Tightening your core muscles

By Bob Otieno

While no amount of abdominal crunches will remove belly fat, only reducing body fat can do that. Your core, not only includes your abdominal muscles but also the complex series of muscles in your lower back and pelvic girdle that support your hips and spine.

Understanding the anatomy of the your abdominal

Obliques: they run diagonally around your waist to rotate your torso. The internal obliques lie under the external obliques.

Transverse abdominis: Are the deepest core muscles wrapping around your waist like a corset and pull your abdomen inward and upward toward your spine. If you exhale strongly and pull your stomach in, you will feel these muscles working.

Erector spinae: These back muscles extend your spine and prevent slouching.

Rectus abdominis: Sometimes known as {six pack when trained nicely} runs vertically down your stomach. It’s used when you bend your spine forward.

These muscles give you more stability for everything from swinging a tennis racket, golfing to lifting a bag of groceries and pulling items. This means conditioning and toning encourages all of these muscles to work in concert to support your body through a range of motion. You should also feel tightening deep within your abdomen when you work them out correctly,

Isolating them ensures that they get a sufficient workout without the support of your legs or help from momentum. Exercises such as plank pose, cobra pose: back extension, pilates roll-ups / yoga sit-ups and crossover are very ideal for effective results. Make sure you work slowly and steadily to keep your form. If you bounce through each repetition, you’re using momentum, not strength, to complete the motion. Lifting your feet from the floor during abdominal crunches is one way of isolating these muscles; if your feet are down, you may use your quadriceps more than your abs.

Note: Emphasising one portion of your core workout to the exclusion of other areas of your core may exacerbate back strain. Your core muscles maintain tension on your spine and hips; if that tension tightens unilaterally through exercising only one portion of your core, it could create hip or back pain. Proper form also preserves the integrity of other body parts, such as your upper back and neck. Supporting your neck with your hands as you perform crunches alleviates neck strain, but pulling at your neck may cause it. Seek advice from your trainer or doctor. They can help you devise a workout routine that isolates core muscle groups safely.