Core Muscles of the Shoulders

Previous articles in this series have described the core muscles of the torso and hips. We’ll continue with the shoulders and in the next cover the neck core.

What’s all the fuss over core muscles anyway? Your grandmother didn’t need a personal trainer to teach her about the core. Is this all some scheme to get us to sign up for exercise classes?

Your grandma knew how to use her core, because she built strength in her body with daily activities. Nowhere is this more evident than in her shoulders and arms. Imagine washing your laundry by hand and hanging it on the line to dry. Or scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. Chances are your grandma walked farther and carried more than men do today. Those simple activities develop strength in the core. Today’s pastimes, watching TV, loading the dishwasher and working on the computer, bypass the core.

Take the current sedentary lifestyle, add our fascination with speed and pretty muscles, and the result is a modern epidemic of core weakness. So let’s put things in reverse and find the core muscles of your shoulders.

Raise one arm in front of you and continue to lift it up -— as long as it doesn’t hurt anywhere -— until your arm comes alongside your ear. Do it again -— but this time take more than ten seconds to lift your arm and another ten seconds to lower it. As before, don’t do any movement that causes you pain.

Moving slowly requires the use of the core, so if it felt substantially different the second, slower time, then using the core of your shoulder isn’t a habit. By the way, you can slow down any movement to improve your use of the core. Try walking by taking one step every second to feel more of your torso and hip core.

The core of the shoulder includes two sets of muscles, those that keep the shoulder blade in proper position (most importantly the serratus anterior, trapezius and rhomboids) and those that stabilize the arm bone in the shoulder socket (the rotator cuff: supraspinitus, infraspinitus, teres minor, and subscapularis).

Here are some exercises that will help you strengthen both sets of the shoulder core.

Core Muscles of the Hips

Core muscles are the new focus in the fitness industry. They protect the low back. Pilates strengthens the core. Advertisements promise a strong, sexy core if we buy their products. The problem is that the core can be illusive for the average person to find. That’s because the body has more than one core.

The Hellerwork Client Handbook compares the core to the inside of an apple. Core muscles are deep inside the body, right next to the bones. These muscles have more leverage and, when working properly, also stabilize the skeleton. When the core does not stabilize, joints are more prone to injury, the body is weaker, and other muscles get confused about what to do.

All muscle groups have superficial muscles and core muscles. Let’s delve into the core of the torso and core of the hips. Follow up articles will explain the core of the shoulders and the core of the neck.

The core of the torso is like a cylinder around your midsection, comprised of four muscle groups: the pelvic floor, transverse abdominus, multifidi, and diaphragm. The pelvic floor (actually a group of six muscles) creates the bottom of the cylinder. The transverse abdominus encompasses most of circumference as a girdle around the belly. The multifidi fibers, one to four inches long, fan out deep within the superstructure of the spine. The diaphragm caps the core; each breath turns this cylinder to an ever-changing, dynamic powerhouse.

When all parts of your torso core are strong and work together, you can lift more, bend over more, and do all kinds of movement with less risk of injury. The torso core is also an important base of support for your legs, arms, and neck.

The hip flexors lift your legs. If you rely on the rectus femoris, tensor fascia lata, and sartorius, you will be weaker and in less balance than if you use the core hip flexors, the psoas and iliacus, sometimes called the iliopsoas. These core muscles attach to the front and sides of the lumbar spine and deep inside the pelvic bowl. They have more leverage and bulk than the superficial muscles, but they also depend on stabilization from the torso core to work.

How do you know when you are accessing the deep hip flexors? One clue is that your pelvis does not rotate. Sitting in a chair, lift one leg. Does your low back shift or your hip lift up? If so, your iliacus and psoas are cheating and your low back is taking the brunt of the movement.

If you can hold your pelvis perfectly still and lift a leg, your torso and hip core are both getting stronger. It’s what makes a karate front kick so powerful. Even more challenging and strengthening is lifting both thighs with a stable pelvis, the action in the Pilates Teaser and yoga’s full boat pose (Navasana).

I gave readers an Easy Core Exercise in my previous post, Balance Between Abdominals and Back Muscles. Another way to wake up the core is with the Relax and Flow undulation. In both cases, the exercises use small, slow movements since the core is comprised of slow twitch muscle fibers. If you can do these exercises with complete pelvic stabilization, then you will be ready to take on more intermediate core exercises.

Balance Between Abdominal and Back Muscles

I confused a client yesterday by saying that her core muscles were stronger than most peoples, but then also telling her that her core was weak. Say what?

She was quite athletic with strong muscles throughout her body. The problem was that her core muscles weren’t as strong as her abdominal muscles. This imbalance was a source of her low back pain.

Core muscles stabilize the skeleton and give leverage to other muscles. Using superficial muscles like the rectus abdominus, pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, quadriceps, and gluteus maximus without participation from the core will pull the skeleton out of alignment and create injury to ligaments and spinal discs.

“Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back” by Tami Parker-Pope, published in the New York Times June 17, 2009 gives a great explanation and a video with some good exercises.

I agree that the exercises in the video are good for the core, but what is the core? I wrote about that previously in the article entitled “Core Exercise” with an easy exercise called Engage Your Core Through Your Feet to help you find those illusive core muscles: the pelvic floor, transverse abdominus, and multifidi. Finding the correct muscles is after all the first step in using them.

Here is another very simple (that doesn’t mean easy) exercise where you use the core to stabilize your low back, which is its real function, as you lift your legs. It also engages the core hip flexors, the psoas and iliacus muscles, but that's a different article.

Easy Core Exercise
1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your arms at your sides.
2. Tilt your pubic bone up toward your chin and then your tailbone back. Go back and forth a few times and find the middle. Is your sacrum on the floor? If so, you have equal range of hip flexion and extension.
3. Adjust if necessary so that your sacrum is firmly on the floor.
4. Do not let your sacrum or hips move off the floor (this is the key) and lift your left leg so that your knee comes toward your chin, only as far as you can without moving your sacrum.
5. Press the opposite foot into the floor (use what you learned from the Engage Your Feet by Using Your Core exercise) if needed to stabilize.
6. Repeat with the right leg.

Undulations Complement Chiropractic Care

Undulation exercises were recently noted in an article co-written by Kimberly Kohr, DC and yours truly as useful adjunct to chiropractic adjustments. It was published in Dynamic Chiropractic.

Motion through each segment of the spine is good for your spinal discs and nervous system. Undulations are good for the structure and they also increase body awareness and functional movement patterns. “An exercise that first and foremost increases awareness will start a cascade of positive change.”

Three exercises are given as examples: Feel Your Spine, Easy Sway and the even-popular Tailbone Penmanship.

The article coincides with the introduction of new exercise handout sheets for chiropractors to give patients between adjustments. Three sheets are available, for the:
 Sacrum and Low Back,
 Neck and Upper Back, and
 General Spine Health.

Samples handout sheets are available upon request.

Get a Grip on Tension

Tension doesn’t only come from big, stressful situations like a pile of unpaid bills, pending deadlines, or an argument with your spouse. Tension can creep in through your hands when you least expect it and covertly lodge itself right between your shoulder blades.

How can you get a grip on your stress and stop tension in its tracks? The secret is to loosen your grip.

Is your hand on the computer mouse? Notice how much pressure you are using and its effect into your shoulder and neck. Relax your fingers, palm and wrist. Use a feather touch to move the mouse. Every time you loosen your grip, you turn tension into comfort and take pressure off your carpal tunnel.

A common stressful environment is the car. Release tension there by loosing your grip on the steering wheel. Turn the wheel with relaxed palms and flexible fingers. The fluid motion will translate up your arms and relieve the tightness in your shoulders.

Anything you put your hands on—-a pen, the telephone, your toothbrush-—can increase your tension or release it. Turn your iron grip into a liquid caress and feel some of your stress melt away.