BUILD A STRONG CORE

The core is the centre of our body. Its primary job is to stabilize the spine motion while we move our arms and legs on a regular basis.

With the overload of content on social media and lack of continuing education in the fitness industry, it’s easy to look passed the greater purpose of fitness and healthy living. Many seek fitness for the looks and aesthetics. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting a flat tummy, let’s not overlook all the other benefits that a strong core will give you in the long run.

Strengthening your core will help you with daily activities, performance and reduce lower back pain.

Focus on making your core strong and you will naturally develop your ideal aesthetic look. Now the bad news is, that there’s a lot more to building a strong core than just doing a hundred crunches for 30 days, staying in a calorie deficit and doing excessive cardio. But the good news is, that in this blog, I will teach you what to focus on and the exercises to start with.

Before we get into it, I want to take a moment and give credit to DTS education. This information is coming from one of their recent courses that I attended.

Remember to focus on incorporating and practicing these exercises on a regular basis.

Follow the order below and you should see a huge improvement in just 2 months:

1.      Stability:

In order to do your daily activities safely, you have to make sure that your core can stabilize when lifting or moving a load. This requires more hip movement versus spine movement. Example: Start by holding a plank for 30 seconds.

2.      Endurance:

The ability to control the core in the flexion, extension and lateral endurance position will improve your core endurance.

·         Flexion example: sit in a sit up crunch position (hips and feet planted on the floor), send your upper body back but hold between the floor and the complete seated position.

Time yourself and aim to hold for 90 seconds.

·         Extension example: practice holding a birddog or back extension. Start small and build your way up to 120 seconds.

·         Lateral Endurance example: start by holding a side plank, or if you have shoulder injuries, lay down on the side and lift the ankles off the floor and hold for 70 seconds.

3.      Resisting Rotation:

Any unilateral exercise would work.

Examples: Single arm row (3 points of support) or one-sided farmer carry.

4.      Assist:

Assistance work or priming before main exercises will help the core better prepare for the movement.

Examples: doing dead bugs before squats and holding a plank before doing any type of presses.

5.      Power:

The force and strength that your body can create in a short amount of time.

Examples: medicine ball throws, sprinting or explosive jumps.