Building Core Strength is not always about what you see in the mirror. A six pack can look cool and it has more to do with diet and bodyfat percentage as opposed to just training the abdominals. In most cases with the fitness industry, when it comes to the Core, it's simply to train so you can visibly see the abdominals. Now, there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that if it's your intent or goal. My goals in particular is not so much developing a Six Pack but to treat the Core with intent on strength building, functionality and conditioning.
It's about being capable to handle movement and digging into the very depths of injury proofing that area of the body. Not even to isolate it as separate muscles, but to harness it as a single unity that ties things together that recruits not just the muscular structure, but the back, the spine, the hips, the groin area and being in control of the techniques that target those areas like an Army or a Team working in unison. Usefulness and Vitality.
In recent times, I've worked on my Core using Isometrics that usually comes in the form of 9 positions (Dead Bug Crunch, Hollow Body Hold, Arch Body Hold and Side Bends with the legs wider than shoulder width, shoulder width and feet together each side). A good portion of my training hits those muscles anyway to build those stabilizers with the bands and such or even contracting muscles to stabilize while doing Push-Ups on the Push Up Grip Spikes. Testing the waters again with three particular movements (2 of them bodyweight & 1 with the band) and seeing what was possible. Back Bridge, Sit Ups & Russian Twists.
Nothing shiny or complicated but can make a hell of a combo or work separately depending on what you do. Train the mid-section differently but also conditions that area with a vengeance.
The Back Bridge or Wrestler's Bridge
Beyond something for the neck, back or hips. When done with control, it helps the body utilize tension along with working every muscle to stabilize throughout the entire chain. In this case, it's working towards getting your nose to the mat and holding the position without hands. To be forewarned, this is not about training to be a wrestler or boxer. This isn't the type of training that someone like the legend Mike Tyson has done. His style was merely to build the neck to take hits, which ended up costing him to get surgery after years and years of overworking that area doing countless rocks and holds at a pace that wasn't meant for human beings to bend themselves in.
This style of bridging I'm showing you when you click the link on the link above, is more to build flexibility, stabilization and strength in the neck, back, hips and legs. This is what I learned from Matt Furey back in 2005 and from there learned to expand on it from Logan Christopher. You can start out doing what you can and utilizing some form of padding that protects your head but isn't so soft that it can do something ineffective. A good garden mat or a small gymnastics mat would be fine. Work up to holding and rocking without the hands for support like I show in the video demo. To really dig into the progression system of the Bridge beyond this kind of stuff, click here>>> Logan's Advanced Bridging Course.
Onto Sit-Ups: Old School Style
Simple but effective in a lot of ways. We all have done some kind of sit up in our lifetime and we even did a few here in there when we went out for school sports or in PE class. While the Bridge hits the extension of the Core, the sit-up is the flexion. There are several variations you can do but what I like doing and will put out a different variation soon that will involve a combo compared to what I'm showing you here. Click Here>>>Sit-Ups and you'll notice certain things but you may also not see certain things either. What I do here is not pointless crunches or typical situps where you grab the back of your head and just hammer out reps. These are intently utilizing tension throughout the entire Chain and keeping my elbows as closed in as possible so I can keep focus on what my goal is. As I rise, I'm contracting all the muscles including the lower back, as I come back to the floor, I control the tension and then expand the ribcage so it works the stabilizers. This isn't about tackling reps for a test, it's to demonstrate that with Sit-Ups, you're not merely getting in the abdominals, you're hitting everything with laser like focus and concentration along with working on Muscle Control. You can make ten reps feel like 100 doing this and still get great benefit.
A Variation Of The Russian Twist
Most who are familar with this exercise do it on the ground and work the muscles in a situp position as you twist from side to side. The variation I'm working, is from the standing up position using the Dopamineo Band. I learned this by using a slower style from Hanoch Rahamin who's one of the owners of the company. Being inspired what his conditioning and reputation is as a wrestler, it was natural to figure out what is possible for me to do. Nowhere near his level and don't need to be but I wanted to see what he did and how I can do it. Whether fast like him or a bit slower and methodical like me, the variation consists of doing a 12-3 O'Clock with a twist and then a 12-9 O'Clock with a twist. My pace is more in the learning stages and getting the technique down so it's like I'm learning with you. His pace is explosive and works on conditioning. Within a couple sessions of doing the way I'm showing you here>>>Russian Twists, it's already around over a couple hundred. He's done thousands of these I'm sure.
The key element throughout all of these is CONTROL!!! I'm not interested in doing hundreds of sloppy reps just to tell people how many I can pull off. Yes I do plenty of reps, some of them are fast, some are slower but throughout the process, it's performing the movements with intent and focusing on the muscles at hand.
That to me is part of the journey to be functional and conditioned. It's about building a center that allows everything to work the way it was meant to. Doesn't matter if its bodyweight training, bands or whatever. The greatest purpose is be able to move through everyday life without killing yourself. You don't even need to work so hard to be sore in order to get results.
Be intelligent about what you do and be able to correct mistakes when they come about. Recover well and progress gradually. Adapt and improvise if you have to but respect the abilities you have right now and take them for what they are later.
Core strength isn't about looking like a model. If you got the goods to go along with the strength and function, that's awesome and proud of you for accomplishing them but remember that it's about being able to move and work your body to produce force when you need it.
Simplicity is the biggest key and don't need to rely on shiny machines or silly informercial gimmicks. Simple movements, consistent training and a protective Core is where it's at.
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