Elite Physique The New Science of Building a Better Body

CHAPTER 6
Core Training
Bodybuilders, athletes, and warriors have worked to strengthen their midbody
muscles for as long as people have trained to improve their physique, performance,
or ability to fight. Until recently, most people just assumed the best way
to achieve those goals was to focus on the abdominal muscles and work them
as directly as possible. They spent countless hours on their backs doing as many
sit-ups, leg raises, and twists as they could tolerate.
Sit-ups, like push-ups, became the universal answer to every question a coach,
drill instructor, or physical education teacher could ask. Want to turn an also-ran
into a champion? Sit-ups. Want to make soldiers tougher? Sit-ups. Want to punish
schoolchildren? Sit-ups. Today that seems insane. When University of Waterloo
spine specialist professor Stuart McGill tested sit-ups, his research revealed compression
forces on the spinal discs at levels documented by the National Institute
for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to elevate back injury rates. (The
NIOSH is responsible for setting exposure limits to reduce disease and injury
in the American worker.) McGill’s research showed there were better ways to
enhance abdominal athleticism with less risk (2015). The word quickly spread,
and today those exercises are rarely seen in gyms, schools, or military bases.
But it wasn’t just the exercises that McGill convinced us to question. He wanted
us to change how we viewed the function of the muscles themselves. Instead of
looking at the abdominals as muscles we should train in isolation, like the biceps
or triceps, he got us to focus on their function within the entire movement chain.
The abdominals aren’t acting as prime movers when we’re running, throwing, or
climbing. They act as the link between the upper and lower body. It’s their stability
and endurance, rather than pure strength, that provide a base for movement
while also protecting the spine.
The work of McGill and many others led us to our current understanding of
the core: It includes all the muscles that act on the hips and lower back to provide
stability to the spine and allow powerful, repeatable movements. Many people
equate core training with movements that create motion in the spine, like crunches,
twists, and side bends. But a core that works to resist motion in the spine helps
transfer power generated in the hips out to the limbs, which McGill calls “distal
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