CORE-LICIOUS

What is common in people who are strong and fast?

Answer : Strong Core

If you want to be fit,  strong and fast you need to possess a strong set of core muscle. You could be doing all the exercise and movement to build your physique or to excel in any sport, unless you train your core and make it strong your training is incomplete.

Core training is the centre of attraction in the fitness world for multiple reasons and everyone has their own.  Crunches and sit-ups are overly abused in the name of the core training, I am not stating they are not a good exercise but are they productive?.

Lets analyse the forward crunch abdomen exercise top position, do you perform any exercise in that posture. Probably not. To see why I am saying this, you need to understand some basics about the core.

Let us understand what is the function of the core

A) The core helps to transfer force from the lower body to upper body and vice versa.

B) The core stabilizes the spine

And the multitude of core muscles that there are

• Rectus Abdominis
• Transversus Abdominis
• Internal Oblique
• External Oblique
• Diaphragm
• Psoas Major
• Pelvic floor muscles
• Glutes
• Ilicostalis & Lognissimus
• Quadratus Lumborum
• Erector Spinae

 If you want to lift heavy weight, run faster and have strong abdomen muscle, all the above muscles should be functioning in sync. In fact, for any movement we perform – from running, lifting or breathing – all the core muscle should fire together to support your spine and transfer force depending on the demand of activity.

Now you understand why crunches and sit-ups are not optimal/productive – they do not engage all the core muscles. This leads to the development of a dysfunctional core.

What happens when we have a dysfunctional core?

1. Weak back
2. Poor athletic performance
3. Poor posture
4. Poor balance
5. Morning stiffness
6. Poor pelvic floor function.
7. Poor breathing

While selecting core exercises, it is important to select exercises, which ensure the carry over from one to another exercise/movement. Like a complete set of exercises that in sequence engages all your core muscles. For instance sports like weight lifting, horse riding, etc.

How do we train our core? The core can be trained in 3 different planes

1) Anti-extension (arching your back ): plank, dead bug, stir the pot.

2) Anti-rotation (moving side to side): pall of presses, renegade rows, chops, single arm bench press, single arm rows, half kneeling push/pull, landmine chops.

3) Anti lateral flexion (bending side ways): side plank, suitcase deadlift, farmer carry.

The examples of exercises for each of the planes can go on, there are 1000000000”s different exercises. I prefer to stick to the basic.

Here is my list of core exercises I make all my trainees do

Breathing: Before starting any core exercise fix your breathing. Breathing right, will fire your diaphragm. Diaphragmatic breathing activates abdomen muscles.

Glute Bridge: Glute bridge and breathing is top on my list. Glutes are the most dysfunction muscles in most people. If you take your core serious, you better put glute exercise on top of your list. If you have enough direct glute exercises in your program, then you can do 1 set for every 3 sets of core exercise. 1:3.

Deadbug: My favourite movement. There are many variation of doing this, depending on your level of fitness. You can progress once you master the basic version.

Pallof press: Can be done standing, kneeling or half kneeling. Be careful with what poundage you take for this exercise. Most core training does not require heavy weight but precision of engaging the core while training the core.

Side plank: There are multiple ways of performing side planks – side plan with cable rows, cable push and pull, etc. Choose the movement as per your fitness level.

Landmine chops: Again my to go exercise. Load the bar, perform 3 sets and you are done. Most important in this exercise is to brace your core.

I also add a lot of offload / one side plate loaded bar exercises and single arm / leg work for core training.

Frequency of core training depends on individual. we can perform core exercises at the end of your training session. we can train core every alternate days for 4/5 sets, each set for 10/15 reps. select exercise on the basis on Anti-extension, Anti-lateral flexion and Anti-rotation.

You can choose the movements that you like / fits your training module. The key is to make sure its productive.