Heart of Motion
The Heart of Motion Podcast is an exploration of the heart, soul and science of movement - and what it means in our lives.
Movement connects us more deeply to ourselves, to our bodies and to the things and people that are most important to us. Beyond a fitness routine, why do you move? And what moves you? When we can look past the hamster wheel of ''fitness" - we start to realize that when we really live the lives of our bodies - life can be a whole lot more fulfilling, and a whole lot more fun!
Host Susannah Steers is your guide on a quest to understand how we can move better, feel better in our bodies and connect more deeply to our people and the world around us. Join her for some conversation, interviews with experts, and conversations with everyday people about what movement means to them. You might just find movement feels a little different on the other side...
Heart of Motion
Discovering Core Strength Beyond the Abdominals
Unlock the secrets of true core strength! Join me as we challenge the widespread myth that a strong core is all about abs. In this episode, we redefine what it truly means to have a robust core by exploring the intricate dance between the deep inner unit core musculature (including the deep abdominal wall), and other systems in the body. Discover how this structure forms a dynamic cylinder that not only stabilizes your spine and pelvis but also plays a crucial role in posture and movement efficiency.
The core is a pressure zone! We'll play with the metaphor of a water balloon to illuminate the fascinating pressure dynamics within the core.
Finding the power of the core is a personal movement journey,; unique for everyone. It's all about starting from where you are and building gradually. Tune in, embrace your current abilities, and remember: seeking guidance when needed is a strength, not a weakness!
Heart of Motion Podcast host Susannah Steers is a Pilates & Integrated Movement Specialist and owner of Moving Spirit Pilates in North Vancouver, BC. She is passionate about movement, about connections and about life.
Through movement teaching, speaking, and facilitating workshops, she supports people in creating movement practices that promote fitness from the inside out. She loves building community, and participating in multi-disciplinary collaborations.
Along with her friend and colleague Gillian McCormick, Susannah also co-hosts The Small Conversations for a Better World podcast – an interview based podcast dedicated to promoting the kind of conversations about health that can spark positive change in individuals, families, communities and across the globe.
Social Media Links:
Moving Spirit Pilates Instagram
Moving Spirit Pilates Facebook
Susannah Steers Instagram
Welcome to the Heart of Motion podcast. I'm Susannah Steers and I'll be your host as we explore the heart, soul and science of movement as a pathway to more active, vibrant and connected living. Nothing happens until something moves, so let's get started.
Susannah Steers:Welcome and thanks for joining me this week. We're going to start things off with a quick word association. Since this is Heart of Motion, we're going to stick to the realm of movement and the body. You ready? Here we go!
Susannah Steers:What's the very first thing that pops into your mind when I say your "core? If you said your abdominal muscles, you're not alone. You're not wrong, but you're only really partly right. Do you know what your core really is? Do you know what it does? If you don't, you're still not alone.
Susannah Steers:In all the years I've been teaching movement and Pilates, I've met a lot of people who asked me to help them build a strong core, and I would bet most of them thought that what they were going to get was a bunch of gut-busting abdominal exercises. Here's the thing those gut-busting abdominal exercises can be part of training a well-functioning core, but they are by no means the whole story, and if you focus on the gut-busting part before you figure out how to connect to the rest. You may very well get pretty abdominal muscles, but you may not get the benefits that you've heard a strong core can bring. Today, folks, I want to get down to the nitty-gritty the foundation, the center. I want to talk about the body's core, what it is, what it isn't, how it works and how we can improve the ability of our core to support stable, strong and fluid movement. We're also going to talk about some mind-body connections, because those elements are not insignificant when it comes to working with the core. All right, so what is it?
Susannah Steers:In general terms, the area known as the core occupies that space between the bottom of your ribs to the hips and the pelvis. It's sometimes referred to as a canister or a cylinder or a corset. In the Pilates world, it's often referred to as the powerhouse. In clinical circles, the core is often described as having two layers the deep system or inner unit, which, as the name suggests, involves structures that lie deep inside our bodies, close to the spine, and the outer unit, which involves the bits that are more superficial and have different but complementary function. So why don't we start with a really super quick anatomy lesson? The inner unit, core, is made up of, yes, abdominal muscles, specifically the deepest layer of the abdominal muscles, known as the transverse abdominis. This muscle kind of wraps around your center, a little like one of those big old World Wrestling Federation title belts a little like one of those big old World Wrestling Federation title belts. The deep system also involves your deep back muscles, those little short stabilizing ones called the multifidus, and these muscles are a little like a chevron sign running up the back of your body, connecting one vertebra to the next one, and that makes up the front and the back of the cylinder. On the top you have the respiratory diaphragm and on the bottom the pelvic floor. All these muscles have attachments on the spine, around the ribcage and on the pelvis. If you can imagine them together as a cylinder, remember that they form a dynamic, mobile cylinder. When it's functioning well, it's this inner unit or deep system that provides the lion's share of stabilizing support that we need for the spine and the pelvis as we move around in the world.
Susannah Steers:A little further out from the center we have the outer unit, core. The outer unit includes, yes, more abdominal muscles. These are the ones that people more often think of as the sexy ones, like the obliques, which create sort of an X-shaped wrap across the front of the trunk and the rectus abdominis, also known as the six-pack muscles. In the back of the body we have long back muscles that run from the base of the skull all the way down to the sacrum part of your pelvis, and the shorter ones which travel between the bottom of the skull all the way down to the sacrum part of your pelvis, and the shorter ones which travel between the bottom of the ribs to the top of the back of the pelvis, and they're part of the outer unit too. We can't forget muscles in the region of the hip, like the gluteal muscles of the buttocks and the psoas, which is a deep hip flexor and spine stabilizer. Now we could get really granular on this, but I don't think we really need to do that for now. But maybe it's important to notice why we bother to split the core up into the inner and outer units, because while both are significant components in the structure and function of the trunk, they have different but complementary roles in our posture and on our movement, have different but complementary roles in our posture and on our movement. So here's the Coles Notes version.
Susannah Steers:Okay, the deep system core has some really important and fundamental jobs. One is to provide a measure of stability for the spine and the pelvis as we move around. Another is to provide a container for our abdominal organs and it serves to help kind of regulate the pressure inside the abdominal cavity. The core also provides postural support. Humans started off as quadrupeds and we've had to evolve quite a system of supports to maintain our current upright bipedal position. In our most sedentary world. We now do that with varying degrees of success. Sedentary world we now do that with varying degrees of success.
Susannah Steers:This structure doesn't generate force on its own. It provides the foundation for efficient movement, good posture and overall function and performance for our daily activities and exercises. It's a basic support system. The outer unit core has the added responsibility of transmitting forces between the upper and the lower body and across the midline around our spines. The power for those kinds of movements doesn't originate in the core, but it moves through it. The outer unit helps us to kick or throw a ball, paddle a canoe and even walk, run and ski.
Susannah Steers:I think of the outer unit as kind of a bridge between the holding things together part of us and the moving our bodies around in the world parts of us. If life were simple and if building strength and mobility were just about the muscles themselves, then, armed with this knowledge, you could go and learn a few exercises to strengthen these individual muscles and you'd be all set. But I'm betting that you know that's not all there is to it. Ultimately, building a good core is like building a strong foundation for a house. Mechanical images rarely translate to the body effectively in real life, but I think the idea of the foundation holds here. If you have a house built on an unstable foundation, then the windows might not shut properly, the stairs might get a little crooked and unstable, the plumbing might not work well and the whole building could shift in ways that make that structure uninhabitable.
Susannah Steers:The function of the core is effectively to provide a stable foundation for our bodies in motion. When it's providing flexible and responsive stability, supporting our breathing and our organs and integrating well with other structures, just about everything else in our bodies works better. Our bodies can organize all kinds of different movement in ways that provides the most power with the least effort. A good core makes us more efficient, more fluid movers. We enjoy better balance with all that that word means. There's a saying I've heard recently. It might be from Dr Perry Nicholson Forgive me if I'm wrong and this saying is that a body losing range of motion is a body crying out for stability.
Susannah Steers:If you're chronically tight and those stretches you keep doing are not giving you any relief, figuring out where your body needs stability is probably a good place to start. If you have ongoing issues with your back or your pelvis or heck, even your hips, your knees, your shoulders, your neck pretty much any joint problem can probably use some core support, and if you have that pain, especially after weightlifting or doing heavier physical activities, some core stability training might help. If you leak when you laugh or exert yourself, you've probably got a pressure problem in that core cylinder. First I'd say talk to a pelvic health specialist who will assess your whole body and not just your pelvis, and then try exploring some new core strategies. If you find you're constantly short of breath or sighing heavily a lot and you haven't got something like asthma or COPD, some exploration into the relationship between your core and your breathing patterns might be helpful. If you've been pregnant, had a cesarean section, a episiotomy or diastasis recti or a hernia or any abdominal, spinal or pelvic surgery, and then if you jumped right into ab exercises to get your body back or hurry back into whatever movement is your jam. A good look at your core strategies could help if you're experiencing other movement challenges now. Now I'll admit I think lots of structural, postural and movement problems can be improved with some dedicated core training.
Susannah Steers:Remember, we're talking about the foundation, but maybe you don't think of yourself as having an issue. Maybe you're an athlete, you're fit, you have strong abs, you feel like you're crushing it, but what are you tolerating in your body? Maybe you can't get the power you want or the follow through of your tennis serve or your swing or your kick. Maybe you lose stability and control or even just stamina in a technical climb on your bike. Maybe you're feeling like agility is a losing game. You can't quite cut and weave the way you want. Perhaps you've got chronic tightness or pain in your hips, your back, your shoulders or neck that you've just got used to pushing through. Do any of these sound familiar?
Susannah Steers:I started doing Pilates not for my core, but because I had an ongoing chronic pain in my knees. I had exhausted what the medical system could do for me and I heard Pilates might help, so I tried it. At first I was frustrated because my teachers wouldn't let me work as hard as I wanted to. It felt too gentle to give me what I thought I needed. What I got instead was an education and a practice for a very different way of getting strong. In the process, I learned how to better recruit my core to support my movement and I was able to stop relying on my quads, my thigh muscles, to do everything, and my movement got better. My knee pain improved. I was able to better balance musculature around my joints in a very different way. I got more flexible, with strength in the full range of motion. It really made me a better athlete. But first I had to let go of the idea that the only way to gain strength was to push as hard as I could for as long as I could. Okay.
Susannah Steers:So wrapped into all of this is the fact that the core is a pressure zone. Remember at the beginning of the episode when we talked about the deep system core providing a container for our abdominal organs. Well, those organs are packed pretty tightly inside us within a fascial bag called the peritoneum. There is no wasted space in that bag. Picture it like a water balloon. The balloon is the bag, the peritoneum and the organs are all packed inside like the water in a balloon. So humor me for a minute and try this with me.
Susannah Steers:I want you to pick up an imaginary water balloon. It's small, it fits in the palm of your hand. So just feel the weight of it, put it in your hand and, you know, roll it around, get to know it. Then I want you to put your other hand gently on the top, so the balloon is between the palms of both hands, one hand on top, one hand on the bottom. Now I'd like you to squeeze that balloon between your hands, not so hard that you'll burst it, but enough that there's some decent imaginary pressure into your balloon.
Susannah Steers:What do you notice? What happens to the balloon under the pressure of your hands? Can you compress that balloon into the smaller space that you're creating with your hands? Do the contents of that water balloon get smaller to accommodate the smaller space? No, you can't compress it, can you? As you increase the pressure, the balloon kind of squishes itself out the side. It squooshes out to the areas where there is less pressure. That's pressure dynamics 101. Things move from zones of high pressure to zones of lower pressure.
Susannah Steers:The same kind of thing happens in the core. The way that the top, the diaphragm, the bottom, the pelvic floor and the sides of that container, your abdominal muscles and your back muscles, the way that all of those apply pressure to the contents of the abdomen, will have an effect on our ability to recruit those core muscles to support the spine and to manage the overall function of the core itself. So there are some pressure problems that can have a negative influence on the core and those can come from all kinds of places. Something as simple as tight back muscles or pelvic floor or even a tight diaphragm. If you have twists in the pelvis and your spine, those can have an effect on the cylinder itself. If you have compensatory patterning and overactive outer unit muscles outer unit core muscles, like really strong obliques relative to a weak transverse abdominal muscles, those kinds of things make a difference. Or something like your nervous system is locked in what we call sympathetic drive, which means you were just constantly in fight or flight. You're driving, you're pushing and you're unable to soften into the restorative functions of your body. Other things are things like damage to the soft tissues themselves. If you've had incisions or tears and there's scar tissue from surgeries or accidents in your abdomen, in your back, in your pelvis. Those are going to have an effect on the container and where the pressure moves inside that container, there are all kinds of things that affect the integrity of that container and the pressures within it. When we realize that, we can begin to understand that just throwing more muscle at the core is not always the best way to increase capacity, especially when more muscle is increasing pressure in the wrong places.
Susannah Steers:I read a paper many years ago called the Myth of Core Stability. In it, the writer described the dearth of evidence to prove that strengthening individual components of the core did anything to improve stability in the spine and the pelvis. At first, the idea spun my head around. How could this be? I'd spent my life, well, most of my adult life working on figuring out this core stability thing, most of my adult life working on figuring out this core stability thing. But then I realized that it's not about the muscles themselves, it's about the communication between them. Yes, the muscles obviously need adequate capacity to do their job, but they have to understand the job and the workflow and they have to work well with others in order to do the job effectively.
Susannah Steers:There's learning involved Learning about our own movement habits and recruitment strategies, learning how to breathe well, learning how to let go of patterns that no longer serve us. And, yeah, you can take that one as deep as you want to go. Much of the work involved in creating core stability is about motor control, and you can't do that at Mach 10 and under heavy loads. You have to start where you can make a reliable connection and work from there. I think that anyone over a certain age can use some attention to the core. Beyond those exercises you might find on YouTube. I thought I'd share some of the things that I think are really worth exploring in the process.
Susannah Steers:Typically, I start with breath. Good breathing is the foundation of good core control. If you're not breathing well, everything else gets harder. A really great breath pattern means that you're doing gentle core work with every breath you take. The vertical, piston-like movement of the respiratory diaphragm in relation to the pelvic floor not only creates breath, it helps our organs, our circulation and our lymph systems. Respiration is tied to our nervous systems too, so you can activate your fight or flight or soften your rest and digest all with your breath. I encourage every single person I work with to spend some time with their breathing before they jump into any kind of core training or even just whatever their workout is for the day. Jump into any kind of core training or even just whatever their workout is for the day.
Susannah Steers:The next place I go typically is to help them kind of find the spine and free their thorax or the rib cage. I mean, I bet you don't spend a lot of time thinking about or feeling into your spine or your ribs. A 3D felt sense relationship to the spine can help us integrate the core with the spine and the thorax themselves. If you can feel what you're trying to stabilize, you're better able to make it happen. Let's start with this. Imagine each spinal segment, each one of your vertebra, like a cork and that cork is sitting on a rising tide. So the tide begins to come up. The corks gently float on the top. Picture length and space in your spine rather than shortness and density. Allow the ribs to float on your lungs like driftwood on water, instead of clamping them down and gripping the life out of them. If, as you add load and motion, you can maintain a sense of length and ease throughout the spine and the thorax, you're likely well on your way to good core stability and you're probably on your way to more relaxed movement, even at high effort.
Susannah Steers:The next piece we typically look at is the pelvic floor. In a culture that spends way too much time sitting on our duffs, the pelvic floor sometimes gets a little lost. It gets buried underneath overwork, in the butt and the inner thighs and by our slouchy posture. Once upon a time, every fitness class taught participants to lift the pelvic floors with everything they had. Again, you want to have access and muscle capacity, but you don't want chronic tension in the pelvic floor. You don't walk around with your bicep flexed all day.
Susannah Steers:Why would you want that for your pelvic floor? The muscles in the pelvic floor need to be able to lengthen and soften as well as engage. If you can't do that, it might be that your pelvic floor is too tight and probably pretty weak. So try this. Try folding up a hand towel, maybe a few times, so it's got a little square, and then I want you to sit on it right between your sit bones. You'll feel a little bit of pressure on your pelvic floor. Sit up tall and breathe. Imagine that breath going right down into your pelvic floor. You might be able to feel a little additional pressure onto the hand towel you're sitting on as you breathe in and perhaps a little less pressure as you breathe out. It might take some practice to allow the muscles to relax enough to do this. Take the time, forget everything you've been told about your posture and what you should do and just play with this. See what you can feel. If you try that and then try accessing your deep abdominal wall, you might have better luck.
Susannah Steers:All right, next piece would be relaxing the hips, and this is also something that I find, especially among athletes. Too much tone in and around the hips gets in the way of great core stability, partially because it shifts the position of the pelvic and spinal bones to the point where stress is applied to the soft tissue and discs of the spine and likely down into the hips and knees too. Finding some balance in the inner thighs, your hip flexors, your rotators and gluteal muscles allows for a more neutral position of the thigh and the hip sockets, your rotators and gluteal muscles allows for a more neutral position of the thigh and the hip sockets and makes it a little easier to engage the core so it can do its job. It's not being inhibited by some of these big guys. The next one is to connect the psoas.
Susannah Steers:Now, if you've never heard of this muscle, it's a long muscle. There's two of them. They're down either side of the spine, from the bottom of the rib cage across the front of the pelvis to the top of the inner thigh. It's a deep hip flexor, some would say a core muscle. It helps to stabilize the spine and it really helps the thigh muscle to find a deep seat in the hip socket, bringing it closer to the core and allowing for a better transmission of forces through the hip and the spine, among other things. If you can tame some of the more superficial hip flexors that like to do more, more often and less efficiently, and if you can activate the psoas and allow it to be long and strong for easy flexion in the hip, you'll probably find a better connection to your core in general.
Susannah Steers:The psoas also has an interesting relationship with the respiratory diaphragm and the pelvic floor. It's another one of those bits that seems to connect the being and the doing sides of us, bits that seems to connect the being and the doing sides of us. And then here we are, we learn to recruit the transverse abdominals, that deep abdominal wall. Learning to recruit this is not sexy, but in conjunction with learning to recruit the deep lumbar stabilizers, it will help you support your spine in whatever movements you take on. It's not about working this one harder. These muscles need capacity and stamina. Learn to engage them well in combination with the other structures of the deep core. Only add load to the point that you can maintain gentle support and activation of this deep system. And then we come back to the breathing. I'll bet that after you've explored all this stuff, you'll find your breath comes more easily and more deeply. That's a good sign that you're probably on the right track. Keep breathing well. It is the best and most consistent core training of all.
Susannah Steers:Now, once you've established a good connection with your core and you can sustain all the things we've talked about in a relatively limited range of motion, it's time to begin to move bigger, with different loads in different directions. This is how you strengthen the core. Test your ability to stay connected. You may find you have to concentrate on one or two of the things, like your breath or ooh, I need to keep track of my spine while you do this stuff, and what you focus on may be different from what your best friend needs to connect. It's about your body and your movement.
Susannah Steers:The trick is to stay present and to stay connected. More than likely in real life, you'll feel the effects of core stability more than the muscular effort of core stability. When you're nailing it. Your motion will feel easier and lighter. You won't have to strategize how you're going to get somewhere or how you're going to do something quite so hard. You'll be able to move more weight with less effort. And if, as you increase your load, you're not able to maintain a sense of length and ease or feel that stability, I would suggest that maybe you're working beyond what your structure has the ability to support well at the moment. This is when we have to let go of our egos, back off a little bit on the load for a bit, until you can sustain better support in your deep system, and I guarantee that the result will be a better, more sustainable strength in the long run. Keep working at it, keep pushing it, but take the time. It's not something you're going to do at a boot camp.
Susannah Steers:I like to think of it this way First we train access Like can we actually connect to the deep system at all? Once we can, we train control. Can we control things enough to maintain access to this deep support while we move and do the things we want to do. Once we can do that, it's about building stamina. Deep core support is about stamina. We want to be able to do it for long periods of time, not just in flashes here and there. So can we maintain connection while we do the things we need to do and beyond. Then we build more strength, we add weight, we add bigger ranges of motion, we work for longer periods of time and we throw some surprises in. When something falls apart, we take a step back and build back up again. Something falls apart, we take a step back and build back up again. It's that simple and that hard.
Susannah Steers:The core is designed to be responsive to our movement, so the only way to challenge it and test it is out in the world doing things. There's a limit to what you'll learn about your core in the gym, so go do stuff, move around to the fullest you are able. Now the last thing I want to add about the core is that it has some pretty deep mind-body connections. How we are with ourselves and with the world around us can have some pretty profound impacts on the core If you are constantly bracing and defending yourself from the world around you or if you're constantly driving yourself forward with little room for respite or self-compassion or self-care, it may be challenging to connect to that deep system. Your nervous system may not be in a state to promote a good relationship there. The doing parts of ourselves and the being parts of ourselves connect in the core through breath and that whole core system. Sometimes the work of finding the core also means navigating some of those things within ourselves.
Susannah Steers:So after all this, would I say that the core is the holy grail. Some folks make it out to be At the risk of incurring the wrath of Pilates teachers everywhere. I'll say no, movement is the holy grail. A strong, responsive and resilient core just helps us get there. Wherever you are in all of this, it's a journey. It doesn't have to be complicated. Start where you are, be there, explore that and build on whatever you find. There are people who can help along the way and you know, get in touch with them, use them, ask them questions. But this is your life, your journey, your movement, your core. Ultimately, it's a trip that will bring you closer to the things that support you most. I don't know about you, but I think that's a trip worth taking. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Subscribe and if you love what you heard, leave a five-star review and tell people what you enjoyed most. Join me here again in a couple of weeks. For now, let's get moving.
