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Jun 21

Three expert trainers reveal how to actually engage your core – Fit and Well

Fitness Comments Off on Three expert trainers reveal how to actually engage your core – Fit and Well

Its mentioned in every exercise guide worth its salt, and uttered by every fitness instructor youll ever meet, but how do you actually engage your core? Which muscles does it involve? Which exercises can it help with? When should you engage and when should you disengage? We asked three experienced personal trainers to unpack this standard advice to help you make the most of your next workout.

Quite simply, if you want to avoid injury when doing anything strenuous, and especially when exercising or playing sports, you need to learn how to engageor braceyour core.

Learning this will create "a strong midline that is vital for stabilizing, controlling and protecting your spine when performing daily tasks at home, within a workplace, at the gym or out exploring the world," says Kelli Vossler, director of fitness at Spark Fitness and Tennis in Andover, Massachusetts.

It can also help improve your posture throughout the day, "especially for people who are mostly seated for work, helping reduce wear and tear on the spine and alleviate lower-back pain," says Adam Enaz, personal trainer and transformation specialist.

But engaging your core isnt just for injury prevention or postural support. It can also help create a figurative forcefield around your spine, allowing you to transfer power from your lower to your upper bodyand vice versawhether performing a loaded squat or simply bearing the brunt of a heavy backpack.

"It's impossible to lift with intensity without engaging your corebut it's a skill you have to learn and even experienced exercisers can get it wrong," says Eddie Baruta, global head of gym floor personal training at Ultimate Performance.

(Image credit: AzmanL / Getty Images)

When people hear core they often think abs. This, says Baruta, is a common mistake. Someone might simply tense their rectus abdominis, the six-pack muscles that run along the front of your abdomen, hoping thatll do the trick. But perform any form of loaded squat, like a goblet squat or thruster, and that approach will soon be your undoing.

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Instead, Baruta prefers to talk about bracing the "trunk" muscles. "Think of your core as a balloon," he elaborates. "The top part is dominated by the diaphragm, the bottom by the pelvic floor, and the sides by the obliques and deep-lying transverse abdominis"also known as the cummerbund muscle of the abdomen.

When engaging your core, the objective is to recruit all these muscles in unison so your midline and spine are supported front and back, top and bottom.

Now weve covered the why and the which, its time to focus on the how. How do you effectively engage your core? To execute this, you should start with your breath.

When engaging your core you might assume you need to suck your belly in, but that's counterproductive. "Sucking your belly in or hollowing your tummy and pulling your belly button toward your spine creates dysfunction in your midsection," says Baruta. Instead, you need to breathe in while letting your belly rise.

To achieve this belly expansion, you need to take a deep diaphragmatic breath into the pit of your stomach, rather than a shallow breath into your chest. Baruta says a quick exercise to ensure the correct technique is to place one hand on your chest and another on your stomach. Breathe in and observe which hand rises first, then correct your breathing if necessary so that your belly rises as you inhale.

Next, with this breath, push your belly and lower back out. This is key. A tactile cue Vossler recommends here is to stand tall and place your hands on your obliques (your sides) just below the rib cage and press in slightly with your fingers against the side of your belly and thumbs against your lower back

Next, with your hands acting as a makeshift weight belt, allow your abdomen to expand front and back. "This is the same reaction youd have if bracing as if expecting to be punched in the belly," she adds. "In order for this to happen, the back and abdominals engage to create stability and protect the spine."

Effective core bracing should keep your spine in a neutral alignment, Baruta stresses. In other words, you should avoid overly arching or curving your back. Practice in a mirror to see if you can maintain this alignment when dropping into an unweighted squat.

With your abdomen pressed out and spine in neutral, bring your rib cage down slightly and push out further to create as much intra-abdominal pressure as you can. This will create a platform that will allow you to add load without getting bent out of shape.

Now you have the technique down, remember these cues to ensure youre safely engaging your core every time.

As Baruta has mentioned, bracing the core requires all the muscles of the trunk to "switch on", not just the muscles along the front of your stomach. Visualizing muscles on the front, back and sides of the torso tends to trigger his clients into engaging all the muscles around the spine.

Enaz uses this cue with clients just before they unrack a bar from the squat rack or bench press. "Imagine youre wearing a corset that wraps around your entire midsectionfront, back and sides," suggests Enaz. "Now tighten it. I find that this visualization cue helps my clients engage the entire core musculature, not just the front abs."

A cue Vossler likes to use with athletes is to "pull the rib cage down and slightly tuck the pelvis under". Also known as the "posterior tilt", she finds it especially handy for floor-based exercises to help athletes switch on their core muscles and realign the spine.

If youre relatively new to lifting, Baruta recommends only resetting your breath once youve returned to a safe position, such as the top of a squat. As you become more accustomed to the technique you can start to exhale forcefully as you drive to stand. With a push-up, however, "you can exhale slightly earlier, like letting out a balloon as you press the floor away," he says.

Breath in at the start of a rep and breath out at the end. If holding an isometric position, like with the plank exercise, Enaz recommends trying to breathe as normally as possible. "It can take practice to breathe naturally while bracing the core, but its vital to maintain proper oxygen flow during exercise," he says. Baruta prefers to inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth each rep.

"Simply sucking in your stomach without properly engaging your deep core muscles will not effectively stabilize your spine or pelvis," warns Enaz.

Engaging your core doesnt mean tensing up as hard as you can. "Over-tightening can lead to other muscles compensating, which can throw off alignment and reduce the effectiveness of your engagement," says Enaz.

Forgetting to breathe is a surprisingly common mistake when trying to engage your coreespecially during isometric exercises like planks or wall sits. The risk is that it can "increase blood pressure and decrease performance," says Enaz. "Learn to breathe through the engagement."

With an exercise like a dumbbell-loaded squat or deadlift, you can hold your breath momentarily to maintain intra-abdominal pressure during the movement, but you should always take a new breath and reset your core engagement between reps.

(Image credit: SDI Productions / Getty Images)

Heres how incorporating all of these dos and don'ts to engage your core works in practice, with a dumbbell squat as the example.

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Eddie Baruta is global head of gym floor personal training at fitness business Ultimate Performance. Based in Los Angeles, Baruta has worked with high-profile clients including actors Dustin Hoffman, Lily Collins (Emily In Paris), Kevin McHale (Glee), Lamorne Morris (New Girl) and Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick).

Baruta graduated from the University of Bacu, Romania, in 2002 with a degree in Exercise Science and joined Ultimate Performance in 2010. Since then, Baruta has added qualifications including Premier Training International, Poliquin PICP 1&2 and Biosignature 1&2, Neurokinetic Therapy 1&2, Active Release Techniques 1&2 and Resistance Training Specialist (Mastery Level).

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Kelli Vossler is director of fitness at Spark Fitness and Tennis in Andover, MA, and a former competitive womens ice hockey player and coach. Accredited with the Health & Fitness Association, she has more than a decade of coaching experience, overseeing a community of over 2,000 members across multiple locations in Massachusetts.

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Adam Enaz is one of the only fitness professionals in the UK who is a practicing clinical dietitian and personal trainer, allowing him to offer a unique service to his clients based on scientific evidence and clinical expertise.

Training first as a dietitian and specializing in dietetics for cancer recovery and Type 1 and 2 diabetes management within the NHS, Enaz has trained as a Level 3 PT, gaining further specialisms in body transformation and weight management.

He splits his time between his NHS practices and online coaching, working with clients from America, Dubai and all across Europe.

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Three expert trainers reveal how to actually engage your core - Fit and Well

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