Core Exercise vs. Activation

Have you been told you need to activate your core muscles before exercising or lifting?

You are returning to your active lifestyle and workout routines. A common part of a well-rounded workout routine focuses on your core.

Great core function is much more than doing a bunch of crunches. However, when choosing any core exercise you make one big assumption — that your core is activating correctly.

Why doesn’t my core activate on its own?

Our bodies are designed to automatically activate the muscles needed for a given task. This happens day after day without much thought, until it doesn’t. This is when a pain or strain shows up.

At the Bridging Institute we find many reasons why your core muscles don’t activate correctly. You already know, if you’re a regular reader, that the primary reasons we find include:

• injury
• medical procedures, such as surgery
• pregnancy
• unusual circumstances at your birth, way back when

“I know I need to ‘activate’ my core before I use it”

Have you had a trainer or therapist tell you to activate your core before doing an exercise or task around the house? Their work often consisted of guiding you to sense your core muscles and activate them so you could safely do the exercise or task.

Is this really a practical way to be living? In the urgency to catch a falling object or person, or quickly move out of the way, would you actually pause to think, “I need to activate my core?” Doubtful.

Remembering to ‘activate your core’ is really a band-aid, not a solution.

Restore the core instead

A different option is to figure out why your core is not activating automatically, and give it a little help to reboot.

At the Bridging Institute we use an engineering-based process to assess your body’s micromovements (tiny movements which allow your cells, muscles, bones, nerves, and blood vessels to fluently work together).

From this assessment we are able to identify why your core isn’t activating. Then we use gentle rocking motions to restore how your muscles activate and work together.

As your core engages automatically, you’ll feel taller, move more easily and breathe deeper after just one session.

Wonder how your core and exercise ability may benefit from some Bridging? Email us with your questions and we’ll let you know.