by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS
I hear a lot that people need to just “get strong”. Or, my patient is “weak” in that area. Or
my personal favorite, they just need to work on “core strength.” Whenever I hear these statements from clinicians, it puzzles me a bit. What does it really mean to be “strong”?
Strength can be defined as the ability of a muscle or muscle group to exert force to overcome resistance. So, in its purest form, strength is simply overcoming some sort of an external load. This can be lifting a heavy object, pushing something, or moving something in isolation, as you do in a selectorized machine.
But, the question that I have is, does a person’s inability to overcome a specific resistance really hinder their athletic performance? For example, if someone can’t do a weighted crunch with a specific load, by some people’s definition that might make them “weak,” but I don’t see that as their major limiting factor for performance for most people. Most people limit their performance because of “system limitations” and not actual strength.
“Systems can be inefficient which limits force production. Fix the system. Then retest force production.” -Charlie Weingroff
Don’t get me wrong. I love lifting heavy things as much as the next guy. I get really jacked up when I see my athletes perform great feats of strength. But, the reality is that most people’s performance is limited much more by motor control and a restriction of the “system” than it is a lack of strength.
The trunk and core are a perfect example of this. Very few people develop issues related to their core because of weakness. The muscles that make up the core (however you define the core) may fatigue more quickly than you would like, but rarely do they become problematic because of actual weakness. They become problematic because of poor timing and an overall lack of motor control.
The multiple, overlapping layers that make up the core must work as a well-tuned symphony to create authentic, clean movement that is efficient and pain free. When one or more parts fail to work the way that they are supposed to, problems arise. This can be due to poor neurological motor patterns, improper tone, or adhesions that bind tissue together that is intended to glide smoothly over each other. Stability and motor control are much more important than core strength.
Some of you may argue that this is really a matter of semantics and that’s what you really mean when you say “core strength.” I argue that semantics are important and we need to be careful about choosing our words. Also, if we use the terms such as motor control, timing, sequencing, stability and so on, we are much more likely to think and approach are patients through that lens.
I say all the time that 98% of what we do both in rehab and sports performance training is neurologically based. We are training the brain (and overall system) to turn on and off at the right time and in the right sequence to create movement. When we take that approach to training, we become much more efficient.
All of this doesn’t mean that we don’t lift heavy things. It means that we lift heavy things AFTER we move well. It means that we use load to accelerate motor learning at the right time. It means that we use fascial anatomy to assist us in understanding and training the various patterns and subsystems that make up our overall system. It means that we move much heavier loads with less training when we have a firm foundation to work from.
Strength is important. We need to be strong. But for most people, we need to develop motor control and timing in order to properly develop strength.
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