A(nother) chink in the armor of core strengthening

Patients and professionals often believe — passionately — that core strengthening prevents and cures low back pain. What does the research say?

In this 2002 study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the core strength of college athletes was tested in 1998-1999, and then in 2000 they participated in “a structured core-strengthening program, which emphasized abdominal, paraspinal, and hip extensor strengthening.” I bet they did a lot of crunches. Boo-yah.

Too bad about the total lack of results!

There was no change in the rates of low back pain before and after all those crunches, and the authors concluded that there was “no significant advantage of core strengthening in reducing LBP occurrence.” Rates of low back pain were low overall in these athletes to begin with, so this certainly isn’t the last word on this subject. But, in this case, core strengthening clearly fails The “Impress Me” Test: if core strengthening was anything to write home about, surely these athletes would have had less low back pain after all that core strengthening? Surely?