Core strength I

Core what now?

Now I've messed up my back so that running is off the menu for a while, I now have more time than is healthy. For instance, it lets me do things like this.

It also means I need to both adjust my training, and work out how I can avoid doing any more damage.

I've always had back problems of one sort or another, but for some reason last year it wasn't really a problem.

Obviously, that's no longer the case, so as well as getting it fixed, I need to make sure it is up to the hundreds of miles I've got ahead of me.

According to the quack, I need to work on my “core strength”. That sounded a bit like tree-hugging zen chi nonsense to me, then google put me right.

So this is the first of three posts on the joys of core strength training.

The gist is: core strength training makes your core muscles stronger.

Wow - I could have guessed that much myself.

Further reading revealed they're important to provide a base for running. To me “base” means bottom. Not bum, but lowest part i.e. feet. In this instance it's base as in the solid platform for running.

Also, stronger core muscles mean better running economy, speed and power. I think that means I'll be able to run faster with less effort.

Cool!

Only thing is, as you could probably have guessed, I've got no idea what my core muscles are.

Thank god for Google.

Basically the “core” includes muscles of the torso, back, and abdominal, hip and thigh muscles.

I always believed the hip was a bone, but I did spend most of biology trying to hide stuff from the teachers desk, so I may have missed some of the salient details.

So, it looks I need to do lots of boring sit ups etc, as well as weird legs things to both strengthen and take pressure off the bit of my back that keeps messing up.

Oh joy.

Given I can barely stand at the mo, the prospect of sitting up like that is about as appealing as cheese-grating my face.

No doubt, once I can actually walk more than three yards, I'll try it out, and soon have a ripped six pack. Ideally, it will be ripped in the “easy on they eye” way, rather than the “what I've just done to me back” way, otherwise this could all go so horribly wrong.