Personally, I think we should let human movement calibrate the core muscles. Walking, jogging, and cleaning up around the house are my favourite core exercises.
This might not work for high-performance athletes who (probably) need a trainer to fine-tune their core muscles (almost muscle by muscle) for the demands that they place on their bodies. I think the result of programs like this is better performance at the micro level but much greater susceptibility to injuries through core muscle balance issues (which I think the article correctly focuses on).
I think it completely overlooks the more important underlying issue: muscle balance and posture
I give it an F- FAIL
I don't understand your rationale for a fail. It's telling you what to do and not to do from the 30,000 foot level, but it's not a program.
...and it seems to be mostly about muscle balance. Are you saying that posture is the key to muscle balance? Posture is important to core strength?
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil58
I love the article.
Personally, I think we should let human movement calibrate the core muscles. Walking, jogging, and cleaning up around the house are my favourite core exercises.
This might not work for high-performance athletes who (probably) need a trainer to fine-tune their core muscles (almost muscle by muscle) for the demands that they place on their bodies. I think the result of programs like this is better performance at the micro level but much greater susceptibility to injuries through core muscle balance issues (which I think the article correctly focuses on).
Sorry. It's very hard to follow what you are saying in the last paragraph.
Core training should be set to the level of the athlete/trainee. If the person has adequate core strength and walks, jogs, and does housework, then that could be fine. What happens when they decide to change the flat tire on the car and hoist the tire from the trunk? That (to them) is an extreme movement that they aren't prepared for.
In the days of yore, people walked, jogged, and did housework, but also regularly mucked stalls, hunted, gathered, lifted heavy things around the house and yard. They generally did heavier work. In the modern day, exercise is basically a "treatment" to combat the lack of the activity that we used to have. Unfortunately, we need to be a little more prepared, because sometimes life throws things our way.
F-A-I-L for your post. You really are going to take word against the stuff that McGill wrote there? Your post makes no sense, do you even understand the terms you are using? Muscle balance and posture are very loose terms and if you focus on the work that McGill discusses you are going to positively affect those things anyway.
I would really like to know how McGill is wrong and what you would suggest in place. Should we work towards hollowing and lower ab work?
In the days of yore, people walked, jogged, and did housework, but also regularly mucked stalls, hunted, gathered, lifted heavy things around the house and yard. They generally did heavier work. In the modern day, exercise is basically a "treatment" to combat the lack of the activity that we used to have. Unfortunately, we need to be a little more prepared, because sometimes life throws things our way.
No argument from me at all. We have to prepare our bodies for unexpected things that come our way....that's one of the reasons I work out. It's the exercises that we use to do this that I probably am not in total agreement on.
A lot of my rationale is based on personal experience where abdominal strain injuries start appearing once I introduced new core exercises. I no longer introduce these into my programs, instead allowing my normal lifts to control required muscle development. I feel that conventional lifts *do* train your core muscles for activities that you describe (I probably should have included this in my original post).
But the foundation core exercises should be the mundane activities that we sometimes pass off as unimportant.....nature's way of keeping us healthy.
No argument from me at all. We have to prepare our bodies for unexpected things that come our way....that's one of the reasons I work out. It's the exercises that we use to do this that I probably am not in total agreement on.
A lot of my rationale is based on personal experience where abdominal strain injuries start appearing once I introduced new core exercises. I no longer introduce these into my programs, instead allowing my normal lifts to control required muscle development. I feel that conventional lifts *do* train your core muscles for activities that you describe (I probably should have included this in my original post).
But the foundation core exercises should be the mundane activities that we sometimes pass off as unimportant.....nature's way of keeping us healthy.
Then you are only prepared for the amount of stress that those mundane activities can produce. If one day you reach and stretch to catch something heavier than you're housework has 'trained' you for, you're screwed.
I'm not sure what type of training you do, but you mentioned jogging, walking and housework. I'll assume the average person around here does weight training, which does also train the 'core,' But, we sometimes still need to do specific things to give us the core strength beyond the level of lifting that we are doing, just in case.
If I'm squatting 250, I want my core to be able to handle 250 under less than ideal circumstances (a sudden slip, twist, strain, etc.). I need to have a better chance of preventing injury under those circumstances. My 250 squat isn't enough to train me for more than that.
Now, a 250 squat or deadlift may help give me the core strength to survive catching my 60lbs tv when it's sliding off the stand when I'm moving it around the house, but probably not catching a 250lbs barbell as I lose it in the gym. So, we want to prepare for what we're likely to need.
hahaha... Someone giving McGill's work an F pretty much tells the world what you (don't) know.
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First of all, the article is a FAIL. I said nothing about McGill's work
The results of a study mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING without extensive knowledge of the test subjects. The subjects of the mentioned studies were back pain patients? senior citizens? professional athletes? Children? athletes? sedentary adults.
You cannot mention anything about the core without talking about the posture (A position of the body or of body parts) which is unique from person to person. Posture is influenced over time by the muscle balance of the associated muscles. (i.e. tight hip flexors causing anterior pelvic tilt and weak glutes which is present in the majority of the population).
If an architect was called to fix a tower, you think the job would be the same with the Eiffel Tower as the Leaning Tower of Pisa? NO This article does not indicate which tower it is talking about, hence is completely pointless from top to bottom...
POSTURE: Is the article talking people w/ posture A, B or C? MUSCLE BALANCE: Why each person has their specific Posture?
An article titled "Core Myths" [Core myths for who?] leaves the reader to conclude that everything out there is wrong, buy Dr. McGill's books & DVDs.
It seems that your reading comprehension gets a FAIL
Quote:
Originally Posted by AskTheTrainer
The results of a study mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING without extensive knowledge of the test subjects. The subjects of the mentioned studies were back pain patients? senior citizens? professional athletes? Children? athletes? sedentary adults.
Paragraphs 1 and 2 tell about research done in the 90's on people with healthy and unhealthy backs and how that research have lead trainers and trainees to define "core" as the abdominal muscles.
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Originally Posted by from the article
“There’s so much mythology out there about the core,” maintains Stuart McGill, a highly regarded professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada and a back-pain clinician who has been crusading against ab exercises that require hollowing your belly. “The idea has reached trainers and through them the public that the core means only the abs. There’s no science behind that idea.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by AskTheTrainer?
You cannot mention anything about the core without talking about the posture (A position of the body or of body parts) which is unique from person to person. Posture is influenced over time by the muscle balance of the associated muscles. (i.e. tight hip flexors causing anterior pelvic tilt and weak glutes which is present in the majority of the population).
Quote:
Originally Posted by from the article
But, McGill says, the muscles forming the core must be balanced to allow the spine to bear large loads. If you concentrate on strengthening only one set of muscles within the core, you can destabilize your spine by pulling it out of alignment.
I don't know, it seems to me he is talking about muscle balance there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AskTheTrainer (NOT)
An article titled "Core Myths" [Core myths for who?] leaves the reader to conclude that everything out there is wrong, buy Dr. McGill's books & DVDs.
I didn't see any mention of Dr. McGill's books or DVDs in the article at all. But I wouldn't recommend them for you. This article was too difficult for you -imagine how hard the books must be.
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So, an 800 word internet article wasn't as comprehensive as you wish? The goal of the article seems to be "train your whole core and don't do traditional crunches and situps, which are bad for your spine."
As to posture in the study subjects, as you say, the majority of the population has APT, etc. So, you could go with the same odds for the article and the study and not have a beef, right?
Or, what if they had APT, PPT, or were neutral? Does that change the contention of the article, which is the core is not the abs, train the whole core, don't crunch or situp unless you make these modifications?
BTW, your own website just lists a whole bevy of core, ab and oblique exercises, without helping anyone analyze their "muscle balance" or posture first. ...and I think all those things I can click on are ads to sell books and dvds, right?
Hilarious! We don't wanna know what kind of full-body assessments are going on there.
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Working "hard," or the perception of working hard, doesn't really mean anything. Sweating, vomiting, and breathing hard could be a good workout or a tropical disease kicking in.-Dan John
I'm sorry the 800 word article didn't live up to your unrealistic expectations.
I kind of wished it was a 100,000 word article, where McGill went over every small muscle in the abdominal wall, and it's association with the hip area, and then go into shoulder issues being associated with the hips.
Unfortunately, it's a NYTimes article online, whose thesis seemed extremely plausible on improving your whole core with stability exercises rather than crunches and situps. The audience of the NY times is not going to care about the crap you listed, but may pay attention to the main thesis, that the crap they're doing for their abs isn't ideal for back health.
I think you had unrealistic expectations for the article and saying the article is a FAIL is being ignorant of the target audience and taking into account the positive reputation McGill has.
Maybe you should write an article and get it published? Or tell the NYTimes that you're more authoritative on the subject of back pain than McGill, and should be interviewed instead.
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I know I'm late to this discussion, but I first heard McGill lecture on this subject back in 2000 or 2001, IIRC. I've been writing about it in articles and books ever since. It's accepted among fitness professionals and, to my knowledge, not remotely controversial.
I've read and reread both of McGill's books to the point that the bindings have filed restraining orders against me, but the only way to keep current with McGill is to follow his new research month by month as it's published. He always has something interesting to add to the ongoing discussion over spine health and core training, and if you don't know what he's published recently, you're behind.
The only fault I'd put on the NYT is that the information they used is old stuff to fitness professionals. I think they could've written the exact same article 5 years ago.
NY Times Article about "Core Myths"
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