The Myth of Core Stability
Few people would argue that core training is an integral part of an athletic development training program. Aesthetic benefits aside, core training is widely accepted as improving:
- Lumbar stability and therefore reducing risk and/or symptoms of low back pain
- Force transfer between the lower and upper body, which improves power in just about every athletic movement (kicking a soccer ball, swinging a bat, lacrosse and hockey shooting, fighting off defenders in every contact sport)
- Stability of the pelvis to allow for more efficient lower body movements, such as rapidly changing direction
Because of the core’s importance in both maximizing performance and minimizing injury risk, core stabilization concepts are one of the underlying foundations of all of our training programs at Endeavor. If you’ve been following my site for a while you know that I do my best to actively seek out new information to better design programs to help our athletes. Last week I came across a draft of an article from Eyal Lederman, a professor in London, titled “The Myth of Core Stability.” I’m always intrigued by articles that argue against the norm as these are usually the most eye opening.
Lederman argued that the evidence in support of core stability training to back pain is pretty limited. He notes that strength may not be the issue since some of the major core muscles are minimally active during activities of daily living. As a quick background, muscles become “active” when the body sends an electrical signal to the muscle to contract. For study purposes, the signal is often “normalized” to a maximal value for that muscle (MVC). When we talk about these “maximal” values, we need to keep in mind that maximum activation is highly dependent upon the length of the muscle and direction of the movement, but I won’t bore you with all the underlying neuroscience.
The article cites research demonstrating that walking necessitates average values of:
- 2% MVC from the rectus abdominis (the six pack muscle)
- 5% MVC from the external obliques
Further research is cited painting the picture that normal activities (even some with external loads added) require minimal trunk muscle activity (between 1-5% MVC).
The underlying tone of the article was that core stability training is foolish and scientifically unsupported. I bring up this article because many times these things work their way to your eyes and ears through the media with headlines like “Core Training Is Not Important” as some staff writer attempts to create an interesting story with out-of-context research. Within an athletic context, there are a few things worth keeping in mind:
- The article cites trunk activity during walking and standing, not hockey-relevant movements like skating, changing directions, shooting, taking hits, etc.
- The article is put within the frame of solving back pain, not optimizing performance
- The article largely ignores evidence of active people with back pain resolving symptoms by putting a greater focus on improving their posture and core stability
- Like many academics, this article systematically (although using flawed logic) dismisses many commonly held beliefs about core training, but fails to offer any alternative
At Endeavor Sports Performance, our core training system functions to integrate appropriate mobility and stability of the pelvis and spine into athletic movements. We follow a basic progression of:
- Reinforce core stability in static positions (front planks, side planks, glute bridges, anti-rotation belly press isoholds, etc.)
- Increase challenge to static core stability by adding a dynamic component (chop and lift variations, plank and bridge “marches”, rollouts, tight rotations, 2-Way Bunkie side planks, dynamic anti-rotation belly press’, etc.)
- Maximize unexpected dynamic stiffness through perturbation training (Split stance belly press with perturbation, overhead stability ball perturbation, squat with overhead stability ball perturbation, split squat with overhead stability ball perturbation, stability ball front plank with perturbation, side plank with perturbation, etc.)
While I think most people are at least loosely familiar with the first two steps of this progression, few athletes have been exposed to perturbation training. I strongly believe this type of training will drastically increase in popularity over the next several years. Check out videos of a couple of the more advanced progressions of perturbation training below. Have you ever seen anything like this?
Split Squat IsoHold with Overhead Stability Ball Perturbation
Stability Ball Front Plank with Perturbation
Colby Cohen and Jeff Buvinow do a great demonstrating these exercises. The goal is to not move at all or, more realistically, to minimize the displacement and return to “neutral” as quickly as possible. It’s hard to tell from the video, but I’m really “cranking” on them pretty hard. We progress to more vigorous perturbations, but ultimately we want to challenge their stability in multiple directions. In the first video, I’m randomly alternating amongst pushing, pulling, and rotating the ball in a variety of directions. In the second video, I’m somewhat randomly alternating between rotating the hips, rotating the shoulder, and laterally deviating the hips and shoulders. By creating a random variety of stresses, the athlete learns to reflexively generate stiffness.
To your success,
Kevin Neeld
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I believe the Lederman article you refer to uses examples of core training which demand isolation of specific muscle groups eg Transverse Abdominus. The priciples of corestability (For athletic performance or back pain management) and muscle isolation are directly opposed.
In my experience most studies which knock corestability make this misstake.
Keep up the good work.
25.08.2010, 5:29 amAdam-You’re absolutely right. I don’t disagree with his contention that TvA stuff has gotten completely out of hand. I don’t however, think it’s appropriate to draw definitive conclusions about the benefits of core training based on isolation training of one muscle not working and a couple studies. Anyone familiar with research knows that you can pretty much build any argument you want and support it with a few studies. If the intention is for practitioners to use current research to change their training methods, it’s important that the “this is stupid and doesn’t work” approach is at the very least supplemented by a few recommendations on what we SHOULD do. This is where a lot of research leaves room to be desired.
I hope all is well with you. It’s always great to hear from the UK!
25.08.2010, 7:23 am[...] Kevin Neeld responded to this article, pointing out that Lederman focused on core stability exercises for helping with back pain and not for what it is really intended: overall fitness and optimal performance. Neeld particularly emphasizes the importance of core stability exercises for athletes. [...]
08.09.2010, 7:35 pmHi Guys,
The Lederman article does refer to exercises to do: ones that mimic the movements you want to perform.
24.11.2011, 6:24 amHe states early on that a lot of ‘core training’ forgets the principle of specificity. He argue that muscles ‘fire’ specifically to the demands placed on them with little carry over between exercises. So, according to Lederman, balance on a stability ball (as in the vid) will have little carry over to hockey.
He also argue that general exercise is just as effective as ‘core training’.
It would be nice to know what these were but it maybe a case of looking at the research ourselfs