"Core" Stability "Training"

[Mark Rippetoe]

I am at a 250 lbs deadlift, i do 8 sets of 8. and i do a 300 lbs squat at 8 sets of 8. I am currently at 180 lbs body weight

I'm afraid that these numbers tell us quite a bit about your barbell training experience with full-ROM squats and deadlifts. I don't think you're really in a position to correctly evaluate the effects of this type of training wrt "core" stability.

[VikingPower]

This site was recommended by one of my power lifting friends. I enjoy reading your material as i dont know a lot about power lifting. I have been a sports guy growing up, Hockey, Football, Boxing, Sprinting and Long distance running, and Soccer were my sports of choice. I now train athletes using the fundamentals i was taught and now have learned. I wanted to talk to you about stability training. I know you dislike this topic however, i think you can give me great insight.

First off, I 100% agree with you that in order to gain the strength needed you MUST do load bearing exercises. A squat or a deadlift, multi joint exercises in general are the #1. I also agree with you that in regard to Core, i have never felt that looking at the abdominals as the core to be true. But some of the things i would like to as about i felt were a bit short sighted in your disection of stabilization training.

You mentioned tennis players for example, how the surface they play on is a stable flat surface, so why train on an unstable one? True the surface may be stable but the players body is in full movement. Unlike a squat where everything is stationary, they are running and bounding side to side. Athletes who play on a field, and even though the surfaces looks flat we know turf is soft and as soon as you dig into it, it all of the sudden becomes unstable.

I have come to learn that every muscle ( each individual muscle ) has its own core. Through stabilization training yes there is no point in adding heavy weight; but heavy weight is not the point. When you are doing a squat on say a bosu ball for example, you are working your quads, but because of trying to focus on staying stable you are engaging the muscles in the calf that would not be engaged on a stable surface. Its like having a guy who can squat 700 lbs in the gym and then asking him to do the same thing out in the bush; we know it is not going to happen. But you train him to take the conditions in the bush but apply it to the gym and think about where you will go from there.

In my opinion stabilization training is crucial to train athletes to activate other muscles that would not other wise be worked. This will give more overall strength to the player, and help to prevent injury since more muscles know how, and have the strength to combat an ill moved opposing force.

Again these are my thoughts, and i would love to hear your thought on it. I will continue reading your insights, as i hope that one day a power lifting athlete seeks my training. Thank you again for considering this, and thank you for your time.

Bosu balls have already been debunked at length by many established studies for their ineffectiveness at resulting in any performance advantage on weightlifting or other athletics. 1 example; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17530966
"In the bush" or woods would need to be more specific onto what the actual activity is and the surface trained for. No one would attempt a 700 pound squat on say a rocky hillside but If you could do that on unstable ground I guarantee you could handle say a heavy backpack full of gear (50-100 pounds
is what I normally pack here on the sierra's) much easier than say someone who trained on US surfaces with a minimal amount of weight. I know this from experience(not the 700 pound squat, but much more than anyone I have seen using that US surface junk).
The point is those kind of exercises dissipate the energy reserves you have to many muscles in minor ways,triaining them in minor ways. It does not hold any advantage to SS training whatsoever.The difference being training specifically for an event or activity, which will increase your own personal skill level. These are the kind of myths that need to be destroyed by the trainers themselves, much like lifting light weights with high reps for "weight loss" or "muscle toning". It comes from magazine mentality by inexperienced people who have either never been strong or never will be.

Also which muscles do you think a bosu ball uses which do not come into play doing multi joint, compound moments like the heavy back squat?

I

use bar bells for squats, hack squats, deadlifts. I have had major spine surgery in the past and have 2 rods and 6 screws in my back, so heavy overhead lifting is difficult. I am at a 250 lbs deadlift, i do 8 sets of 8. and i do a 300 lbs squat at 8 sets of 8. I am currently at 180 lbs body weight, and i hope to reach over 190 under 200 by the end of the summer then drop back to 175 - 180 for the hockey season.

I find this a bit dubious as Someone who could actually full squat 300 pounds would have no trouble lifting much less over head as well as the fact that their is almost no on in the world squats more than they dead lift in the gym unless the are using equipment and since you mention that you have no PL experience, I would garner that you do not use such.

[darn48]

Im in no way stating that i am a powerlifter. In my main sport hockey, it is not worthwhile nor beneficial to do so. At 5'9" a great deal of size would slow me down and a great deal of agility lost. You would have to judge your competion and train accordingly. For the type of competitions you competed in, agility training would have been useless. Barbell training is one crucial aspect of a wide aray of training that is neccessary; of course this is in my opinion. I dont train with heavy weights, nor can I, I am physically limited. However to dismiss training that is performed everyday be elite level athletes like NFL players, Hockey players, and Rugby players is ultimately saying they are wasting their time. certain positions require extreme force, like defensive line men; and they train big. But a wide reciever would not.

All i am trying to understand is why it is dismissed. Working your body and putting it through its paces is what it is all about. I know that in a 10k run i could place better than a powerlifter, but get my ass worked when coming to lift heavy weight in the gym. You know your profession and your sport very well, and the information you share has been around for a long time. Every training style evolves, as even the sport of powerlifting before the 70s.

I mean why dismiss a viable training method just because it is not useful to your sport?

[rdp]

On the one hand, they do have some actual, peer-reviewed evidence of some of the deep, spinal musculature seeming to be working improperly, atrophied, etc in patients with chronic/recurrent pain. On the flip side, if generally sitting on your ass, i.e. being a sedentary slug, is probably what led these people to improperly working spines in the first place, I am wholly incredulous that nature would design us such that the only intervention capable of properly reversing this trend is arbitrary, gay ass exercises that have only existed for a few decades. I have a really, really hard time believing that the local musculature stays silent if you were to progress somebody's squat, deadlift, and overhead lifting capacity.

I've often found that "I am wholly incredulous" is not a good standard of proof, especially for something that that would seem to be testable in a somewhat scientific manner, e.g., take a bunch of people with the problem, train some with the standard PT crap and train some with squats, DLs and OH lifting and see what happens.

Being a sedentary slug might be a recent (in evolutionary terms) phenomena, so why shouldn't the fix be something recently developed? Lots of useful stuff has existed for a few decades.

[gordonrumble]

I imagine that doing some loaded work on unstable surfaces could work proprioceptive motion, but I don't see how it would change your muscular development.

[Mark Rippetoe]

However to dismiss training that is performed everyday be elite level athletes like NFL players, Hockey players, and Rugby players is ultimately saying they are wasting their time.

This is precisely what I am saying. They are wasting their time. You don't think this can happen at the elite levels of athletics? That is awfully credulous of you.

I mean why dismiss a viable training method just because it is not useful to your sport?

Because it is not "viable" in that it doesn't produce as much "core stability" as basic strength training does.

[blowdpanis]

I've often found that "I am wholly incredulous" is not a good standard of proof, especially for something that that would seem to be testable in a somewhat scientific manner, e.g., take a bunch of people with the problem, train some with the standard PT crap and train some with squats, DLs and OH lifting and see what happens.

Being a sedentary slug might be a recent (in evolutionary terms) phenomena, so why shouldn't the fix be something recently developed? Lots of useful stuff has existed for a few decades.

It's testable, but like a lot of exercise science, people aren't usually testing very interesting things (most PT research is abysmal imho). Most around here are curious about the role of barbells in this discussion - if you can find that in the peer reviewed literature, in terms of global vs. local muscle functioning for my previous post, I'd certainly appreciate it. I can find no such literature.

And for what it's worth, I'm not arguing that "recent" = invalid, I would even accept all the fruity exercises may potentially help, I just think the foundation of evidence for this line of thinking is pretty weak, and the relationship of pain to all of this rather confusing (i.e. the evidence that these "activation" exercises actually reduce pain vs. other modalities is particularly weak).

[darn48]

Apparently most of the readers are missing that i have had major back surgery. I have 2 rods and 6 pins in the L4,L5,and S1 vertabrae. I am fortunate to be once again walking without a cane let alone doing a deadlift. It is far to hard on my spine to do a great deal of weight on a deadlift. I can add the weight to a squat but i make sure i dont go too heavy because the last thing i want to do is damage it further. The stability training techniques that i use and have researched have developed the muscles surounding my spine so that i can live a normal life and moderately do the things that i want to do.

Of course im not implying that Training is perfect even at elite levels. And the fact of the matter is we could never have perfect training. With each individual having a different genetic make up we need to be trained in different manners ultimately.

It kind of seems that people are thinking that i assume heavy lifting is a waste of time; that is not the case. I find it just as crucial to do the exercises that you state, and do them frequently. But to prepare your body for motion you should apply motion and movement subject to your field. Is stability geared to your core? no. It is intended for the rest of the body, to move appropriately during times of increased stress.

But also as in the case of someone in my position it allows me to apply added stress without increasing the load too much to injure myself further. I try to apply all training to my regiment as i believe it is all viable. I dont think that you should miss one element of your training at all. Subing off strength training to stability would also allow rest time for your body to relax and then come back to push past plateau's and compensate for possible injury.

[selters]

I'm afraid that these numbers tell us quite a bit about your barbell training experience with full-ROM squats and deadlifts. I don't think you're really in a position to correctly evaluate the effects of this type of training wrt "core" stability.

Isn't 8 sets of 8 at 300 lbs fairly good at 180 lbs bodyweight, provided that he does the sets with proper depth?

[Monster]

darn48, Rip clarified that it was crap.

Those of us who have tried it, including myself, can confirm from experience that its crap.
(And I personally believe an easier way to get injured than is real training.)

What then is the point of additional trolling?

PS: You sir, are not squatting 300 below parallel for 8 x 8.