Well, thank goodness.

It seems like most smart coaches and trainers (that cuts out a lot of us, sadly) are finally coming to something resembling a consensus around core training.

Up until even a couple of years ago, there was serious bare-knuckling over what the core WAS, in addition to what it DID and thus how to TRAIN it.

When I was growing up, on Weider bodybuilding books and magazines, the thought was that the role of the abdominal muscles was, more or less, to draw the rib cage and pelvis together and the role of the obliques was to tilt the torso, so you saw a lot of crunch variations and side bends, as well as plenty of rotating versions of these movements, you know, to get the serratus and intercostal muscles. 

Then there was all this draw-in business which you still hear about in some circles, but for anyone who's ever deadlifted more than about 25 pounds, makes very little sense.

More recently, we've heard more and more about anti-rotation--meaning that the muscles are supposed to prevent the spine from rotating.  That seemed to be closer to the point, but it still doesn't describe the full picture.

(Seems simple enough...)

The current model--that the abs (and I mean, primarily the rectus and the obliques, but you can throw in the spinal erectors, the transversus, and all those other supporting characters if you so desire)--are there to protect the spine while the extremities move seems like the most complete picture I've heard to date, and the best argument for ab rollouts, plank variations, and standing overhead work with odd-shaped and oddly-weighted items like kettlebells. 

There are a couple of useful articles out this week that make this stuff clear as daylight:  this one, in Tmuscle, and this one, in Morning Cup of Joe.  Good stuff.  I haven't made a slosh pipe yet, though I now have plans to:  this seems like another effective, pain-in-the-butt training implement--like the sandbag--which makes training a lot like real-world hard work, like baling hay or shoveling snow.  Sweat-poring, ego-busting work that makes training with barbells actually feel effete.  In the Tmuscle article, I particularly like the Swiss Ball alternating step-off--pretty much a diabolical progression of the plank exercise.

Have a great weekend--

Andrew