muscles, are very effective.

The most basic abdominal training exercise, is the standard crunch. You can go to the following URL, to see the proper technique for this exercise:
http://dersalsites.com/clintstraining/prod/1017/

But I’ve got an exercise for you, that blows the standard crunch right out of the water. The equipment required for this exercise: one rolled-up towel.

The exercise is known as the Abdominal Sit-Up. It uses a sit-up-like movement, but focuses directly on the abdominal muscles, rather than the hip flexors (which a regular sit-up does). It is also very safe for your lower back. Another advantage it has, over the standard crunch, is that it targets the stretched (arched back) range of motion of the abs, which is totally missed, in standard floor crunch.

How To Do It:

Lie on your back, on the floor. Roll up a towel, or mat and slip it underneath your lower back, just above the waistband (the size of the towel affects your body position during this movement - use a fairly large towel).

Your knees should be bent about 90 degrees. Keep your feet close together and knees fairly wide apart. This prevents the hip flexors from having a direct line of pull, helping to minimize their involvement.

Do not anchor your feet, or have someone hold them down. This automatically activates the hip flexors. You will get the most out of this exercise, by minimizing their involvement.

The difficulty of this exercise depends on where you hold your hands. The hardest position is above your head, at arms-length, then beside your head, then across your chest, then straight down between your legs, or at your sides. Start with the easiest first, then progress to the other positions, as you get stronger.

You are now ready to begin.

Keeping your torso straight and stiff, start the sit-up, by  tightening your lower abs, then lifting your upper body off the  floor.

As you continue up, imagine trying to push your face up, against the ceiling (think up, not around). When you reach about 25 to 30 degrees above horizontal, hold there for a second, or two and squeeze your abs hard.

Keep your lower back in contact with the towel at all times and always maintain tension in the abs.

Lower yourself down slowly and under control. Do not just drop back to the ground. The negative portion of this exercise is extremely effective.

Remember to adjust your arm position, depending on the strength of your abs (see above).

You can see pictures of how this exercise is done by going to:
http://dersalsites.com/clintstraining/prod/1059/

Incline Ab Sit-Ups

If you are a beginning trainer, this is a good starting variation of the Abdominal Sit-up.

Set an incline sit-up board, to a slight incline. If you don’t have an incline sit-up board, you can use an adjustable incline bench, a decline bench, a Step platform with a riser under one of the ends, or a flat bench with something under one end. You can even use a propped-up 2 x 6 board!

Your head should be on the higher end, with your feet placed on the floor.

The execution is exactly the same. The only difference is that the tension on the abs is much less, due to the greatly improved leverage in this position, allowing even people who feel that their abs aren’t strong enough, to do the exercise.

Lying Superman Raises - An Exercise For The Lower Back

Though this exercise has a rather unique name, it is an excellent strengthening exercise for the lower back, that you can do almost anywhere.

How To Do It:

Lie face down on the floor, with your arms stretched out directly overhead (like Superman flying, hence the name).

Raise your left arm and right leg into the air at the same time, also raising your chest slightly off the floor. Hold there for a second and squeeze the muscles of your lower back. Lower your limbs back to the ground, then raise your right arm and left leg and hold for a second. You can push down with the hand that is on the ground, to help raise your other arm and chest higher off the ground.

This exercise, even though it only uses your limbs as resistance, provides an excellent way to strengthen the lower back muscles.

Conclusion:

These two exercises will give you a good place to start with core training. You can begin improving your core strength, by doing these exercises 3 times a week, for 2 to 3 sets each. Make core training a priority, in your exercise routine and you will rapidly reap the benefits of having a stronger, more injury-proof midsection and back.

This great advice was written by Nick Nilsson, who  is Vice-President of the online personal training company BetterU, Inc. He has a degree in Physical Education and Psychology and has been inventing new training techniques for more than 16 years. Nick is the author of a number of bodybuilding eBooks including “Metabolic Surge - Rapid Fat Loss,” “The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of,” “Gluteus to the Maximus - Build a Bigger Butt NOW!” and “The Best Abdominal Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of” all available at http://dersalsites.com/clintstraining/prod/fiteboosite/ He can be contacted at betteru@fitstep.com .

Clinton Robson is a fitness fanatic and is a qualified Personal Trainer. He is busy doing a special higher level course, to qualify as an Exercise Specialist, or Conditioning Coach. At present, he works in 2 gyms, assisting the staff with clients and training plans. He has been working out regularly, for the last 10 years. After completing the higher course, he will seek employment on the cruise ships, to gain more experience and then will open his own gym. He thrives on extreme sports such as canoe marathons, tri-athlons, iron-man, skydiving, bunjee jumping, martial arts etc. He has decided to use blogging, as a medium to share articles on fitness, exercise, bodybuilding, gym, training and more with other interested people..

Clint has also put together a website, full of articles on fitness, nutrition, weightloss and bodybuilding and has amassed hundreds them, on various topics of fitness. Check his site at: http://dersalsites.com/clintstraining/  and his new blogsite at http://dersalsites.com/clintstrainingblog/

Both his parents are South African internet marketers.  Derek Robson is an up and coming, South African, internet marketer, with a vision of empowering all fellow South Africans and non U.S folk, to have equal opportunity and success, on the internet. He is a syndicated article writer. He and his wife Sally, have started a string of sites, resources, courses and articles, as part of Dersalsites. For daily postings and articles, on internet marketing, South African business, list building, affiliate marketing, the law of attraction, rugby and general topics, check his blogsite, at: http://dersalsites.com/southafricanbusiness  

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