Stability minimizes the amount of stress in your body.
Stability is not strength!
Stability is a sequence of muscle groups firing in your body to maximize efficiency.
When you move your body in an ideal manner, there are segments of muscles that fire. This is how is looks:
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| The inner core |
1) INNER CORE - first the inner core fires. This is the transverse abdominis, the multifidii, the pelvic floor as well as the diaphragm. A bunch of small fancy worded muscles that should fire without you thinking about it.
2) OUTER CORE - the next wave is the outer core, which are the muscles people normally think of when they think of the core like; abs, obliques, lats, etc
3) Extremities/The Rest - The last thing to move should be things like the hips, the glutes, the shoulders, the biceps, etc.
The problem is that after injuries or poor posture and lots of other reasons....our sequence gets thrown off. Suddenly we start firing the 2nd or 3rd levels first. When this happens you lose flexibility, compensate, maximize the stress on your body and open to door the pain and injury whether it's a sudden or gradual injury. Studies show that people in chronic pain no longer have this sequence in tact.
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| The Outer Core To evaluate if your stability is ideal I recommend you get evaluated by a sports medicine professional. |
The point of this article though it to point out that CORE STABILITY IS NOT HOW MANY CRUNCHES YOU CAN DO! It's not the strength of the muscles around your mid section but rather if you turn the right muscles on at the right time so that you have ideal flexibility and minimize stress on your body.
How do you know if you have inefficient stability? Can you touch your toes??? You probably don't if you can't.
For any questions or to schedule your own assessment please contact me at drscotthoar@gmail.com. To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com
