Is core work truly helping your stability? 

By: Peter Stamos

What is stability training? Most people immediately think of core exercises such as planks, crunches, or other exercises designed to strengthen the muscles around the trunk.

But stability involves more than simply holding a position or consciously tightening your core.

Your body also needs to respond to movement and changes in your environment. Sometimes those adjustments happen after something changes, while other times your body prepares for a movement before it occurs.

Good stability training should therefore involve more than just creating a stronger core. It should help you control movement and respond to different positions, loads, and challenges.

Stability Is More Than Strength

Stability depends on your ability to control movement and respond to changes in position, load, and the environment.

Your body uses information from your visual system, vestibular system, joints, muscles, and other sensory inputs to help coordinate these responses. This allows you to make constant adjustments as you walk, run, lift, change direction, or react to something unexpected.

That’s why stability training doesn’t always need to mean holding a perfectly still position. Exercises that challenge balance, coordination, body position, and your ability to control movement can all be useful depending on the individual and the goal.

The key is determining which type of stability challenge actually improves the movement or activity you’re trying to address.

This is crucial because if you experience chronic pain or injuries on one side of your body, traditional rehabilitation methods may not be effective. A practical approach to rehabilitation is to begin training the opposite side of the body using complex, nonlinear, and novel motions. This strategy will directly stimulate the affected side of the brain, promoting pain inhibition, improving posture, and enhancing reflexive stability, which are the changes we aim to achieve. 

Please watch this video from Taylor Cruise Elite for more information.

Key Takeaway

Stability training is about more than strengthening your core or learning to hold a position.

Your body needs to control movement, respond to changing demands, and make adjustments as you interact with your environment.

The best stability exercise depends on the individual and the task. Instead of assuming everyone needs the same exercises, we can test different challenges and determine which ones actually improve the movement or activity we’re trying to address.

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