Core strength is considered an important part of physical health and fitness. It’s the foundation, as you are only as strong as your core. You may have seen many people lifting heavy weights but in many cases their core isn’t strong enough and eventually they’ll injure. They can lift these weights because they have very strong arm and legs but their core is left behind. This leaves them with a weaker foundation and a higher risk of injury.

In the tutorial above you’ll learn how to build a stronger core that’s healthier and fitter. You’ll learn this from 4 main points:

1. Definition of core strength
2. Simple anatomy of your core
3. Exercise for your core
4. Why is it important?

Definition of core strength

It’s important to learn the definition of core strength because it helps you understand what exercises to do and how to do them.

Simple anatomy of your core

There are a few fundamentals that add to the definition. It’s the next layer of...

Exercise for low-back pain is as important as massage or other therapies. In this blog I want to show you how to get exercise right because so many get it wrong. You’ve probably heard the saying “practice makes perfect”, well it’s not the case. Correct practice makes correct practice and incorrect practice makes incorrect practice.

Basically what I’m saying is, you can practice something wrong. This is generally the case for exercise for low back pain. Many people think that doing exercise is right but for low back pain it’s about how you do it. There are a couple of areas to get right and they are:

1. Selecting the right exercises
2. Knowing how to do them right
3. Progressing the exercise to overcome low back pain

Selecting the right exercises

The right exercises for low back pain minimise pressure on the low back, not eliminate pressure. The exercises want to activate areas of the core not single muscles.

Exercises that are out include:

1. Sit Ups
2. ...

Lumbar Lordosis exercises are an essential part of your correction program. They work together with stretches to help loosen the muscles of your hip and correct spine posture. The specific exercises you do are important but performing them correctly is essential.

Purpose of lumbar Lordosis exercises

Many people use exercises to strengthen muscles and some therapists think this is the case for Lordosis. I have worked with many strong people with posture problem and they don’t need to get stronger. They need to loosen muscles with stretching and the use exercises to reposition their spine and pelvis with exercises.

How to Flatten your Spine

Your focus during the exercises is to reposition your spine and you need to make this as easy as possible. There is one fundamental technique you’ll learn from the tutorial above that you use during all exercises. It’s the first thing to master and then add exercises on top. The exercises you use need to be easy to start...

8 of the best core exercises

The best core exercises are the ones that use your core correctly. By putting these exercises together in a workout you'll benefit even more. If you can progress these workouts over a number of weeks your core fitness can go to the next level.

Poor core exercises

On the flip side, the best core exercises rarely focus on one muscle like a sit up or crunch. They tend not to fatigue the core muscles completely and rarely bend or twist your spine.

Starting the best core exercises

Like with learning anything new, start simple, even if you're experienced. There's more to do than just complete the exercise. Focus on how you're doing the exercise, the muscles being used and your posture. The exercises in the tutorial above help you do this.

Fatiguing your core muscles is outdated and can be detrimental in the long run. Laying a foundation like this helps you reduce your risk of injury and increase your fitness.

What you'll learn

In the tutorial above I'll walk...

Lower back stretches are thought to help lower back pain. Many people don’t realize this is only a short-term benefit.  In my experience I’ve found that stretching muscles of the hip is more effective in reducing pain in the long-term.

Time and time again I find lower back pain is a symptom of poorly functioning hips. Addressing this problem is more effective than persisting with the following stretches.

The 2 stretches to avoid

The first are lower back stretches in their various form. For example lying on the floor and lowering your knees from side to side. Here you are stretching the muscles either side of your lumbar spine. Stretching these muscles can increase their sensitivity to becoming tighter in the future. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value but for low-back pain they aren’t useful.

The second are hamstring stretches; these muscles attached onto the bottom of your pelvis and continue down the back of your leg to the knee. These...

Stretching is an essential part of a lumbar lordosis treatment session. In this blog you’re going to learn more about one of these best stretches. If you would like more details of an entire treatment you can find it by clicking here (Lordosis 3 steps process blog)

Muscles to stretch

There are 4 key muscles to stretch:

Psoas

Recite Femoris

Adductors

Illiacus

For now I would like to focus on the Psoas muscle. It starts from each of the 5 lumbar vertebrae and ends at the top and inside of your leg. One of its jobs is to left your leg/knee when standing. When this muscle becomes tight it can cause your lumbar spine to curve excessively.

Stretching the Psoas

To stretch any muscle you need to pull the start of the muscle away from the end. Please watch the video above to find out more about how to stretch this muscle correctly.

Other key areas of you lumbar lordosis treatment session

Massage and other forms of manipulation is a great way to start your session. Now your muscles...

Core workouts for beginners are easy to come by, but a good one is more difficult. I see people training their core every day and most of them are not achieving what they set out. When I speak to them, they tell me they want to increase their fitness whilst reducing the risk of injury. Unfortunately they are using mainstream workouts and exercises. To achieve what they want they must step out of mainstream fitness.

Activate many muscles

Mainstream core workouts and exercises focus on single muscles. This works against the fitness of your core, to build core fitness you must activate many muscles. This means choosing different exercises like the ones from the video above.

The difference between rehabilitation and fitness

“No pain no gain” is another mainstream fitness myth. Core workouts that increase fitness shouldn’t trigger pain. If you are experiencing pain in your back from core exercises, stop. This pain means you have a health problem and it needs...

Back strengthening exercise can be misunderstood using current fitness thinking. Unlike a bicep curl these back strengthening exercises don’t always back muscle exercises. This might seem a little strange at first but it will make sense when you watch my vtutorial.

In the vtutorial

1. You’ll learn about the 4 good exercises, 2 bad and 1 ugly exercise.
2. You’ll also learn why the 4 good back strengthening exercises are so good.
3. You’ll learn the reasons to avoid the bad and ugly exercises.
4. And finally you’ll 3 differences between good and bad exercises.

Back strength and low-back pain

Many people still use the old-school thought that back muscles need to be stronger to overcome low-back pain. This isn’t the case because low-back pain can be a symptom of a poorly functioning core. In this situation the last thing your body wants is to strengthen its back muscles.

Indirect back strengthening exercises

A part of overcoming low-back pain is rebuilding you...

Lumbar Lordosis is natural; it helps give your spine its natural S-shape. When this natural S curve becomes exaggerated it becomes the condition Lordosis. This can also affect your neck but for the purposes of this blog I want to talk about lumbar Lordosis.

In the video above I’ll explain what is the natural curve and what is exaggerated.

Benefits of your natural S-Curve

That S shape of your lumbar spine has many benefits;

1. Absorbs shock from the lower body
2. Helps maintain the natural S shape of your upper spine
3. Stabilises the vertebrae above

How to check for possible Lordosis

A simple way to check for exaggerated lumbar Lordosis is to lie on a flat surface and slide your hand on your lower back. If you have a lot of space between your hand and spine, does your abdomen also stick out? However this space could also be created due to muscle bulk of the gluteal group.

When to check with a doctor?

If the lordotic curve doesn’t corrects itself when you bend forward as if to...

An abs workout is possibly the most utilised workout in fitness. I’ve travelled the UK teaching fitness; the members of gyms are doing them, the PT’s in the gym as well and people on my course have endless questions about why they shouldn’t.

Although they are popular an abs workout is a poor choice of workout. For two fundamental reasons; they over stress the spine, which could lead to injury. While your muscles seem stronger your core isn’t. This subject is normally met with common questions…

Is a strong muscle the same as a strong core?

Your core performs best as a whole unit. Many people assume by training each muscle on its own their core get stronger. A fully fit core is greater than the sum of its parts. To build a core like this we train it as a whole.

What do I do instead?

Replace your abs workout with a core workout made from Core Exercises. These exercise begin to move you away from single muscles and more into areas of the core and...