The Horse stance - Silly name, great exercise!

Having a strong core is all well and good for doing complex exercises on the floor but you need to link that "inner unit" strength to the muscles of the "outer unit" that mobilise the body for it to be any good in the real world.  You can have great core strength in an isolated exercise on the floor and still put your back out lifting something.  The inner and outer units must be conditioned to work together and that starts with the Horse stance exercises.

The Client:  Samantha has previously completed the Great South Run and signed up for the 2011 event with the intention of bettering her previous time.  A non-traumatic ankle injury led to a 6 month period of patchy training and increasing frustration for Samantha. 

Whenever she would try and run the story was the same, at some point during the run the injury would flare up, causing her to have to stop and hobble home.  It was early Summer when Sam and I first sat down to discuss her options for training going forward and we quickly came to conclude that we would train with the aim of completing the course, staying injury free and use this year as a building block toward a triumphant P.B at the 2012 event.