Core muscle strengthening for children is very beneficial for their development. It improves the child’s overall endurance, strength, self-image, socialization and function, especially in school. Strengthening core musculature in children helps regulate their muscle tone and increase their trunk control, thereby improving their balance skills so they can negotiate obstacles safely. It also teaches them posture control, ultimately helping them focus properly in school and reducing their fidgeting tendencies.
Normal and Atypical Development
As the normal child develops, his core muscle strength is established through repetitious active movements and movements against gravity. The child engages in small components of these movements before combining them to achieve a functional core. This functional, stable core serves as the foundation for coordinated movement in the child’s arms and legs.
Due to atypical motor development in infancy, children with neuromotor dysfunction often have a limited availability of movement patterns due to their congenital muscle weaknesses. These include not only their core musculature, which tends to be tight or spastic, but they also experience weakness in other muscle groups designed to provide stability. These children, then, require core strengthening in order to develop the stable foundation their normal peers have acquired.
Proper Posture
Core muscle strengthening is an important component of improving postural strength. For example, teaching children yoga poses requires them to hold steady positions for prolonged periods. This prolonged positioning inherently increases their core strength. In fact, teachers are surprised that it is possible to hear a pin drop in a room of 5-year-olds holding these yoga poses. According to physical therapist Heather Martin, maintaining these poses helps to improve flexibility in children with increased muscle tone.
Core Trunk Extensor Weakness
In any human, our antigravity muscles, or those muscles that must contract against gravity to hold us erect, are generally weak. This is no exception in children. That means the back muscles that keep them erect are weak.
Examples of exercises to strengthen children’s backs include floating on stomach or back, the backstroke, reaching overhead while using a scooter positioned on the belly, and the airplane. The airplane exercise involves instructing the child to place a large ball underneath their stomach and lift both their arms and legs simultaneously and hold the position for a count of five. Repeat 10 times.
Core Abdominal Weakness
The abdominal muscles form the anterior or front wall of the trunk’s core. These muscles help support the spine and keep it in proper alignment. In children, difficulty breathing and a flared rib cage can also be attributed to abdominal weakness.
One of the most common strengthening exercises for abdominal weakness is the typical sit-up where the child is instructed to lie on her back and lift her shoulders off of the surface, possibly adding a rotary or turning component. Another creative and fun way to strengthen the abdominal muscles is to have the child hang from a swinging bar and lift her legs to knock over objects, playing catch with a medicine ball, or crawling up and down inclines.
Proper Balance and Gait
Without the proper stability from the core musculature, coordinated balance and gait, or the ability to walk, is affected. According to physical therapist Joanne Bundonis, core muscle strengthening in children improves their walking velocities.
Examples of exercises that improve the child’s ability to control his trunk and balance are: kicking a ball, standing or hopping on one foot, jumping, skipping and picking up an object while standing on one foot. This last exercise focuses especially on trunk control.
References
- "Advance for Physical Therapy"; Shining Through; Heather Martin, PT, 2010
- Rehab Management: Pediatric Strength Training
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