5 Benefits Of Core Exercises That Have Nothing To Do With Abs

Here are five reasons to focus on your core that have nothing to do with abs:

While strengthening your deep core and tapping into those deeper fascial lines, you begin to create space through your body, improve your posture, and become aware and in tune with the way your body moves. The more you become aware of how you're using and engaging your core while you are sitting, standing, performing daily tasks, and simply holding yourself up throughout your day, the more power you have to improve the quality of your daily life!

Creating core strength, stability, and space in the body allows more energy to flow freely and provides more space around your nerves to avoid impingement. This also allows your body to naturally realign itself and create space in your spine to help lengthen your body and can be beneficial in decreasing pain for such things as herniated discs1 and pain caused by compression between vertebrae. Core stability exercises can also be great to aid in recovery from surgeries2. By simply incorporating safe and effective core exercises into your daily routine, you can see drastic improvement in your aches and pains in a matter of days!

A properly strengthened pelvic floor provides incredible health benefits—for both women and men—and should be involved in every core exercise. For women, strengthening the pelvic floor can eliminate and prevent incontinence and other pelvic floor dysfunctions. For men, a strong pelvic floor can be beneficial for battling pelvic pain and sexual dysfunction3. For both women and men, a properly strengthened pelvic floor can help overall core strength, eliminate back and neck pain, improve posture, and increase sensation and satisfaction during sex! And who doesn't want that, right?

Incorporating safe and effective core exercises into your daily routine can benefit your entire body. Many injuries happen because of weakness, misalignment, instability, and compression between bones. For example, many knee injuries are a result of what's going on in the pelvis. When you strengthen your core and create more balance throughout the pelvis, you can decrease and even eliminate knee pain4 and prevent those nasty knee injuries from ever happening. This goes for other parts of the body, too, because everything in your body is connected through your core!

Effective breathing is something that is often overlooked and not given enough attention. When you breathe deeper and with intention, it can allow you to gain access to those deeper layers5 of your core muscles, including aiding in activation of your pelvic floor.

It takes time to find the deep layers of your core. Start incorporating the breathwork and lengthening techniques outlined above, and before you know it, you can begin to feel the connection in your deep core. Once you begin to feel the connection, you can start to see a drastic improvement in your posture, confidence, and overall quality of life.