THE FIRST TIME Heather Thomas Shalabi heard about using core muscles was five years ago, when she started learning Pilates. Since then, Thomas Shalabi - who is now a Pilates instructor at Flex Studio in Stanley - has increased her core stability and teaches the technique to a growing number of Hongkongers trying to do the same.
'I'd been doing yoga and ballet for a long time,' she says. 'But it wasn't until then that I heard about this 'initiating with the core'. It was learning things like, when lifting your arm, think about how the core is going to stabilise you as you do it.
'So, every time, I thought about holding those muscles before I lifted my leg or raised an arm. It helps bring awareness on how you deal with pressure on the joints.'
Thomas Shalabi says that increasing core stability can apply to any sport, because it works on the concept of controllable force. 'Such as, when swinging a tennis racket, you're radiating [strength] from the inside out.'
The core is also involved in yoga, she says, although it's not usually spoken about as it is with Pilates. Thomas Shalabi says her yoga practice 'improved tremendously' once she had the Pilates principle. 'The core concept has come from Pilates, but probably yogis would say they've always been aware of this.'
She says most physical trainers focus on core these days. 'You can't really find any form of exercise now that doesn't utilise a basic element of Pilates. In a lot of sports, they'd never ignore the origin from which you should stabilise before you do it.'