The Ageless Core: Strength, Balance & Mobility | Shebah Carfagna & Nate Wilkins

A strong core is far more than a set of visible abs - it’s the foundation for every movement you make. This intricate network of muscles stabilizes your spine, improves posture, and protects against injury. As we age, maintaining core strength and endurance becomes essential for balance, mobility, and overall vitality.

In this Move for Life conversation, Peter Bowes talks with Nate Wilkins and Shebah Carfagna, fitness professionals and co-founders of the Ageless Workout, about how to build and sustain core strength for life. They discuss simple, equipment-free exercises - like bird dogs, hip bridges, and planks - that create a strong, functional foundation when performed with proper form and mindful engagement.

By training both strength and endurance through timed holds, structured sets, and purposeful movement, you can support longevity, confidence, and pain-free mobility at any age.

-----

This podcast is supported by affiliate arrangements with a select number of companies. We have arranged discounts on certain products and receive a small commission on sales. The income helps to cover production costs and ensures that our interviews remain free for all to listen. 

Visit our SHOP for more details: 
https://healthspan-media.com/live-long-podcast/shop/

PartiQlar supplements

Enhance your wellness journey with PartiQlar supplements. No magic formulas, just pure single ingredients, like NMN, L-Glutathione, Spermidine, Resveratrol, TMG and Quercetin.
Get a 15% discount with the code MASTERAGING15 at PartiQlar

EnergyBits algae snacks
A microscopic form of life that could help us age better. Use code LLAMA for a 20 percent discount

SiPhox Health home blood testing
Measure 17 critical blood biomarkers from home. Get a 20% discount with code LLAMA

PartiQlar supplements
Enhance your wellness journey with pure single ingredients. 15% DISCOUNT - use code: MASTERAGING15

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Peter Bowes: 0:27

Your core strength is the powerhouse of your body, the link between upper and lower strength, and the key to every movement you make. Hello again. Welcome to the Live Long podcast and our Move for Life series with Nate Wilkins and Sheba Carfagna. Short episodes focused on the fundamentals that keep you strong and moving for life.

Nate Wilkins: 1:05

The core. Some people think it actually is the abs, right? They always talk about ab work, but what we're talking about is about 35 muscles that are involved with the core, and there are about 8 to 10 of them that really matter. And that's the powerhouse, what we call the powerhouse of the body. Everything sort of emanates from there. And if you have, if you're weak in that area, everything else sort of becomes weak or is weak. We think about it as the piece that makes us move and stabilizes everything.

Shebah Carfagna: 1:40

The core stability is from here. Your core stability is from here to here, and you want to strengthen all of your muscles in here. And this is where your organs are. So a lot of your weight is in here. Your bigger muscles are in your legs, but your core stability is one of the most important things for longevity as you age. It is your powerhouse that makes you go in a certain direction. It's good for your back, excellent for your posture, and a beautiful thing about a lot of core work. You don't need equipment all of the time and you don't need a gym.

Peter Bowes: 2:11

Core strength is important for men as it is for women. That basically the the structure of our bodies in terms of core strength is essentially the same.

Shebah Carfagna: 2:21

I believe it's equally as important. I think it's more if you had to look at it for women because they need to be able to manipulate their bodies, you know, they think of, you know, they have to keep walking. There's a lot of changes that happen in women as we age that we don't have to go into detail here, but a lot of hormonal changes and everything else. And I think the core would just be like an asset, an additional accessory for those who don't like to work out. And for those that do, it's it's also the ability of where your powerhouse is and your force strength. But we all need it to overall keep moving in the right direction.

Peter Bowes: 2:57

And as we've discussed many times before over the last few weeks, injury prevention is key and core strength plays a big role in that.

Nate Wilkins: 3:06

When you think about injury prevention and particularly about about the core, because everything we do, Peter, is contingent upon having the core, right. So the bending that we do, the twisting that we do, any movements that we make is associated with that. So if we are in the wrong position, if we haven't really strengthened our core, then we have an opportunity to do injury, particularly for from a back perspective. Right. So many people, particularly in this age group, worry about back injuries or lower back injuries. And so the core can actually help prevent those injuries. Or having a proper core or strong core can help prevent those injuries.

Peter Bowes: 3:49

So where do we start when we are thinking about maintaining our core strength and improving our core strength? What are the basic exercises that we would look at?

Shebah Carfagna: 3:59

Well, funny. We talked about this this morning because while you I don't think you have many beginners, we wanted to talk about how do you begin to build your core strength. And one of the things we talked about, because core is so important that you do it correctly, you don't want to hyperextend your back, because if you're a very beginner, I would obviously get a medical clearance, but lie on the floor and pretend you're getting up and practice getting up before you go into any full core exercise, including a plank, any variation of a plank, because that being able to get up off the floor, number one is an activity of daily living, but also using your body weight to get up. Now, when it comes to core exercises, there's many different core exercises to plank. When people think of core exercise, they immediately think of the plank. And there's variations to that. There's very simple ones. You can add weights to the plank and do exercises with the weights and chest taps, and move your body from side to side. Other core exercises include use of kettlebells. You can use kettlebells, and that strengthens the core. Sweetheart?

Nate Wilkins: 5:04

But I'd step back just a little bit and say Bird Dogs as an example, where, you know, alternating arms, alternating legs, hip bridges, rotations. It's these, you know, sort of basic ones that, that we do. But then some people add sort of plank with a chest tap.

Shebah Carfagna: 5:20

Yeah.

Nate Wilkins: 5:21

Right. Alternating chest tap. So they do side planks right. Or you do side planks with hip drops. So the the more or the stronger your core is core is the more opportunity you have to do these additional movements. But there are any number of variations in terms of, of core movements that can actually be implemented in a program.

Peter Bowes: 5:44

And again we're focusing on overall stability here, aren't we. Which again, as we've discussed, as we grow older, stability in the body is all important.

Shebah Carfagna: 5:55

As number one, the key thing when you approach core exercises is you need to engage your abs and stabilize your body as much as you can, because that is where the most injury occurs if you're not stable. So if you're performing a core exercise standing, you want to make sure that your feet are hit with a part equal distance. The attention to detail, the detail. The devil is in the details. Because the worst thing that can happen is you get injured and we see a lot of individuals with back pain or who have done movements where they raise kettlebells too high up. And so you really have to think about your shoulder stability, your abs, you know, and engaging all of this in here, I heard someone say squeeze it and and keep it still. But it's more about engagement. And drawing the belly into the spine supports the lower back, the erectors, all of the things that keep you moving. Again, here I am moving in the right direction.

Nate Wilkins: 6:50

Everything that we do starts with the core engaging the core navel to the spine. Whenever you do a squat or lunge or whatever the case may be, the core is involved. So you know the lifting that we do, the twisting, it translates into a daily movement. And these things actually help us with our functional strength.

Shebah Carfagna: 7:14

Right. And you're right about adding a weight. So if you add a weight and you hold the weight out here and you do a squat. That's a core word. That's a multifunction joint movement because you're holding the weight out here, engaging your core and squatting down and up. So there's a number of ways you can increase the intensity with weights without weights with with other kind of Bosu. You know, this is bands. Bands change. We have metal chains. We have we have iron chains that you shrink around. We have from Russia. Those are great core strength exercise, but anything that has you twisting and turning certainly will lead to longevity.

Peter Bowes: 7:50

And is there a difference between sometimes hear the expression core endurance as opposed to core strength? How would you define the two?

Nate Wilkins: 8:00

Here's what we think is that the core strength is sort of the maximum, you know, power that you could get when you engage your core, when you talk about endurance or core endurance, that is how long.

Shebah Carfagna: 8:14

How long can you last.

Nate Wilkins: 8:15

Actually last to hold on and both are important. But a lot of people love to, you know, look at in terms look at it in terms of strength, but to be able to do both. We were just talking about that, you know, in terms of holding a plank at an example, how long should a person hold a plank? It depends on where you are. How long can you maintain a certain position in terms of your core? It just depends on where you are in the process.

Shebah Carfagna: 8:45

Peter, can I add to that? So typically in the world in which we live, three sets right of a core exercise, any exercise, the first set gets you going. The second set builds the strength. The third set is the endurance. So that's how you would look up pretty much any exercise. Now when you jump to endurance and you say, oh, you know, I want to see you do a plank for six minutes, that is certainly endurance, but that takes a lot of strength to get to endurance. You know, you have to practice that over and over again to wield the endurance. The endurance is how long can you last? Another simple example is the weightlifters. They can lift 500 pounds once, but they can't do it again and again. And I believe it's great to train both ways. You know, with time we train time under pressure. So that is for endurance. How long can you do that? We train repetitions. We train pyramid training. I don't know if you're familiar with that, which is a lot more reps and a lot of repetitions. Few reps, a lot sevens.

Nate Wilkins: 9:49

So you do something seven times seven. So if you do an exercise you would hold, you would do seven of them and seven times.

Shebah Carfagna: 9:58

With 10s in between. So it's 49. But the mechanism or the biomechanics is different because you're exhausting that with a little with shorter reps. So you're getting endurance and strength there. Can you make it to seven times? You should try it with especially legs. I think. Leg extensions, leg curls, leg presses because that 15 minutes in between gives the body a chance to reset. But it's back again. 15 seconds, 15 seconds.

Peter Bowes: 10:25

So a strong core supports your posture, balance and coordination, helping you move efficiently and pain free. It's not just about abs, it's about stability, strength, and longevity from the inside out. The Livelong Podcast is a healthspan media production. I'm Peter Bowes, you can contact me through our website, livelongpodcast.com. Or you'll also find show notes for this episode.

Speaker4: 10:50

This podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. We do not offer medical advice. If you have health concerns of any kind or you are considering adopting a new diet or exercise regime, you should first consult your doctor.