How many of you truly know what the core is and what it actually does? The general consensus is that the core is made up of the abdominal muscles and it has something to do with strength in the centre of our bodies. Those of you who think that are very much mistaken! Simply put, the core is the starting point for any force we transmit to our arms and legs, it stabilises us and is the controlling unit for any demand we place upon the body.

Imagine your arms and legs were torn off, the core is what remains. It does NOT simply include just the abdominal muscles. It includes powerful lower and upper back muscles, internal muscles such as our diaphragm, our internal and external oblique’s as well as our transverse and rectus abdominis which in fact form different parts of three separate layers of muscle tissue. We must train all of these muscles with specific exercises for our triathlon event. Those who do not train there core are missing out massively on the benefits this type of training has to offer!

Now if the core enables us to transmit as much power as possible through to our limbs, should we not train it for our triathlon events? Imagine how much more efficient our bodies would become and how much faster we could be. With a powerful and effective core our breathing will be vastly improved and you will find you will benefit in all other aspects of training because you will have a much stronger base. Imagine your core as a house, two exactly the same houses but one with foundations dug into the ground and one with out. Which house do you think will last the test of time? Of course the house with out foundations will slide, crack and eventually fall down. Our core has exactly the same principles and if we have a strong core, we are less likely to receive injury from the long and hard training prescribed with triathlon events.

Training the core is the easiest part of triathlon training, especially in the winter training phase where you have more time to adhere to a plan. It can be done at home, the office or the gym and only takes around 20 minutes. We can even fire up the core muscles without any equipment at all, some static movements when followed with excellent technique will target your core muscles fantastically.

It is when we train our weak area we start to see the improved results we want. Small things make a big difference. A saying that will always stay with me and is always in the back of my mind when training anyone is “You are only as strong as your weakest link”. I want you to think about that, really think about it and apply it to your training. If you have a weak area, it will always be there. It is not going to go away.