More than just eye candy to some, the muscles of the core have one of the greatest responsibilities to the human body. Yes, everyone wants those washboard abs and to get rid of the undesired abdominal fat that is so often stored in the midsection. But what if you understood the importance of the core and shifted your thinking about why you should be training this area daily?
Why Core Strength Is Important
The first step to shifting your mindset is to understand why the core is essential to the body and to human movement. The core musculature is key in maintaining posture and establishing movement. Without a strong midsection, the framework of your body would crumble to the ground. The core helps in all the forms of posture, including sitting, standing, moving, lying down, getting up, twisting, and turning. Secondly, having a strong core helps to prevent injuries. Having that solid foundation and stability at the center of your body reduces your risk of injury. No matter what you do in your everyday life—taking out the trash, picking up the kids, walking the dog, or sitting at a desk all day—the core muscles are working. Thus, you must make sure that you are building core training into your programming.
Strengthen Your Core
This should give you enough good reasons to want to have a better core. So how do you do that? The traditional way of doing 500 crunches or sit-ups in order to get that six-pack has left and the wide world of planks and utilizing equipment like medicine balls or resistance bands is in. There are even classes built around simple core training. And this is where NIFS’ group fitness class of the month, CXWORX, comes into play. This class is offered nearly every day of the week, many times during more than just one time slot, and is designed around building core strength.
Let’s look at the benefits of taking a Les Mills CXWORX class:
- In and out in 30 minutes: There is no reason you cannot make this class fit into your schedule. With a short and sweet 30-minute format, you can squeeze this in before work, on your lunch break, or before you head home for the evening.
- Built to strengthen the core: While this class sees some additional benefits that we will discuss in the next few points, CXWORX is built around the foundation of working to build a strong core. With minimal equipment like a mat, weight plate, and resistance band, this class with help to build that rock-solid foundation you are looking for.
- Build core endurance: Not only are you building overall strength, but you’re increasing core endurance as well. It’s important to be able to maintain strength and stability of the core for longer to help posture both in movement and while stationary.
- Additional benefits: As mentioned above, not only does CXWORX benefit the core musculature, but the legs, hips, and butt also get a workout. All these parts of the body are attached to the core muscles and are just as important to work.
If you are ready to get in some core work, try CXWORX today! As you strengthen your core, watch how many other things improve, like movement and running speed. Click here for the latest group fitness schedule. And if you can’t make one of these classes work, try another group fitness class; a majority of them have additional core work built into the program!
This blog was written by Amanda Bireline, Fitness Center Manager. To read more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.