The Core: Ultimate Workout
You won't get ripped abs, better performance, or bigger lifts without a solid core.
By Keith Scott, A.T.C., C.S.C.S.
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Beware: If your core is weak, you not only severely compromise the amount of strength and muscle you can build in your workouts, but you also risk serious injury lifting heavy weights or doing any exercise that loads the lower back.Take our core training tips seriously, and you'll ensure safe and steady progress for as long as you train.
Hard Core Training
When trainers test their clients' core strength, the ones who perform best are almost always the strongest squatters and deadlifters. This is not by accident.
Squats and deadlifts—but also shoulder presses, chinups, lunges, and a host of other compound, free-weight exercises (some of which are discussed later)—demand that the core muscles clamp down hard to support the spine under heavy loads. The core keeps your back upright whenever there's a bar resting on it or being pressed overhead, and it prevents your spine from rotating when you have a load pulling you to one side (as in a dumbbell lunge or one-armed press).
So, in essence, just performing these exercises alone provides a great core workout. Though neither a Swiss or Bosu ball is absolutely necessary for a fully developed core, each can be a highly useful tool that you can work in as a supplement to your main lifts. If you have a pre-existing lower-back problem, a Swiss ball might allow you to train your abs without aggravating it. The ball also allows you to move through a greater range of motion than a crunch done on the floor would. Furthermore, you can perform certain upper-body exercises on it, such as chest presses, which will fire up the core and prepare you for stronger benching when
you return to the conventional bench press.
Bosu balls work in much the same way but have a fl at side that makes stabilizing yourself a bit easier. The problem and danger of training your core with either piece of equipment comes when you overdo it (and most people do). Doing crunches only on a Swiss ball overdevelops some of your core muscles while neglecting
others, leading to a slew of imbalances that can cause injury and pain. Training with the compound movements described earlier eliminates this risk, as your entire core is trained evenly. (You also get the added benefi t of training your other major muscle groups, making the most of your workout time.)
Certainly the most ridiculous trend in core training, and abuse of its equipment, has been the notion that you should perform all your exercises on the Bosu ball. The theory behind this is that your core will work harder as your body struggles to balance itself on top of the ball. While this kind of training does make any movement more diffi cult to perform, it prevents you from using anything approximating a heavy weight, so your muscles go unchallenged.
You won't build any muscle or strength this way, and your core will never be conditioned to handle the stresses of tough workouts or sports. Unless you're training to improve your performance during an earthquake, exercising on an unstable surface offers no real advantages.Ultimately, doing so will leave you weaker and more at risk for injury. To truly tax your core, keep your feet on a stable surface, and train with timeproven simple exercises such as those given here.
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