Does Core Stability Reduce Back Pain?

Does pumping up core strength help to reduce back pain? The short answer, as revealed in this piece in the L.A. Times, is no one really knows.  The newspaper turns for help to Dr. Christopher Standaert, a clinical associate professor
of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, who describes core stability training as the standard of care for back pain. "But,"he adds, "There’s never even been a uniform agreement on the
definition." The Times reports that among those who think that
core training works, there are two schools of thought on exactly how it
works. Some experts think that local muscles such as the
multifidi and the transverse abdominis are critically important. Others think it’s more
about training movement patterns and broader motions and coordination
of multiple muscles through your trunk to help your spine move more
effectively.
Standaert tells the paper that whether one is talking about local or global
core stabilization, the rush to embrace core training has gotten ahead
of the science. "People need to know that the scientific clinical
foundation, the research, doesn’t match the extent of emphasis that
trainers and therapists and all sorts of people put on it."
Read more in the Los Angeles Times.