THE MYTH OF CORE STABILITY - FREE FULL TEXT REVIEW

Great full text review paper below outlining why core stability exercises, in particular transverses abdominis (TrA) exercises, are likely misguided for people with low back pain.
The paper examines:
1 The role of TrA as a stabiliser and relation to back pain: is TrA that important for stabilisation?
2 The TrA timing issue: what are the timing differences between asymptomatic individuals and patients with LBP? Can timing change by core stability (CS) exercise?
3 Abdominal muscle strength: what is the normal strength needed for daily activity? Can CS exercise affect strength?
4 Single muscle activation: can single muscle be selected? Does it have any functional meaning during movement?
The paper’s conclusions:
-Weak trunk muscles, weak abdominals and imbalances between trunk muscles groups are not pathological, just a normal variation.
-The division of the trunk into core and global muscle system is a reductionist fantasy, which serves only to promote core stability.
-Weak or dysfunctional abdominal muscles will not lead to back pain.
-Tensing the trunk muscles is unlikely to provide any protection against back pain or reduce the recurrence of back pain.
-Core stability exercises are no more effective than, and will not prevent injury more than, any other forms of exercise.
-Core stability exercises are no better than other forms of exercise in reducing chronic lower back pain. Any therapeutic influence is related to the exercise effects rather than CS issues.
-There may be potential danger of damaging the spine with continuous tensing of the trunk muscles during daily and sports activities.
-Patients who have been trained to use complex abdominal hollowing and bracing maneuvers should be discouraged from using them.
Check out the review paper here!

http://www.cpdo.net/Lederman_The_myth_of_core_stability.pdf