Why Core Fitness is Important

Why Core Fitness is Important
If you've listened to the buzz around the fitness world
lately or perused the latest workout books, you've probably
heard the experts referencing core fitness in some shape or
form. Traditionally, strength training has been dominated
by exercises focused on isolating the muscles of the arms
and legs. In fact, if you look at many of the weight
machines that have become popular in modern gyms, you'll
notice that they require you to sit or recline while you
use them.

While these machines will effectively help you build the
muscles that they target, the problem is that, in real
life, we don't use our muscles that way. We lift a box from
the floor to a shelf, swing a golf club, push our children
on the swing set, or climb a rock wall. In fact, the vast
majority of the things we do require all of the muscles in
our bodies to function together and be coordinated through
our mid-sections, or our "core."

While those activities may make the use of core muscles
seem very obvious, this area, made up of the muscles of our
midsection, are actually responsible for quite a few of the
more subtle functions as well, including posture, balance
and stability.

A weakened core will often result in poor posture and
stability, yet we don't necessarily feel the results of it
in areas that show us a direct cause and effect
correlation. For example, poor posture, due to a weakened
core, might allow our hips to slip out of alignment
resulting in knee pain. In fact, quite a few of the chronic
muscle and joint pain issues that Americans are suffering
with today stem from a weakened core.

It is no wonder, then, that exercise science has taken a
dramatic shift in recent years to include the core in
strength training regimes. Now, rather than using a machine
to first exercise your legs and then your arms, trainers
are suggesting that their clients use free weights or bands
to combine exercises such as a squat to overhead press. By
linking the two, people are forced to transition the
exercise movement through their core, and the core muscles
in turn help to maintain good posture throughout the
exercise. The end result is that we are exercising in a
fashion that mimics the movements that we use in everyday
life, while creating better posture and increasing our
stability and balance.

----------------------------------------------------
About The Author: Charles Carter, BS in Exercise Science is
President of LIVE, llc of http://www.liveleantoday.com -
visit the website for more information on weight loss, core
fitness programs, optimal diets, and online personal
trainer and dietician services. For more information on
products go to http://shop.liveleantoday.com .