The Library Endurance athletes 02 of 04
Ask most people to brace their core before a lift and they'll suck their stomach in. This is probably the most repeated cue in gyms and Pilates classes — and for strength training, it's exactly wrong.
Bracing isn't a minor technical detail. It's the foundation everything else is built on. Get it wrong and the work you put into every other exercise is compromised from the start. Get it right and you'll feel the difference in almost every movement you do, in the gym and outside it.
The drawn-in, navel-to-spine cue comes from a reasonable place. It creates a feeling of engagement. It switches something on. For certain types of movement — Pilates, yoga, low-load mobility work — it has its place.
But it works by narrowing the trunk and reducing intra-abdominal pressure. That's the opposite of what you need when you're about to put load through your spine, generate force from the floor, or hold a position under resistance. When the trunk narrows, it becomes less stable, not more. Power leaks. Load goes to structures — usually the lower back — that aren't designed to absorb it.
This is one reason endurance athletes who've done years of core work still end up with a sore lower back in a deadlift or plank. They're engaging their core. Just not in the way the movement requires.
Think about the moment before you take a hit. Or brace yourself against something pushing against you. Your trunk doesn't narrow — it expands. You create pressure outward, in every direction, building a solid cylinder of support around your spine.
That's the brace. Intra-abdominal pressure. A canister, not a corset.
A cannon fired from a solid platform produces a predictable, powerful result. The same cannon fired from a canoe produces chaos. Your trunk is the platform.
The reason this matters is simple: force can only be expressed effectively if it has something stable to act against. Without genuine stability, whatever force your legs or arms generate dissipates before it goes anywhere useful — energy going in every direction, nothing useful happening at the intended target.
This applies to everything in the gym, not just the heavy compound lifts. A press-up without a braced trunk becomes a lower back exercise. A step-up without it becomes a wobble. A lunge without it loads the hip and knee in ways they weren't designed for. The brace isn't something you add to hard exercises. It's the baseline for all of them.
This takes time to internalise. Don't expect to feel it immediately. Most people need several sessions before it clicks, and several more before they can apply it reliably to a loaded movement. That's completely normal. Treat it as a skill you're building, not a switch you're finding.
The floor drill
Lie on your back. Place one hand under your lower back — not to push into it, just to monitor it. Any change in position will register through your hand, which is what you want. Place your other hand on your abdomen.
Take a deep breath in. Full breath, expanding the ribcage.
At the top of the breath, gently push your abdomen into your hand — outward, not inward. Don't hold your breath yet. Just feel the direction of pressure.
Your lower back position should not change. If your hand under your back loses contact with the floor or gets compressed against it, something has shifted. Go back, take the breath again, and focus on the outward push without moving the spine.
When you can do this consistently — outward pressure with a stable spine — you're starting to understand the brace. The next step is maintaining that pressure while you breathe normally, then holding it under light external load, then applying it in standing positions, then in movement.
This is the beginning of what's known as the Valsalva manoeuvre — the mechanism serious strength athletes use under heavy load. The full version involves breath-holding under maximum effort, which is not where you start. But the floor drill is where the concept becomes physical rather than theoretical, and it's accessible to anyone regardless of training background.
Most endurance athletes are fit, motivated, and used to doing what their body is told. The bracing problem isn't effort. It's that the movement pattern being asked for is genuinely unfamiliar, and years of doing something a different way makes the new way feel strange and uncertain.
There's also a timing issue. Endurance sport doesn't demand trunk stability in the same way strength training does. Running and cycling involve repetitive movement in a narrow plane. The trunk contributes, but the demand is relatively forgiving. You can run with a suboptimal brace and still run well. You cannot deadlift with a suboptimal brace and expect it to go somewhere useful.
This means the athletes who've done the most training — and feel most confident in their bodies — sometimes take longer to adjust. They're replacing a deeply automated pattern with something that currently feels less natural. That's the learning curve, and it passes with practice.
The shift tends to happen gradually and then suddenly. There's a point — usually a few weeks into consistent practice — where the brace stops being something you have to consciously find and starts being something you set automatically before movement. When that happens, everything else in the gym improves.
Exercises that previously felt unstable feel solid. Movements that caused lower back fatigue stop doing so. The effort goes to the muscles it's supposed to go to. Loading becomes more productive because the foundation is actually there.
For endurance athletes specifically, there's often a secondary benefit that takes longer to arrive: improved position under fatigue. A runner or cyclist who can maintain genuine trunk stability over long efforts retains form further into a race. That's not a gym observation. It's something athletes notice on the road and the course, usually several months into consistent strength work.
The brace is one of those things that seems small until you have it, and then you can't imagine training without it.
Stuart Frew — East London Strength
Stuart has spent over fifteen years helping people move better, feel stronger, and build training that lasts. He works with individuals to apply focused strength training to their goals — endurance athletes, strength athletes, or busy people fitting strength into their lives. His coaching looks to build the capacity to do what matters to you, for a long time, without breaking down. A former Royal Marine, he founded East London Strength and coaches out of Basis Gym in London Fields.
Next in the Series
Back pain is the most common injury presentation I see at East London Strength. Endurance athletes have a particular relationship with it — and the way most of them approach it makes it worse rather than better.