Physicological benefits of core strengthening

anecdote wrote:

Not sure about the science, but I find that doing a few crunches each day prevents back tightness and stitches, which I'm prone to during downhill running.

This is known as the "placebo effect". A couple of crunches a day is useless. Not to mention that crunches don't work anything too important as far as I know

hmmmmmmmmm wrote:

run harder

Or you can stop making stuff up.

Here, I found a nice HD video for you:

I don't see anyone hunched over.

This board is full of a bunch of hacks, quacks and Wack jobs. It is going on 2010 and you guys are really trying to dispute the importance of core strength??? You must be a bunch of trolls.

Guess what else guys...the only people who care about your goofy scientific studies are the goofballs on this site. Scientific studies say smoking will kill you...nobody cares.

All scientific studies are anectodal anyways and are very rarely conducted in a natural setting. There are so many parameters set up in these studies it's best to toss the results out the window.

I'd much rather listen to an actual athlete who says core strength helped them which is a good majority, than listen to some beaker freak who "couldn't find a correllation between core and performance"

Yea...you couldn't find it because of your predetermined parameters and arbitrary viewing of the results.

Readers beware! The only agenda this so called science serves is the proliferation of major universities marketing their programs and degrees. It's one big shit show and anybody who has actually been there will agree with this post on the outright corruption that exists in modern day science.

Hoooooooooooo

-hacksaw

A lot of times the strong core=good posture argument during races doesn't hold up.

It's not fatigue of the core muscles that is causing changes in posture. It's fatigue elsewhere. Runners are trying to compensate for decreased stride length or rate or altered stride mechanics by altering upper body.

You see this with people's arm swings changing like crazy sometimes. It's not that their arms are fatiguing, it's that it is a compensation method.

you speak in absolutes wrote:

Or you can stop making stuff up.

Here, I found a nice HD video for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RWNFF20yC0

I don't see anyone hunched over.

I see a lot of guys who do core work...

look at the interviews with all the moroccan and east african coaches...tons of weights, plyos, and core (and of course tons of running)

Let's try to make this more useful and ask "How much core work is enough?"

I remember a training camp from my college days, when someone who went on to be the UK's best 10k and marathon runner tried to do ten situps and couldn't. He was already minutes faster than any of us at the time.

Personal example: I have been a good boy recently, and progressed from hurting badly while attempting 10 slow crunches in summer, up to doing about 5 sets of 30 assorted slow, careful abs 3x per week, plus back and side raises and other non-running exercises. Am I going to run better, or hold form better at the end of a race, by spending further hours getting up to 500 crunches, or 3-minute planks in a session? Or do I just maintain, and spend the extra 15min per session on something else?

Is it like leg strength, where more is always better?

Or are we just seeking to eliminating a weakness?

same here, don't know about science but it sure looks good when you do them!