By JOE MILLER
Thursday, April 12, 2007
'Ten Weeks till Swimsuit Season!" warn the covers of the women's magazines. "Six-pack abs by summer!" promise the guys' counterparts. It's a seasonal marketing ploy based on cosmetic appeal and pure vanity that has been used for years to sell magazines.
Abide by our 15-minute-a-day regimen, they promise, and a tighter tummy, an hourglass figure or rock-hard abs can be yours by the first day of summer.
While the prescriptions offered may be somewhat over-hyped, the notion itself is founded on one of the basic tenets of good physical health.
For a happy body, you must start with a happy core.
"Your core," Cheyenne Cravencrozier tells her noon advanced Pilates in Cary, N.C., "is your back, your butt, your abs."
If the participants weren't aware of this at the beginning of class, their "cores" will certainly remind them by the end.
Why is the core so important?
"If you have an extremely strong upper body and an extremely strong lower body, but you're Jell-O in the middle, your body doesn't work as well as if there's a rock in middle," explains trainer Nathan Crow, of Raleigh, N.C.
That "rock," it turns out, is the keystone to a variety of healthy benefits.
One of the first folks to recognize the importance of "the rock" was a German named Joseph Hubertus Pilates. Pilates went to work in England as a self-defense instructor for Scotland Yard in 1912. When World War I broke out, he was interned with other German nationals.
During his captivity, he devised exercise programs for bedridden hospital patients employing resistance devices jury-rigged from bedsprings. Different exercises worked different muscle groups, but all relied on those core muscles: the back, the butt, the abs.
Pilates immigrated to the United States in 1926 and continued to hone his exercise program. It was quickly embraced by the dance community (ballet in particular), which recognized its value for building strength and flexibility, not bulk. It's that embrace by the dance community that may have stunted Pilates' early growth, at least among half of the population.
"Men are a little reluctant because of the dance-type moves," says Pilates instructor Jennifer Ward, of Cary.
Though Pilates has been around for nearly a century, only within the past decade has it become a widespread option for strength, flexibility and core training.
That change happened, in part, because high-profile professional athletes have begun to embrace Pilates _ including golf superstar Tiger Woods, world's most marketable athlete.
Pilates emphasizes slow, controlled movements. Not that "slow and controlled" means easy.
Cravencrozier's hourlong advanced Pilates class may be set to relaxing music but the pace is relentless. There's precious little downtime as her six students move from the basic roll-up and rollover _ modified versions of the stalwart crunches _ to more challenging moves like the teaser. For the latter, the six women are sometimes in contact with the floor with only one body part, their derrieres, while their legs and arms rise and drop. Slowly.
Follow Cravencrozier's direction and you can indeed feel your entire midsection tighten.
It reminds you, too, that this is not an exercise you'd want to do after a visit to the Krispy Kreme. Some fitness programs accommodate a bit of dietary fudging. There's not much wiggle room when it comes to working the midsection.
Professional dancers and other athletes may have recognized the importance of a strong core long ago. But fitness professionals believe its worth is even greater to the non-athlete _ and not just in terms of how well it makes you look in a Speedo.
Warding off injury tops the list of pluses a strong core provides. Back injuries in particular are diminished by strong abdominal and back muscles. The incidence of osteoporosis among women is lessened, balance is improved and, because proper breathing is emphasized with good exercise, respiratory and circulatory issues tend to be fewer. Pilates' emphasis on stretching and moderate movement also makes for more elastic muscles and more mobile joints.
How does that translate to our day-to-day lives?
Crow specializes in "functional fitness" _ that is, exercise aimed at helping us perform simple, daily tasks, from stooping over to make the bed to raking leaves to changing a light bulb. With a strong core, these tasks can become less of a challenge.
"Someone who has good core strength has a more efficient body," Crow says. "It's about being able to do the activities you want to do, longer.
"It's important to the athlete; it's also important to the truck driver. It's what we have to do to get through the day."
Including looking good at the beach.
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