Quote Originally Posted by alophysio View Post
Hi Caz, thanks for your input...i think your comments reflect the major problem out there...

1. Most people believe that core stability is how you described it - a tensioning of your "core" muscles all the time. However, most people (including physios) think that you can feel this contraction - if you can feel it "on" strongly, you aren't doing it right. It only takes a very small amount of transversus activation to help prepare the joints for loading. As little as 3%...
I think thats exactly right! And I think my problem when I tried to do some of these exercises at the start was that all my lower back/pelvis muscles (sorry, don't know the right terminology!) had seized up so I couldn't isolate individual muscles so just tightened all my muscles further. Its only now that everything is moving more freely that I can isolate the right muscles to work on. So I can now do pilates and core stability exercises without it causing me pain :-)

Very interesting topic though!