Ultra-FIT magazine

Todays article lists our top 6 exercises for developing a stong, functional and athletic midsection. Why not tell us your favourite core exercises? Maybe we’ll add them to our list!

1) Dead lifts
Not strictly a core exercise in the strictest sense of the word but none the less an excellent exercise to strengthen and develop the erector spinea muscles of the lower back. Dead lifting requires you to coordinate the efforts of your legs with your lower back and as such is a truly functional core exercise. A weak midsection will present its self during the dead lift as a rounding of the lower back so if you experience this you should reduce your training weight to avoid injury. If you don’t know how to dead lift, get some qualified instruction!

2) Cable Russian Twists
Rotational strength is vital in all sports and twisting sit ups and, worse still, broom stick twists are ineffective for developing strength. To develop strength we need to apply a significant overload to the muscles in question and twisting sit ups just won’t do it! The cable Russian twist allows us to load up the obliques – the muscles responsible for rotation – which is essential for strength development. To perform the cable Russian twist, adjust a cable pulley so it is set at about shoulder height. Stand side on to the cable and hold the handle in both hands. Keeping your legs slightly flexed and your arms straight, rotate your spine whilst imagining your upper body as a tank turret. Rotate through a full 180 degrees keeping your arms, chest and head all in perfect alignment. Repeat for 6-20 reps before changing sides.

3) Swiss ball crunches
Whilst traditional crunches on the floor will provide a minimal challenge for most fit sports people, performing crunches on a Swiss or stability ball should make the common crunch much more effective. The instability of the ball as it wobbles from side to side will “fire up” the abdominal muscles far more effectively and make the exercise much more challenging. To perform this exercise, sit on the ball and then walk your feet forwards until you are lying across the ball and it sits in the natural curve of your lower back. Place your hands either at your temples, crossed over your chest or on your legs. Make sure you start from an extended position – i.e. your head should be lower than your hips. Starting with your head, curl up one vertebra at a time until your abdominals are fully contracted before slowly inhaling and returning to your starting position. If you can perform more than 20 reps, try holding a weight plate or medicine ball on your chest. If you do perform the weighted version of this exercise you may need to anchor your feet to avoid rolling off the ball.

4) Saxon side bends
This exercise, named after Arthur Saxon – a historically famous English strongman, is super effective for working all of the core musculature. To perform Saxon side bands stand with feet hip width apart and hold a single dumbbell or medicine ball held overhead in both hands. Avoiding any forward, backward or twisting movements, lean to one side whilst keeping your arms extended overhead.  Bend to the side as far as your flexibility allows before returning to the middle position. Immediately bend to the other side and continue for the desired number of repetitions. The secret to this exercise is the long lever provided by holding a weight above your head.

5) Swiss ball mountain climbers
This unusual exercise is a dynamic stability exercise which requires you to maintain core control despite the movement of your legs. This is a primary function of the core muscles in sport and is a valuable exercise for all sportsmen and women. Place your hands on either side of a medium Swiss/stability ball and walk your feet backwards so you are in a press up position. Brace your abs as hard as you can to maintain core tension. Alternately pull one knee and then the other into your chest whilst making sure your midsection doesn’t move but be careful not to hold your breath. The faster you more the legs the more “wobble” you’ll need to stabilise and the more demanding the exercise will be. To make the exercise even more demanding, try elevating your feet on an exercise bench.

6) Barbell or ab wheel roll outs
One of the most challenging core exercises you can do is called the roll out and can be performed using a loaded barbell or an ab wheel device designed especially for this exercise. If you are using a barbell, place a 5-10kg weight plate at each end of the bar and secure them in place with collars. Kneel on an exercise mat in front of the bar and place both hands at about shoulder width apart with an overhand grip. Simultaneously extend your hips and shoulders to lean forwards and push the bar away from you. Keep your core tight throughout and avoid extending your spine – if you feel any discomfort in your lower back you have gone too far. Pause at the most extended position you can manage for 1-2 seconds before bending your hips and using your abs and shoulders to pull yourself back to the kneeling position. This exercise will challenge even the strongest core! If you get to the point where you can do 20 perfect reps on your knees, you’re ready to try this exercise from the standing position but, be warned, you may find you can barely perform a single rep of this ultra-hard exercise.

This is far from being an exhaustive list of exercises but each one will provide you with plenty of “bang for your buck” and challenge your core muscles to become stronger. Don’t try and do them all in the same workout though – chose 2-3 a day on non-consecutive days and perform 2-3 sets of each for best results.

Straight to the point with no fluff or stuffing, in this series of articles we’ll tell you the three best exercises to give you maximum benefits from your workouts…

Can you imagine having to narrow down all the hundreds of ab exercises into just three? It wasn’t an easy task. To make our list, the exercises had to be multifunctional, multidirectional and enjoyable to perform which is why you won’t see any crunches or ab rollers or other similar dull exercises!

Stability Ball Mountain Climbers

Place your hands on a stability ball and walk your feet back so that you are in a press-up position. Keep your abs tight and your arms straight. Keep your right leg straight and pull your left knee into your chest. Extend your left leg and put it back on the floor. Now pull your right leg up to your chest while keeping your left leg in place. Continue alternating (and remembering to breathe) for the duration of your set. If you fancy a real core challenge, you can elevate your feet by putting them on a sturdy exercise bench. This makes this exercise super tough!

Cable Russian Twists

Focusing on your obliques, this exercise requires either an adjustable pulley machine or a strong rubber exercise band anchored at hip height. Stand side on to the cable/band and hold the handle in both hands. Keep your arms parallel to the floor and your hips facing forward. With your arms straight and your head, chest and arms aligned, turn your upper body through 180 degrees by rotating your spine. Slowly return to the starting position and repeat. Imagine your upper body is a tank turret and your legs are the tracks and that the turret is turning independently of the body of the tank. Really lock those legs in place to emphasise your core!

Barbell/Ab Wheel Roll Out

Probably one of the toughest ab exercises around, this low tech, old school ab exercise will give you a core of steel! Load a barbell with a 5kg plate at either end and fix the plates in place using collars. Make sure the plates can rotate freely. Kneel down on an exercise mat and place your hands on the barbell using shoulder-width overhand grip. Keep your abs tight and push the bar away from you and lower your body towards the floor. Go as far as you can but make sure your lower back does not arch. If you feel this exercise in your lower back you have reached too far. Lift your butt, flex your spine and pull yourself back to the starting position using your abs. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions. You can perform this exercise using a commercially available ab roller which costs around £10.00

Got a fave ab exercise? Tell us about it!

A great deal of mystique and misinformation surrounds core training. In this article we look at what you should be avoiding…

 

 

 

 

1) Spot reduction
There is a mistaken belief held by many people that suggests that doing core specific training will magically melt fat away from your midsection. Sadly this isn’t true. Exercising the abdominal muscles, whilst very important, does not cause the layer of fat covering them to miraculously disappear. Reduction of body fat comes from lowering calorie intake or increasing calorie expenditure and that burning sensation you feel whilst doing your ab training isn’t fat melting away – it’s merely lactic acid which is your body’s response to running out of oxygen.

2) High reps for core training
The core muscles i.e. the rectus abdominus, the erector spinea, the obliques and the transverse abdominus, consist of primarily fast twitch or type IIb muscle fibres. Type IIb fibres are renowned for their ability to produce high degrees of force for short lengths of time and are in essence very powerful. The best way to train these powerful muscles is with powerful exercises. Your core musculature needs to be able to exert and resist large amounts of force so that’s how it should be trained. High reps (20-100 reps) won’t develop the kind of strength you need for sport. If you find you can perform more than 20 reps of a particular core exercise, you should really look for ways to make it more difficult or, alternatively, select another exercise.

3) Pulsing or shortened reps
It’s quite common, especially in exercise classes, to see people performing short pulsing reps of crunches at the end of a set. The feeling of burning that is experienced is associated (quite wrongly) with fat reduction. As discussed above, this burning is nothing more than a build up of lactic acid. Shortened reps = adaptive shortening which means that the abdominals will lose some of their flexibility and as a result require more stretching. Shortened abdominals can result in a rounded lower back which can lead to injury. Say no to pulsing!

4) Ab cradles
These frames that you often see people using in gyms to “safely” perform their ab work can cause more harm than good – especially for those involved in sports. Ab cradles force you to move in a very regulated way and put 100% focus on the rectus abdominus at the front of your midsection. Unfortunately, this has little to do with the demands placed on your core in the multi-directional world of sport. Any device that aims to make ab work easier is of little use to the majority of sportsmen and women.

5) Training too frequently or too hard
Your core muscles are no different to your biceps at the front of your arms or your hamstrings at the back of your legs but, for some reason, many people train their abs differently to the rest of their muscles. As discussed earlier in this article, the core muscles are consist primarily of fast twitch type 11b muscle fibres which respond best to hard and infrequent workouts. 2-3 times per week is ideal for core training – much the same as the rest of your body. Also, be weary of training your core too hard…the muscles of your midsection support and protect your spine from injury and over fatiguing them may expose you to an increased risk of suffering spinal trauma so always train hard but make sure you leave some “gas in the tank” so that your spinal health is never compromised.

Core training is part of virtually every exercisers routine but, when it comes to sport, are you being as specific as possible with your midsection work? In this article I want to challenge your core in a more activity-specific way which represents the often random demands of sport.

Pretty much every athlete and exerciser knows that core training is essential for sports performance, injury prevention and also appearance. The midsection is literally the tie that binds our upper body to our lower body and allows the transference of energy from one limb to another. A weak core means that energy can get “lost” as the spine collapses and forces generated are diverted away from where they are needed. The thing is, whilst most people know that core training is very important, they do it in such a way that it isn’t specific to their sporting activity.

In exercise, the SAID principle (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands) states that your training results directly reflect your training efforts: lift heavy = get stronger, lift fast = get quicker etc so why is it most core work is done at the end of a workout, laying down, with controlled breathing and with relatively low intensity? This scenario is a long way from the unpredictable and highly demanding world of sport…

Imagine a rugby player – when do they need to be able to demonstrate core strength? Is it whilst lying on the floor, barely out of breath or is it towards the end of a game, absolutely exhausted and putting in a big tackle or scoring a try? A boxer or MMA participant needs to demonstrate core strength even when their breathing pattern isn’t controlled (maybe because of fatigue or perhaps because of a “gut punch”) to keep themselves protected and to provide a strong platform from which to strike. In sports, you never really know when and from where your next core challenge will come from – will it come from the side, the front, behind? To succeed in sport, it’s important to develop the ability to react to a variety of core stresses whilst being in a state of fatigue.

Traditional core training does not reflect the demands of sport but with a little imagination, a workout randomiser (also known as a dice!) and a selection of cardio options you can create workouts that are varied, unpredictable and sports specific…

The workout

For each of the die faces, allocate a core exercise. Make sure each exercise is significantly different from the others by using the template below. Slot your favourite exercises into the template but remember to rotate exercises regularly.

1)      Flexion – focus on lifting shoulders e.g. Swiss ball crunches

2)      Flexion – focus on lifting the hips e.g. hanging leg raises

3)      Lateral flexion – e.g. dumbbell side bends

4)      Rotation – e.g. cable wood chops

5)      Bracing – e.g. planks

6)      Extension – e.g. dorsal raises

Next, select some cardio options e.g. treadmill, rower, jump rope or bodyweight exercises like burpees, thrusters or jumping jacks. It doesn’t really matter what cardio option you select so long as you can get up to speed quickly and it gets you sufficiently out of breath.

Perform 1 minute of hard cardio (and I mean hard – get the lactic acid flowing and the heart and lungs pumping) before throwing your dice and immediately performing a set of the corresponding core exercise. Do as many reps as appropriate but remember to use a variety of rep ranges and loads to develop strength and endurance. High rep counts in excess of 25-30 are not time-efficient so try to keep your reps lower than this. Like every other muscle in your body, your core muscles need to be challenged so make sure the exercises you have chosen are sufficiently demanding and intense.

Perform 5-6 sets of this core and cardio pairing throwing the dice each time to randomise the core exercises. Allow 1 minute recovery after each core exercise and don’t worry if you manage to throw the same number a couple of times as this is part of the random nature of sports.

There are times where in will be necessary to perform your core work in a more traditional way, especially when trying to learn new exercises or improve core-specific performance but this is a great method for shaking up your workouts and making them more specific to the random way sports place demands on your body.

Get rolling that dice and enjoy a whole new way of working your core!