One of the most difficult things for many people to understand when they first begin strength training is how to brace the core. We have all heard the saying, “set your core”, or “keep your tummy tight” but what does that really mean? To make it even more confusing, there is a multitude of different instructions and cues that are regularly used leaving people unsure of what they are meant to do. It is vital that you know how to correctly set your core muscles, for they can be the difference between good performance and injury. In this article, I will explain exactly how to do this correctly so you can implement this in your training immediately.

Why Do You Need To Brace Your Core?

Over the years I have provided a stack of articles and videos about the importance of selecting the right exercises and executing good technique to improve performance or prevent injury and pain. The one thing that is easily overlooked in this process is how we breathe, and more specifically how we create core stability for efficient movement.

The core refers to the central part of the body including the torso and the hips. The core is the powerhouse of the body as it is the foundation of power and strength. Almost every movement in life requires the transfer of energy from the extremities (upper to lower, lower to upper, right to left, etc) with the energy being transmitted through the core. Having a strong core is the foundation of all efficient movement.

Without a good understanding of how to engage the core everything can fall apart, and very quickly lead to the onset of back pain.

A classic example I see every day in the gym every day is when someone knows exactly how to squat or deadlift correctly with their body-weight. At first everything is fine but once load is added and the strength demands increase, their spine buckles due to a poor stabilization technique. Their body alignment and posture is fine, the movement is great, and the strength in their prime movers is adequate too. Their problem is they lack the understanding of how to create good stiffness in their core to prevent their spine from buckling and execute the movement safely and efficiently.

Unfortunately, this is where many people make the mistake of adopting a stack of abdominal exercises to make their core stronger instead of addressing the way they create a bracing effect through breathing correctly. This is why I so often say most core exercises do more damage than good to your body.

When your body senses a loss in core stability it shuts down the neural drive to your muscles making it very difficult to move efficiently. It is left with two choices.

1. Firstly, it can allow your technique to falter which is where you see the spine rounding out or the hips shifting and you fall sideways. This is where you injuries often occur.
2. Secondly, you stop the exercise altogether sensing you are not strong enough complete the movement.

The brain shuts down how much your body can push through as it senses a threat to the spine. The best thing you can do is to use exercises and techniques to prevent this buckling or collapse of the core. You can begin to see how so many of the abdominal exercises like sit-ups and crunches create a weakness in the core, instead of improving it.

The best exercises are ones that teach you how to limit excessive or unwanted motion of the torso and spine. Good examples of this are single leg exercises, suitcase carries, Turkish get-ups, and side planks.

How the Brace Works

When a muscle contracts, it creates both force and stiffness. Force creates joint torque to support postures and create movement – but sometimes the force will enhance joint stability and sometimes it will compromise stability. It depends on how much force is applied and the relative forces applied by other muscles acting at the joint. In contrast, muscle stiffness is always stabilizing.

A stiff muscle prevents unwanted movements from all directions. Stiffness at one joint provides the development of explosive power at another which is easily seen in the use of plyometric exercises in sports.

When all muscles at a joint stiffen together a “super stiffness” phenomenon generally occurs. The total stiffness at a joint suddenly becomes more than the sum of individual muscle stiffness. For those activities that demand high core or torso stability, all muscles must be activated not just one muscle. In sports you regularly see the use of the brace during high impact and explosive movements where the core is required to fire rapidly and at crucial times to ensure stability and posture is maintained.

Some good examples of this are a martial artist breaking boards with a single punch or kick that requires the ability to recruit the core at precisely the right time. The tennis player hitting a first serve at high speed or a baseball batter hitting the ball are other great examples of the brace being adopted in sports.

The secret to this working correctly is creating total body stiffness by rapid contraction of ALL muscles around the torso at exactly the right time.

What About Abdominal Hollowing?

This type of core stability is often taught in Pilates and is something I did for a long time. The reason for this is that it activates the action of the TVA muscle.

Many people believe that isolating the TVA is the key to rehabilitating back pain or preventing it. This is where specific exercises are used to target this muscle, once again with the belief that if you make it stronger everything will go back to normal. This completely ignores the function of the TVA with other muscles within specific movement patterns. It also disregards what we just discussed how the core requires ALL of the muscles around the core to fire in order to provide adequate stiffness.

Leading back pain scientist Dr Stuart McGill has provided a stack of research into this controversial topic of hollowing versus bracing. In one particular study they took 12 healthy subjects without history of low back pain were instructed while keeping a neutral lumbar spine position, to isometrically tighten their abdominals with two different techniques:-

1. Hollow the abdominal muscles by bringing the navel up and in towards the spine so as to draw in the lower and deeper abdominals.
2. Bracing the trunk by isometrically contracting all of the abdominals without any change in the position of the muscles.

What they found was lumbar compression forces and the amount of gross lumbar spine movement minimised were greatest with the abdominal bracing technique. McGill’s team then concludes that the bracing technique gives greater stability of the spine.

In this research they found that posterior loading of the lumbar spine while semi-seated mainly activated the abdominals rather than the back extensors. The problem with this is that when they applied load unexpectedly the out of balance workload between the anterior abdominals and back extensors produced a faulty loading. The activity of latissimus dorsi and the thoracic erector spinae was considerably higher during loaded movements in healthy people.

This suggest that abdominal activity in regards to their stabilising function should be retained with the lumbar spine moving into extension and not into lumbar flexion as commonly practiced in Pilates and in many rehab settings. It also shows that thoracic extensor strength and control is vital when trying to retrain dynamic lumbar stability into extension.

Reference: Effects of abdominal stabilization manoeuvres on the control of spine motion and stability against sudden trunk perturbations. J Vera-Garcia; J Elvira; S Brown; S McGill. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 17 (2007) 556-567.

To see more about this read the article – What is better isolated abdominal exercise or integrated?

How To Correctly Perform The Brace

Before you do anything you need to make sure you know how to breathe normally and be able to effectively use your diaphragm.

Most people know the diaphragm acts as a way to get air, but it also serves as a key part of the stabilizer system. The diaphragm is primarily a respiratory muscle and secondarily a stabilizer muscle. Notice what happens when you do a movement like a heavy deadlift or squat. You will find that you stop breathing just as you begin to lift the load because as the nervous system senses the threat to the spinal cord, the diaphragm switches to a stabilizer role. The diaphragm creates what is known as intra-abdominal pressure.

As much as your other stabilizer muscles like the TVA are involved, they are very dependent on the diaphragm for creating pressure. This muscle also connects to most of your ribs and helps to stabilize the body.

A normal breath is where your belly will RISE on the breath in. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen who do the exact opposite of this! If you cannot do this correctly you will never be able to execute the bracing technique we are about to discuss.

Read this article to see more about breathing – Do you know how to breathe correctly when you exercise?

Okay we know that to to engage your core you do not need to suck in your stomach. What should you do?

The easiest way for me to explain to beginners how to engage their core is not to use technical muscles names and complicated instructions, but give then a really simple imagery technique.

Imagine that you are bracing yourself for a punch right to the stomach with your hands held behind your head.

If you knew the punch was coming on the count of three what would you do to protect yourself from the punch?  You’re not going to suck in your stomach as this will not protect you at all. And you would not want to push your abs out either.

Instinctively your brain will take a deep breath and tighten all of your abdominal muscles in preparation for the punch. I sometimes explain it feels like your “lifting up” your abs and trying to bring your belly button up and toward your spine as opposed to sucking it in. It is important that you are still able to continue to breathe when you engage your core.

Watch this video to see me explain this in more detail and show you the rib cage movement you should see during a brace.

The step by step approach works like this.

1. Begin by standing in a relaxed upright standing posture making sure that your back muscles are not tensed up.
2. Then using your breathing to contract the entire abdominal wall making sure you also feel the back musculature contract.
3. You should be able to continue to breathe when you engage your core.
4. Your belly should remain tight and full after the initial breath but not at 100% capacity. After that point, you should be able to see your ribs move in and out when you breathe. 

This is the brace – all muscles around the torso stiffening to ensure stability.

Once you have mastered this basic technique you need to incorporate it into integrated movements as I explain the video below. This can take a lot of time to master.

Be Careful Of Over-doing it

Did you note that I said you do not need 100% capacity to recruit the core? This is a common mistake of many beginners or people who have a very limited understanding of how to recruit the core muscles effectively.

McGill found the amount of strength required was on average about 10% of maximal voluntary contraction depending on the task. However, there are several important factors that must happen in line with this if you want to achieve optimal stability. These are:

1. The muscle/s ability to fire fast enough to provide stability, prior to the body moving.
2. Co-contraction of the abdominals and extensors.
3. The muscle/s ability to maintain strength for long periods.

Stability is achieved in the first 25% of the maximum contraction level. Thus 100% muscle contraction levels are rarely needed – the trick is to activate many muscles to achieve symmetric stiffness around a joint.

You can see another video of the brace in action with the deadlift in the video below.

You can read more about this in the article – How much core strength do you need?

The last thing we need to discuss is the role of the tongue!

Keep Your Tongue On The Roof Of The Mouth

You might be thinking what the hell has this got to do with the core? This actually plays a pivotal role in maintaining good visual alignment and stability of the neck and head. What relevance does this have to the core?

If your body loses its visual alignment it will sacrifice anything below the eyes to restore eyesight on the horizontal axis. This means an unstable head and neck can derail any attempts you make at the hip and pelvis. Also the roof of the mouth is the natural resting place of the tongue and if you are breathing correctly it will sit there without any effort.

Poor posture, poor breathing technique, and stress can develop a bad habit of opening the mouth to breathe and force the tongue to drop away from the roof of the mouth. And when this happens your neck muscles begin to tighten and develop trigger points in an attempt to hold your head upright. The muscles located just under the chin known as the suprahyoid and infrahyoid muscles as a result become extremely weak and now you are set up for a stack of problems like forward head posture and even TMJ disorder of the jaw.

The place where the tongue is correctly positions is easily found when you say the letters N, T, D or L. It is extremely important to keep your teeth apart and your lips closed when practicing the tongue position. What keeps the tongue on the roof of the mouth is gentle suction that is maintained by keeping your mouth closed. If you open your mouth at any point, you will you lose the suction. You can see why it is so important to learn how to breathe correctly.

Watch the video below for a detailed explanation of this.

Do You Need More Help?

If you currently suffer with knee, back or shoulder injuries you will find our online programs shown below a great resource that take you through all of the assessments and corrective exercises to get you back to full strength and out of pain. You will find a lot of the exercises in the first phases of the rehab programs feature several of the relief exercises discussed in this article.

Summary

I hope this article has provided you with a greater understanding of how to engage your core muscles more effectively. This is a lot simpler to do than you may have thought but it may take some time to get used to so you need to be patient. Try to incorporate the breathing technique in simple daily movements at home and at work and you will find eventually it becomes engrained into your brain as the only way to create core stability. The secret is really with the breath and learning to time the breath in at the right time to create pressure.

For more ideas and information on specific topics I may not have covered in detail be sure to check out our INDEX PAGE on the website that has over 300 of our best articles. These are all sorted into categories for quick reference so you can find what you are after more easily. You can also subscribe to our FREE fortnightly newsletter by clicking here.

If you live in Melbourne and feel you need specific help with your exercise program please feel free to reach out to me for help and we can set you up with your individualised program.

About The Author

Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 16 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specialises in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.

References:

• Rebuilding Milo - By Dr Aaron Horschig
• Movement - By Gray Cook
• Corrective Exercise Solutions - by Evan Osar
• Back Pain Mechanic - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes - By Shirley Sahrman
• Low Back Disorders - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Core Stability - by Peak Performance
• Athletic Body in Balance - by Gray Cook
• Anatomy Trains - by Thomas Meyers
• Motor Learning and Performance - By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
• Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance - By Vladimir Janda
• How To Eat, Move & Be Healthy by Paul Chek
• Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course - By Paul Chek
• Advanced Program Design - By Paul Chek