02/16/2024
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Within the region of your pelvis and torso, there are a large number of muscles (29) that help to stabilize the spine, pelvis, and kinetic chain necessary for functional movements, including your yoga practice. When the system works efficiently, the result is appropriate distribution of forces; optimal control and efficiency of movement; adequate absorption of ground-impact forces; and an absence of excessive compressive, translation, or shearing forces on the joints of the kinetic chain.
The core assists in appropriate distribution of forces, optimal control and efficiency of movement. For everything to work appropriately, our core requires cooperation and integration of active (muscular), passive (bones, ligaments), and neural-motor (nerve, CNS) systems. It further requires optimal functioning of the muscles in a coordinated manner and with sufficient motor control and modulation via the nervous system. This concept can easily become very complex. It isn’t as simple as “tighten your muscles.” The core and movement theories behind how and why it all works allows for good postural alignment, ideal movement patterns, and decreased potential for joint dysfunction. Dysfunction in one joint anywhere in the body can lead to compromise elsewhere in the kinetic chain - as we see in some common misalignment in yoga poses.
DEEP CORE—
Slow-twitch fibers primarily make up the deep core stabilizers, also referred to as “local stabilizers”. These are the deeper abdominal muscle layers. Slow-twitch fibers primarily make up the local muscle system and the muscles of the deeper abdominal muscle layers. These muscles are closer to the center of rotation of the spinal segments. It is this ability to stabilize your lumbar spine in its many positions that enables you to overcome back problems and reduce your chances of a reoccurrence. They are ideal for controlling intersegmental motion because of their location and length, maintaining mechanical stiffness of the spine, and are ideal for responding to changes in posture and extrinsic loads. The key muscles of this system include:
– Transversus Abdominus
– Multifidi
– Pelvic Floor Muscles
– Diaphragm
*Internal obliques are also slow twitch
This ‘‘hoop’’ around the abdomen consists of the abdominal fascia anteriorly, the lumbodorsal fascia posteriorly, and the transverse abdominis and internal obliques muscles laterally.
CORE STABILIZATION—
Intra-abdominal pressure is created due to muscle activation creates tension with surrounding structures including the abdominal and thoraco-lumbar fascia. This tension and change in the intra-abdominal pressure stabilizes the torso creating an internal corset that provides stability to the spine. The transverse abdominus, the innermost of the four abdominal muscles, has fibers that run horizontally. The transverse abdominus and the multifidi are considered ‘‘stabilizing muscles’’ and are are fine-tuned continually by the central nervous system.
Research has shown that it is not simply the deep-layer abdominal muscles you recruit during stabilization of the spine, instead it is how they are recruited that is important. Co-contraction of the deeper-layer transverse abdominus and multifidi muscle groups occurs before any movement of the limbs: The transverse abdominus is active 30 milliseconds before movement of the shoulder and 110 milliseconds before leg movement.
In other research, it was found that those who sustained a low back injury had difficulty recruiting their transverse abdominus and multifidi muscles early enough to stabilize the spine before movement. These deep core muscles can actually “switch off” as the global muscles take over. When this happens, the deep core muscles must be consciously activated again.
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