Dr Brandon Marcello - Training Athletes Who Are Females

Brandon Marcello addresses some of the misconceptions on abdominal and core training.

We talked about some of these things already: {...} ab work.  It drives me crazy that people still focus on traditional abdominal exercises and crunches and those types of things.

Before we have the ability to flex and extend the spine we must learn the ability to prevent excessive rotation, excessive extension and excessive flexion. So again, the “anti” movements. I know there’s a lot of debate out there right now, that “these anti-rotations are ridiculous, these anti-core movements, you need to be able to be proficient” and “I don’t know why we’re not teaching rotation”. I think {...} we understand that rotation is very important and movement is important, but you have to back things up. And you have to focus on the basic, fundamental proficiencies and pre-requisites, which I spoke about in my stability lecture {...}. You have to start with the proficiencies of “can you prevent rotation”, “can you prevent extension” and “can you prevent flexion”. That is what we’re trying to do with the core.

And remember, when we talk about the core, they are over 32 muscles that attach to the core because anything that attaches to the pelvis is considered a core muscle. The lat is a core muscle, just as much as the rectus, just as much as any of your erectors, just as much as your illio psoas. There’s 32 of them, that if they connect to the pelvis, it’s the core musculature. So again, it goes back to the hip, because they connect to the pelvis and give us pelvic control.