Our Favorite Core Exercises

Many of today's top trainers cringe when they hear clients tell them they want to work on their core.  This cringe comes from the misinformation that is put forth by the late night infomercials where gadgets promise to "blast your core" and show some guy or girl with the coveted holy grail of fitness, the "six pack."  The "six pack" is purely diet related and not a sign of a strong core.

If I asked you to tell me what muscles make up your core, what would you say?  I bet four out of the five people who actually read this blog would say their abs.  That is partially right as the abs do make up part of the core, but only one small part.  Your core is comprised of all of the muscles that are involved in holding your spine in a neutral position and they play a critical role in protecting the spine in any movement activity.  That includes not just the abdominal muscles in the front, but the back, and side muscles as well.  Any exercise that involves moving the whole body, especially under load, trains the core muscles.  In our training, we focus on whole body movements and are constantly targeting the core.  However there are a series of exercise that we are going to share with you today, that specifically target your core muscles.

Crunches are not an effective way to train your core.  Like most things that are easy to do, the return on investment is minimal.  We have found that isometric contractions provide more bang for your buck in developing a strong core and have highlighted a few of our favorite moves here.  Once you have a level of proficiency you can move on to the dynamic contraction exercises.

We also want to make sure you know how to activate your core.  When I ask people to make their stomach tight, often times they will suck their stomach in Ethiopian style.  This is not what we are looking for.  What we want is for you to brace your whole midline.  A few cues we have had success with are, Extend your spine, Think about bracing for a punch in the stomach, Think about trying to zip up a really tight pair of jeans.   Did any of those work?  Now that you know how to activate you core keep it activated while doing the following exercises.

We will start with a plank Series. 

The first is the front plank.  Start on your hands and knees.  Place your forearms on the ground and assume the push-up position(see picture below).  Hold that position for a set amount of time,  30 seconds is a good place to start. repeat for several sets.  Work your way up in 30 sec intervals to holding the front plank for 2 min.

Next up is the side plank.  Lying on your side place your elbow and forearm on the ground perpendicular to your torso.  Make sure your elbow is directly under your shoulder.  Raise the hip off the ground and hold.

Below is the reverse plank.  This is a very difficult one, where you lay on your back, place your elbows at your sides and press up into a plank.

We also like to use isometric holds on the pull-up bar.  The first one is the knee up pictured below.  Hang from the bar, raise your knees up until the are parallel to the ground and hold.

A more difficult bar hold is the L hold.  Hanging from a bar straighten your legs and raise them to parallel and hold.

The Waiters Walk - Take a dumbbell and hold it over your head with your arm locked out.  Fully active shoulder, pressing the dumbbell as high as you can and walk.  We usually go for about 50 feet and switch hands and come back.


Our next Carry is the suitcase carry. Hold a dumbbell with one hand at your side and walk. Focus on keeping the shoulders back, down and even.


Our last one is called the Farmers Walk. This works core and grip strength. Grab two heavy dumbbells and walk. Again shoulders back and down the whole time with an activated core.


The dynamic moves we use are on the pull-up bar. We like knees to elbows.


And toes to bar.

Day 15!

Well here it is, day 15!  How did you hold up?  Was the second weekend too much?  We would really like to hear how things went for you.  This is our first time doing a 15 day challenge and we are not sure if that is enough time for people to change behaviors.  We would like to hear first hand accounts of how things went for you.

This challenge has been called a cleanse and can be looked at that way.  We are trying to get out most of the foods that are known to cause gut irritation and see how your body reacts.  The goal being to then reintroduce these foods and see which ones work for you and which ones do not. This technique will not work if you reward yourself for your strength over the last 15 days by going out for pizza, beer, and ice cream.  I can tell you now how you will feel afterward and the worst part is you will have no idea which foods caused problems.  As we reach the end of this challenge, one option, the way we have settled into, is to keep those foods out for good.  You have proven that you can deal without them.  We do want you to find something that works for you, so if you feel you have to have some bread, grains, dairy, or beans be smart about it.  The trick is to start back slowly by reintroducing one thing at a time and see how your body responds.  Start with cheese in your eggs on the first day or a glass of milk with dinner and see how you feel.  If things go well, try some oatmeal for breakfast the next day or pasta for dinner.  Pay close attention to how your body is responding and make adjustments as needed.  

We have reached a point where we do not eat grains, dairy, or legumes at all unless we make a conscious decision to go off our eating plan.  This is mostly in the form of a family pizza night or an occasional trip to the ice cream store.  We purposefully go out of the house, have our cheat and come back.  This way the tub of Bryers mint chocolate chip, or the left over Ledo's pizza is not calling to you from the fridge. Eat it, enjoy it, and move on.  Don't feel bad or guilty about it.

We also hope this experience has raised your awareness of what you are putting into your body to fuel your everyday functions and ultimately your health.  We hope that you have been empowered by the idea that you can have control over the emotional pull of food and the temporary comfort it provides.  We want you to be very aware of the idea that if something is able to sit on a shelf for months and not spoil, it is probably not very good for you.  We want to make sure that you are aware that vegetables are carbohydrates and a good meal has a quality protein, a fat, and a carbohydrate.  Every Meal!

We eat this way because we feel that it has benefits far greater than just looking, feeling, and performing better.  Not to sound too new wave or crunchy, (we are headed down that path) we believe strongly that the human body is a wondrous machine that is perfect in it's most natural state.  It wants to be healthy, but we do our best to screw that machine up with what we expose it to through our environment, our lifestyle, and our diet.  Giving your body the food it was meant to eat, exercising a little, and getting enough sleep will go a long way to repairing the damage we have done to ourselves. 

We will continue to post information as we come across it and as the spirit strikes us.  We encourage all of you to continue on the challenge and find a better way of eating that works for you and your family.  If you ever have any question you can ask them in the comment section of any post and we will get them, or you can e-mail us at info@newdawnfitness.com.  Thanks for joining us!

We ran the Runamuck 5k trail and mud run this weekend at Lake Needwood in Rockville.  It was a blast!