Core? Huh? What is it good for? Absolutely everything!

It's that time where we fill gyms up in an effort to get ready for the Christmas party season!

You'll never see the stretching area so busy again - people doing crunches, draped over swiss balls, using those ab cradles, because we're all looking for that elusive six pack.

Core training is more than working to get washboard abs, there's a whole lot more than needs to be worked with to get really strong, really fit and beach ready.

We're going to delve into some functional anatomy in the next section; you could skip ahead to the exercise section but I'd recommend otherwise as functional anatomy is renowned in dazzling gym hotties who are using the leg curl machine.

What is the core anyway?
The core is one of those buzz words that's really caught on in the fitness world so the first thing we'll do is find out more about what it actually is. It's commonly defined as the area of the body from the top of the thorax to the bottom of the pelvis. Another useful way to look at it is the area of the body everything else sticks onto. The final way to look at the core is what movements can be initiated from it.

Pretty much everyone knows about, and trains, the rectus adominus (RA) but there are plenty of other muscles that form the core; in fact there are about 29 muscles that attach to the core.

One of the most important is the Erector Spinae; these are the antagonists to the RA, and weak erectors, typically caused by too many crunches, are implicated in lower back pain.

Similarly, the Quadratus Lumborum (QL) serve as RA antagonists albeit secondary to the Erector Spinae.

The obliques which stabilise the body and rotate the trunk, these muscles criss-cross from the ribs to the pelvis.

And finally, the Transverse Abdominus is a deep core muscle that stabilises the entire core; its commonly referred to as a natural girdle and is vital in all lifting actions.

Next thing we're going to explore is, apart from looking good on the beach, what all these muscles do.