Core Body Strength And Rehabilitation Program

If you have recently been injured it is likely that you will have to go through some form of physical therapy to truly recover from your injury.  For the more severe injuries, physical therapists have been advocating a rehabilitation program that is very centralized upon "core training."  Core training is the type of physical training that a person does when he or she wants to strengthen his or her abdominal muscles, shoulder muscles and back muscles.  It is said that the torso is where the core strength of a person's body lies.  

The reason it is so important for therapists to implement a regimen of core training into all of their patients' therapy programs is that a person's core is often responsible for facilitating the movement of the rest of the body.  The legs cannot move without the cooperation of the lower abdominal muscles and the thigh muscles.  The arms cannot move without the upper arm muscles working in tandem with the shoulder muscles.  If a person's core is not strong, he or she will not be able to physically recover from the injury as well as if the core was strong enough to support them.

It is probably a lack of core strength that contributed to your injury in the first place.  So many people focus on having a good cardiovascular system or a high level of endurance.  The core's strength training is often put on a back burner.  This is unfortunate because with a strong core, everything else becomes easier to do.  When you work with your physical therapist, you will probably be taught to the following exercises (or modifications thereof) of the following exercises:

Ball crunches: crunches done while sitting on an exercise ball.  This way the lower back muscles are worked as well as the muscles of a person's frontal abdominal region and shoulders. 

Push-ups.  Push ups teach the body how to bear the weight of a person through the trunk while balancing that trunk's weight upon the arms and toes.  It takes the work out of the back and the legs.  Planks are a type of push up that work the same muscles but can be done by people not yet strong enough in the upper regions to do regular push ups.

When a person's core is strong, he/she no longer has to worry about whether or not his skeletal or muscular alignment is correct, because a strong core naturally aligns the body.  A strong core is better able to handle weight and movement, which makes it easier for the rest of the body to function properly.  Successful rehabilitation is dependent upon a person having a strong core upon which to build his/her other muscles.

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The content of this page is informed by feedback from practices in Kent and also clinics in Leeds. Further input was received from osteopaths in the Chiswick area and a practitioner in Cardiff. Finally a contribution was made by osteopathic practitioners in Oxford