If you have recently been injured it is likely that you will have to go through some form of physical therapy to truly recover from your injury. For the more severe injuries, physical therapists have been advocating a rehabilitation program that is very centralized upon "core training." Core training is the type of physical training that a person does when he or she wants to strengthen his or her abdominal muscles, shoulder muscles and back muscles. It is said that the torso is where the core strength of a person's body lies.

Strength Core Training should be an important part of any physical therapy regimen because the core of a person usually from which the movement of the rest of the body happens. For example, a person cannot move his or her legs without also using the lower abdominal muscles to pull and stretch the thigh muscles. A person cannot swing his or her arms if the shoulders are not able to work together with the arms. If the core of a person is weak it is possible that he or she will not be capable of fully recovering from whatever injury affected the person to begin with.

In all likelihood, it was probably a weak core that facilitated the patient's injury to begin with. When exercising, people place quite a bit of importance upon cardiovascular training and endurance training. The strength core training is usually a second thought, which is tragic because the stronger a person's core, the easier cardiovascular and endurance training become. As a patient works with a physical therapist, that physical therapist will probably teach them to do the following exercises (or a variation thereof):

Ball Crunches: These are crunches that can be done while using an exercise ball. This exercise works out the muscles of a person's lower back as well as the frontal abdominal muscles and the person's shoulders.

Push-ups. Push ups teach the body how to bear the weight of a person through the trunk while balancing that trunk's weight upon the arms and toes. It takes the work out of the back and the legs. Planks are a type of push up that work the same muscles but can be done by people not yet strong enough in the upper regions to do regular push ups.

When a patient has a strong core, he no longer has to worry about his muscular or skeletal alignment or balance. A strong core will keep the body aligned naturally. A strong core is also better prepared to facilitate the body weight of the patient and his movements which is essential to ensuring that a physical therapy program is successful.