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Anatomy of Core Stability By Hollis Lance Liebman
Anatomy of Core Stability By Hollis Lance Liebman

Anatomy of Core Stability By Hollis Lance Liebman (Firefly paperback, May), 160 pages, $24.95.

The cover of this glossy, large-format paperback bears a photo of a man who is leaning back on his knees. Beside him is a similar-looking, tanner man in the same posture, at first glance another photograph of the same man - but with his abdomen and thighs flayed so we see his muscles.

Ewwww.

Relax, it’s not the same young man. The hairstyle is shorter, the upper arms less intimidating. And most reassuring, closer inspection reveals the second fellow is a graphic: black lines poking him from various angles are pointers that lead to Latinate labels for his muscles.

Is he anatomically correct?

Not in the way you mean. He’s an anatomy model lacking a certain naturalism. And he sets the tone for what’s inside this colorful book: anatomical depictions that highlight the main muscles engaged by exercises designed to challenge the sinews of the hips and torso, which in this post-Pilates era are lumped into the trendy term “core.” From warmup stretches to several 10-combination workout plans, the book is packed with comprehensive-looking information.

You’re saying it merely looks complete?

It shows many details of what moves below the skin when we move, but - thank goodness - it greatly simplifies what happens.

For instance, the first move in the first chapter, “Swiss ball abdominal stretch,” comes with three images. We see our photo realistic graphic friend leaning back against a big exercise ball, his arms canted at an angle that lines up with his neck, his feet flat on the floor. Next we see him sprawled back across the ball, fingertips touching the floor behind him, legs straight.

Finally, another flayed man - this one bald - is poked with pointer rules and Latinate labels. The labels convey that leaning back across a big ball is all about the rectus abdominis on the front of the torso. In lighter type, faint lines whisper that other abdominal muscles would also be engaged, specifically obliquus internus, transversus abdominis and obliquus externus.

But these are far from all the muscles that would be affected were you or I to lean back across a big ball. That posture would also benefit our backsides by changing the pattern of compression in the spinal discs as our vertebrae move; and it would tug on hip flexors, quadriceps, inner thigh muscles and stretch all the what nots that reside in and around our armpits; while also causing upper back muscles to contract, among other good effects I’m too poorly educated to name. Probably even the feet would experience something.

But who needs to know all that? Are we studying for our kinesiology finals here? No.

So this is a shallow book?

Yes, deeply so. But it’s also an entertaining book that makes the tedious exercises we do for the improvement of our cores appear scientific, edifying. You aren’t holding your knee up until your thighs shake, you’re activating vastus lateralis.

Anatomy of Core Stability is just one in a series of similar popular anatomy books. Any one of them can be used for:

Making lists of that which we should not do. (The author provides warnings. For example, he suggests that people with lower back problems shouldn’t do the “Thigh Rock-Back” stretch depicted on the cover.)

Doping out what unfamiliar contortions we notice at the gym might be trying to accomplish - a sort of field guide.

Helping personal trainers sprinkle more Latin into their conversations to impress the clients.

And finally, all anatomy books are vividly entertaining when you have injured some dratted muscle. While you’re waiting out the tedious rest period your doctor has prescribed, it helps to be able to visualize your injured tissues and to curse them each by name.

ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 06/24/2013

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