5 Signs of Weak Core Muscles

If your core is weak, your balance is poor. This leads to an unstable body, increasing the possibility that you could suffer a fall. A week core also makes you feel physically weak.

You can support more physical effort when your core is strong. Most people think of core muscles as your abs. But your core is actually composed of 6 groups of 29 muscles located in your upper thigh, lower back, and the sides and front of your stomach.

How Do You Know If Your Core Is Weak?

You may have an extremely strong core that is located beneath several layers of fat. This means you can actually look overweight and still have a very healthy core.

So how can you tell if your core is weak or strong? A poor core and chronic lower back pain often accompany each other.

If you experience frequent tightness and pain in your lower back, a weak core could be a part of the problem. Since core muscles also protect your spine, poor posture is sometimes a sign of a weak core.

Do you slouch when you stand or sit? This might be because your core muscles are weak, and cannot support your upper body for extended periods of time.

How is your balance? A weak core leads to poor balance. Try this. Stand with your feet 6 to 8 inches apart and start a timer. Close your eyes and lift one of your feet up off of the floor.

Balance as long as you can, keeping your eyes closed. You should be able to stay in this position for a minimum of 10 seconds. If not, you need to work on your core muscles. Try this with each of your legs.

You can also take a simple breathing test to see how strong your core is. While standing, take a deep breath. Hold for a second and then exhale.

When you begin exhaling, compress your stomach back towards your spine as far as you can possibly go. If you cannot hold this pose for at least 10 seconds, your core definitely needs some work.

You can also test your core by holding the plank position. Lie face down on the floor. Supporting yourself on your forearms, with your elbows at a 90 degree angle, straighten your spine from your neck to your ankles.

If you cannot hold this position for at least 50 or 60 seconds before you crash to the floor, your core needs some help.

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High Reps and Feeder Workouts

I ran across this video and just loved what Tim and Rich have to say about a couple of things. They are obviosuly really smart and in this 12 minutes or so there are some real gems of knowledge

High Rep vs Low Reps Sets

First of all there is the argument of high vs low reps sets. I myself love to do higher rep sets, not anything too high but more around 12 reps for my first set and 7 reps for my last set. Every sey for me is to failure.

The idea of doing slightly higher reps is that the blood flow is much more intense to the muscles and the overall mass that you are lifting is higher as well.

The opposite of course is to do just 3 or 4 reps for every set with as much weight as possible.

Feeder Workouts

The other great piece of info is Rich Piana talking about the idea of Feeder workouts. A feeder workout is just 3 super high sets the day after a workout on that bodypart.

An example is if you do a very tough arm workout, then the next day you would do 3 sets of 100 reps of curls. This will give you an awesome pump and drive all of the toxins out of those bicep muscles.

Rich Piana says that he did these kind of feeder workouts for Biceps and Triceps every night for two years and he credits it with making a huge difference to his arm size. This guy has giant arms to say the least so it seems to have done the job.

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