While there are numerous factors why someone might experience back pain, having weak core muscles increases your risk of getting a sore back.

Typically, when the word “core” is used, it is in reference to the six-pack abdominals and lower back. However, it actually includes a large number of muscles between the abdomen and the ribs. There are many muscles that work together so you need to keep all of them strong enough to do their particular job.

The role of the abdominal and back muscles

When most people think about training their ‘abs’ they focus on a muscle called the rectus abdominis. It’s the one that creates the six-pack look, so women love it and men crave it. Its role is to pull the shoulders towards the hips, but this is only a small proportion of what the core muscles do.

The best way to describe what the muscles of your core do is ‘posture’ and ‘support’. They are responsible for holding the upper body in the proper posture for whatever it is you’re doing, be that standing, lifting something, riding a bike or sitting at your desk. Posture, as in pulling your shoulders back and sitting or standing up tall is the easiest to see.

Support is another major role of these muscles. Think of picking up a bag of shopping, doing squats, or putting something on the top shelf in the kitchen. Your core muscles contract to hold the body rigid and support the spine. If you don’t or can’t contract the core muscles to support your upper body, you will either falter under the weight of whatever you are lifting or put additional pressure on the spine.

The core muscles are also responsible for efficient movement. Without effective core muscles, the upper body would flop about unnecessarily creating a lot more work for other muscles and joints in the body.

Why You Need A Strong Core

The key role of the core is to support the upper body, primarily to prevent injury to the spinal column. The spine is an amazing design with each joint allowing about four degrees of movement. If the muscles are not strong enough, the body may well push the boundaries of this limited range. If the limits are exceeded too much and/or too often, it can cause damage to the ligaments, facet joints or disc between the vertebra.

How most people train their core muscles

Sit-ups, sit-ups and more sit-ups or crunches, crunches and more crunches. Because the rectus abdominis is the most visible muscle it gets all the attention. However, strengthening just this muscle and forgetting the rest is dangerous. It only strengthens the front of the abdomen so there is little support on the sides and at the back. This doesn’t mean you should never do these exercises, but activities that include all the core muscles working together are important.

Examples of how to exercise the core muscles

Just tighten everything up

Get into the habit of tightening up all the muscles around your abdomen and stomach 10 times a day. Create cues, like the phone ringing or every time you have a drink of water to contract the muscles.

Plank or Bridge

This involves holding the body rigid and parallel to the floor, keeping everything from shoulders to ankles in a straight line. Start lying on your stomach then push up onto your toes and elbows, keeping your body straight. I do this when watching TV. Instead of sitting on the couch, I’ll lie on the floor and each time an ad comes on I’ll do a plank for as long as I can. You’ll realise how long the ad breaks are when you do this!

Side plank

This is similar to the plank except you are on one elbow and the outside of one foot. Hold your body in a straight line for as long as you can and make sure you do both sides.

Working on these three is a good start to strengthening your core muscles. Just a few minutes each day can make the difference and could potentially prevent you from experiencing the sort of pain my friend is going through. It is a lot easier to do these before you get a sore back, so don’t wait until something starts to hurt.

A recent research paper in the British Medical Journal reported the findings of a longitudinal study that followed over 2205 men from when they were in their fifties through to their eighties. They examined the relationship between activity and mortality.

In summary, what they found was:

1. There is a dose dependent association between level of physical activity and total mortality in middle aged men. That is, the more active the men were the less their risk of dying.

1. The relative rate reduction attributable to high physical activity was 32% for low and 22% for medium physical activity. If you were in the high activity group you had a 32% less risk of dying compared to the low level activity men.

1. Men who increased their physical activity level between the ages of 50 and 60 continued to have a higher mortality rate during the first five years of follow-up. After 10 years of follow-up their increased physical activity was associated with reduced mortality to the level of men with unchanged high physical activity. That is, their risk of dying was equivalent to those men who had been active all their life.

1. The reduction in mortality associated with increased physical activity was similar to that associated with quitting smoking. Imagine if society had placed as much emphasis on getting people exercising and fitter as it has on getting them to stop smoking.

Like all research, you have to be careful assuming that this will apply to everyone, other than Swedish middle-aged men, but I believe if this study could be repeated with different population groups, the findings would be similar.

It is also worth noting that activity levels were determined based on a self-assessment. In my experience, most people over-estimate how active they are, so if you genuinely exercise regularly at a fairly high intensity, you may have an even lower risk than those in this study.

Strength training and high intensity interval training for older adults is relatively new advice, so it will be interesting to see how this compares in reducing mortality with aerobic exercise and just being generally active. I believe it will be found to be just as or even more beneficial, especially in older age groups.

What does all this mean?

• The more active (fitter) you are, the less your risk of dying prematurely.
• It’s never too late to start an exercise program to reduce your risk of dying early.
• Getting fitter reduces your risk as much as quitting smoking. (Imagine if we could get an anti-unfitness lobby going!)

So, if you have some reservations about weight training or are still confused about what the benefits here are some facts about weight training.

Weight Training done correctly helps reduce reduce fat and improves health risk

Both weight training and aerobic exercise, if done correctly and at a high enough intensity, release fatty acids into the blood stream and improve insulin resistance. Weight training has the advantage in that it increases lean body mass which helps improve insulin resistance even more and increases metabolism even when you are not exercising.  The research evidence to date does not demonstrate the effectiveness of resistance training for weight loss.  It does however increase the loss of fat and increase fat-free mass which in the long term is advantageous to managing body fat.  Even without any change in weight or body fat, health risk is improved with resistance training. 

Strength training can be done in a short amount of time

Many people think you need to spend hours ‘pumping iron’ to get benefits from weight training. If you work efficiently and focus on the major muscle groups, you can complete a whole body workout in a short period of time. There are some fitness professionals who say you only need to spend about 10 minutes. I’ve done workouts of about this length and if you work hard and fast it can be done.

You don’t need to go to a gym or buy expensive equipment

Not having the ‘right’ equipment is a common excuse for not doing strength training. You can get a good strength session using just your own body weight. If you want to add more resistance, a pair of adjustable dumbbells is certainly enough to get stronger and maintain your muscle tissue.

Strength training is a good weapon against osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a major health risk for many adults. Strength training puts stresses on the bones and it is this stress that encourages the bones to get stronger and denser. Unlike aerobic exercise, which tends to be the same movement repeated over and over, strength training puts a lot of different stresses on different bones. This helps to improve the density of a range of bones in the body.

You won’t get ‘big and bulky’ like a body builder

Many people, especially women are fearful of looking like a body builder if they do weight training. Unless you are doing hours and hours of training, eating a very high protein, high energy diet, and probably taking anabolic steroids, you won’t get a physique like a body builder. If you do two or three strength training sessions a week you will probably see some increase in muscle size and you will look more ‘toned’. Females especially won’t ‘bulk up’ as they have less testosterone than men.

Strength training is the most efficient choice of exercise and I strongly recommend you add some to your exercise routine. A couple of short sessions each week is all it takes to maintain your strength and muscle mass.