Hi all,

Keeping the pelvis neutral is certainly not theoretical. From my experience, getting the whole spine in neutral will facilitate the activation of TrAb. THe reason why people may find it hard to get TrAb in supine is simply because they are too extended through the thoracolumbar junction.This puts the TrAb in a disadvantageous position leading to substitution strategies.

The other reason why i think people fail is because they haven;'t addressed the reason why TrAb is inhibited. Dealing with the dysfunctions in the spine and pelvis will improve their activation levels.

The TrAb doesn't actually generate the force and torque required to "stabilise" the whole spine against large loads - what it does do is provide the segmental positioning and allows the strong global muscles to then do their job - effective load transfer.

I have observed many people teaching their patients 'core stability' - i think we know a lot more in theory than practice. I had to pay more attention to seeing segmental motion rather than blocky movements.

Pilates trained people like the flat back position but i much rather we didn't do that. Get the sequencing right - "core" then globals then movement. Skip the first step, you will almost certainly have joint compression problems. Also remember that some people can actually be functional and sequence correctly but not be able do the specific motor task of "isolation of TrAb". Look for 'beautiful movement'...

But that is just my opinion...