How to brace your core for proper posture (and decrease back pain)

Posted August 5, 2016By Tania Haas, Staff Writer

If you want to stand taller and diminish back pain, your focus should be directed to your middle.

“Our core muscles are there to help protect our joints,” says Marlo Goldstein, BSc.Kin, MSc., a fitness trainer at Medcan with a background in functional movement and pain rehabilitation therapy. “It is critical to establish core endurance to help maintain the long periods of sitting and standing we find ourselves in these days. Using proper patterns of muscle firing is key to ensure we maintain stability in our body and help prevent pain.”

Stable stomach, stronger posture, less pain

Goldstein explains that muscles are weakest when they are in a shortened position and/or too elongated. Our sitting and driving culture, where our core muscles are in a weaker position, can be a contributing factor to back pain.

“By strengthening our core we are bringing the muscles back towards their neutral position – opening the hips, the chest and turning on the glutes, which make us more stable,” says Goldstein. “Our spine is most stable when it is in its neutral state and more vulnerable when closer to its extremes.”

Support a neutral spine through ‘brace and breathe’

In order to initiate core work, Goldstein uses specific exercises and assessments to establish an individual’s neutral position.

“I ask my clients to brace their core as if they are preparing for impact — as if someone was going to throw a punch to their gut. We all tighten our core muscles in that imagined scenario,” says Goldstein. “Then we practise breathing into this braced core. The goal is to conduct this type of core work while being functional. Bracing and breathing your core while typing, while walking, while driving. The more you practise ‘brace and breathe’ in your workouts, the more you’ll be able to replicate it in your daily activities. Pain may lessen and posture may improve.”

Getting there starts with foundational core exercises, of which there are many. Goldstein describes some techniques and exercises below.

Brace and breathe

• Lie on your back with a neutral spine (ears over shoulders over hips)
• Place your hands beside your hip bone
• Brace your core and hold for 10 seconds. You will feel that space between your hip bone and abs get tight. Try to maintain your breath while holding your core tight. Let go, and repeat again 5 times
• This should be about 20% effort of “bracing”

Brace, breathe and lift

• With a neutral spine, brace your core, lift one leg and then lift the other into a 90 degree position
• Your legs should be close to your body so your neutral spine is kept at all times
• Hold this position while breathing for 30 seconds and then take one leg down slowly and then the other (Repeat 3 times)

Brace, breathe and drop/kick

• With a neutral spine, brace your core
• Lift one leg and then the other into a 90 degree position
• Hold this position, breathing for 30 seconds and then kick one leg straight and then the other
• Move from your hips and not your knee. Repeat 10 times per side (Repeat for drops)

Plank

• From your elbow or hands, please lift your body into a neutral spine (toes are on the floor and glutes are raised into the air)
• Pretend there is a dowel on your back and it hits the top of your head, upper back and glutes
• Keeping your core braced, hold for one minute
• Pretend like you are pushing the floor further into the ground, this way we activate those important muscles in your upper back which help stabilize the shoulder