Core strength and posture

[premier]

Hey. I was thinking.. what's the best way to develope core strength? abs and the back.

I'm asking this because it seems to be a problem for me. My squatting is a bit unstable, I always struggle with my ab exercises, my lower back (and hamstrings and hip flexors) is slightly inflexible and my posture seems to be a bit off. It looks like my belly sags a bit and my hips are slightly too much in the front.

I imagine there is better ways than just doing hundreds of reps of crunches and stuff?


premier

[abobo]

There was a similar questiion to this a while back. The inner abs, if anyone calls them that, and the lower back are the core that you keep rigid on squats.

Heavy compound lifts make you tighten up the midsection, so core conditioning takes place when you do heavy pulls and presses. The other ways to hit them that I think work well are decline static holds and an isometric exercise where you are on all fours with a straight back and then pull your navel in while exhaling.

The only other ab strengthening exercise I use is the Janda situp. However, and I will look this up to make sure, strength of the rectus abdominus is not as important as say, the obliques and transverse abdominals when it comes to heavy lifts. Regardless, hundreds of reps of crunches will do very little except build up some lactic acid.

I'm saying the exact same things I said in that earlier thread. Here's something different, then - try to get in the habit of good posture.

Maybe Ford Prefect will fill in the gaps about the posterior chain and strengthening your weak links.

[lowsweep]

Check out:
http://www.t-mag.com/html/body_96ab.html

I would recommend reading Beyond Crunches by Pavel. I also recommend janda situps, but it takes about a month of doing them with a partner to get your form right. Also, despite Pavel's claims, the Janda situp does not take out the hip flexors completely, though it does reduce the amount of work they do. For core strength, try an excercise called Saxon side bends, suitcase style one handed deadlifts (they're both in the beyond crunches book if you need the form), abdominal twists on a nautilus machine (I've worked up to 200 pounds with this, it hits muscles that stabilize everything), and swiss ball crunches. Also, I like to do an excercise with a machine set up to do standing cable rows. I stand with one side facing the machine, take the handle in both hands and pull in to the middle of my stomach, and lift the weight by twisting (the hands and arms stay next to the middle of the stomach, it's your obliques and other stabilizers that work). Make sure you keep your head up and your back and shoulders straight. If done correctly, I notice it hits a million stabilizers around the spine, destroys my obliques, and adds power to my cross. Try it!

[abobo]

Here is the other thread I was thinking of.

[premier]

Thanks, Abobo and Lowsweep. I think I'll start with those medicine ball exercises and decline static holds. Although I'm not sure about the rep range with decline static holds. But I guess stopping before failure is a good idea?

[Mr. Bao]

P:

Greetings. I would highly recommend that you use stability ball training to develop core stability and corrective static and dynamtic posture. The stability ball is a wonderful tool which can you can train both corestability, corrective posture, and balance and some cases flexibility.

Paul Chek is one of the leading leaders of functional strength and corrective exercise specialist whom I had the pleasure of hearding and studying at seminars and lectures here in nyc. I have come to respect his ideas and applied his methods into my program. Many strenth gurus (LoL) such as "Westside" Tate, "Aussie" Ian King, "Commie" Pavel, and "High Volume" Poliquin have come to respect and know this man practical wisdom. You can contact Paul Chek's body of work at www.chekinstitute.com. I would highly recommend his core series video tapes and purchasing his anti burst stability ball.

You may also look at www.performbetter.com and look up Juan Carlos Santana another leader of stability ball, sport specific training, and functional strength training. I would get his two tapes stability training which isn't as pedentic as Chek and cheaper too. However, he does offer tons and tons of exercises and progression of stability ball exercises which does train core stablity and posture along with primary movement patterns.

Best of luck and read up more of the benefits of functional strength training on the sites I recommended.

[premier]

Hahha. I tried that ball thing today.. Holy **** it's hard Not like it would burn bad or anything, but **** it's hard to balance with the ball, but I guess that's the whole point of it =) The ball might have had a bit too little airpressure, but I wasn't able to balance on the ball with my left hand off the ground. Also I weren't able to balance myself while doing the back extensions. My feet wouldn't stay on the ground. Anyway.. it's very interesting training method and I imagine it increases the body control a lot, once you can do it correctly. Great workout for the stabilizing muscle groups.


premier

[Mr. Bao]

P:

Good for you. I can kneel on the stability and do all sort of pulling and pushing with db or cable on it. I can also stand on the stability ball and do bw squats. Try closing your eyes and I becomes even harder to stabilize. When I studied Brazilian
Ju jitsu in nyc the senior students and instructor was amazed of my soild "base" structure for a BJJ novice. In BJJ, their art requires strong stablizing structure and core strength and grip strength.

Many of the BJJ movement is similar to the primary movement patterns I did on the stability ball. E.g., kneeling on the ball which I had a friend hit lightly in many different directions while I was doing like say db curls on the ball. This is much like the mount position and if your do supine leg curls or bridge using the ball, this is like being on bottom position of BJJ.

I can go on about stability ball training. Here is some advice tho, without proper posture or core strength, you will fall plain and simple. In real performance, the environment is usually unstable and it is a good tool to learn how to stablize yourself in a dynamic enviroment. Try to learn about neutral posture and how to correct progress on the ball. You can really do amazing core work on it and do primary movement pattern on it, but many ignorant gym members that I see daily just do crunches and hyper extensions on them. Think outside the box and you can create tons of exercises from stability ball work. Please check out the sources I gave you.

Best of luck.

[premier]

Mr. Bao

Yeah. I checked out Chek's site and it's pretty good actually =) I like his scientific approach to things, although the intros in his articles tend to be a bit too long =) he also explains things pretty good and down to earth, which is good.


premier

[Jamesbond_007]

As Mr. Bao said the CHEK Institue has some great info. They are one of my clients (I manage their computer systems) and they live what they preach. No one in the company has a chair at work! All employees either stand up or sit on a swiss ball. I have followed some of their workouts and talk about hard. This month I am focusing on my core strenght and am doing bench presses, dumbell presses, lunges, and tricep pull downs all on the swiss ball. Talk about hard!!! But is really is a great workout!

[Mr. Bao]

Well I said he was a bit pedentic, but at www.performbetter.com Juan Carlos Santana is less pedentic and a bit more free style and down to earth. Good luck and hope you really get those tapes.

James Bond, greetings. I am glad to meet someone who helped Chek's company and body of work. I have the highest respect for the man. Welcome to the forum. I also used many of Chek's ideas within my martial arts training.

[No_Know]

Find a picnic table. Sit down with your knees under the table. using your legs to be against the underside of the table part. lean back. eventually go your head and body top, beneathe the level of the bench part. Go part way up or up right. Down again. Up...

When going to down arch or angle out (left or right); even perhaps make a circle with your waist area of the body. Reverse the circle.

It might be different and beneficial. Perhaps.

[abobo]

Here's a simple thing I hadn't tried in a while, but I did it today and it felt great: just hold yourself in the up position of a pushup for an extended period of time.

[Shooter]

Ask dezhen2001 about his core strength training.

[Kempo Guy]

I second the suggestion on reading/watching Pavel's "Bulletproof Abs" book/video.

My favorite conditioning exercises from there is the 'Janda' and the 'full-contact twists'. Otherwise, deadlifts are awesome!

Other exercises I use to strengthen my core are out of Pavel's RKC (Russian Kettlebell Challenge) book such as "windmills", "two-hands anyhow" and "side-presses" (they can be. These can of course be done with dumbells as well.

KG