The Benefits of a Core Muscle Workout

Do you know what your core muscles are? Why are they so important? You must be interested if you are reading this. The fact is many people fail to workout on their core muscles, because they don't know how first of all and second they don't understand the importance of it.

First, I want you to understand what your core muscles are and why you need to incorporate it into your workouts then I will give you a few exercises that are proven to improve your core. For those of you who don't know the core muscles consist of the abdominals, the obliques, the lower back muscles and several inner muscle of the trunk of your body (not including arms and legs). All of these muscles work together so that you can bend and twist and many other movements' that are done every day.

One major benefit of improved core strength is an improvement in posture. Weak abdominals will cause you to have a forward lean. Likewise, any other weak muscles will cause the other muscle to compensate for that which results in poor posture. So as you can imagine having a stronger core will reduce posture problems.

Improving core strength will allow you to lift more weight in almost any other lift that you would want to do because a strong core will help you stabilize the rest of your body. This is especially important when doing multi joint lifts such as a squat or bench press. For athletes a strong core is crucial to improve performance, there is always a need to be able to stabilize your core as well as move with it quickly.

Another benefit of having a strong core as you may have figured out already is that you will reduce the risk of injury, including the very common back pain due to sitting too often. It will also reduce injury when lifting things, which we do on a daily basis. Again you will be able to handle more force (weight) and be able to stabilize yourself better.

Having a strong core is more appealing. You can lose body fat and build core muscles which hold the existing fat better this will make you appear skinnier. A strong core will allow for better posture which makes guys appear stronger because their shoulders will be back farther causing their chest to appear bigger.

Finally, let's go over a few core exercises that you can do up to 5 times a week. One of my favorite core exercises is the plank. To do this you hold your body in a push up position resting on your toes and your forearms, you can do side planks as well as front planks.

You may want to check into a stability/exercise ball these are great for core exercises. You should also work parts of your core muscles individually. There are tons of exercises that you can easily look up. There are specific programs for your core that you may want to consider one such program is David Grisaffi's Firm and Flatten Your Abs. It focuses on using your core muscle to lose weight and develop a strong core.