Are you looking for a way to enhance your performance when playing sports or engaging in physical activities? To have power, control, and balance in your athletic performance, a strong core is essential. Core muscles include your abdominal, pelvic, back, and hip muscles. Doing exercises that build these muscles can lead to great improvements in your abilities as an athlete.

Athletic benefits to having a stable core:

1. Preventing injury. Having a strong core takes pressure off of the spine and provides your body with support.
2. Better stability and balance. Core exercises create more harmonious movements between different muscles in the body.
3. Athletic activities become easier. When you have a strong core, you use your muscles more evenly and effectively.
4. More power in athletic performance. Athletes with strong core muscles tend to be more explosive in their performance.

Having a stable core is important in nearly every athletic activity. Biking, swimming, basketball, tennis, and rowing are a few examples of exercises that involve the core muscles. Another exercise that demands a strong core is running. Runners need a strong core to stabilize their torsos, allowing for better control and form. Running with a weak core requires more effort and leaves you more susceptible injury.

Now that you know all of the benefits of having strong core stability, here are a few exercises you can do to strengthen these muscles:

1. Plank and side plank.
2. Sit-ups and push-ups.
3. Leg raises.
4. Crunches and bicycle crunches.
5. Yoga and pilates workouts.

If you do these exercises just a few times a week, you will see results in your athletic performance. Focusing on your core will enhance your skills in sports and activities and lessen the likelihood of sustaining an injury. Simple core strengthening exercises can improve your control, power, and balance as an athlete.

Milan M. DiGiulio, M.D. offers comprehensive orthopedic care for you and your entire family, specializing in Sports Medicine and arthroscopic surgery of the shoulder and knee. Dr. DiGiulio is an advocate of non-invasive, non-surgical treatment options such as Physical Therapy and Orthobiologics. 

¹https://nhsportandspine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/KneeACL.pdf