Functions of The Core
The core is used to stabilize the thorax and the pelvis during dynamic movement and it also provides internal pressure to expel substances (vomit, feces, carbon-laden air, etc.).
- Valsalva maneuver
Core muscles are very important in the Valsalva maneuver, which is when a person's thorax tightens while holding their breath. This normally involuntary action can be induced by linking one's hands in front of the chest while standing, and then pulling against the hands without letting go. The Valsalva maneuver assists in lifting, excretion, pushing, and birthing.
- Continence
Continence is the ability to withhold bowel movements, and urinary stress incontinence (the lack of bladder control due to pelvic floor dysfunction can result in weak core musculature).
- Pregnancy
Women use their core muscles, specifically the transversus abdominis, during labor and delivery.
Read more about this topic: Core (anatomy)
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“Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In today’s world parents find themselves at the mercy of a society which imposes pressures and priorities that allow neither time nor place for meaningful activities and relations between children and adults, which downgrade the role of parents and the functions of parenthood, and which prevent the parent from doing things he wants to do as a guide, friend, and companion to his children.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,
They are no wealthier than I;
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They rear their boughs to the October sky.
Poor knights they are which bravely wait
The charge of Winter’s cavalry,
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)