The weather is beginning to look like spring and maybe you’re starting to dream about playing golf or tennis again and getting antsy to get in shape. Now is a great time to work on core conditioning so that by the time spring rolls around and you’re ready to go hit some balls, your core is good and strong, mobility is improved, you’re more flexible and you’re ready to attack your golf or tennis game with more power and a decreased risk of sustaining injuries.

Core training helps make movements in everyday living easier – I’ve been pounding in this point week after week: core training is the foundation of movement. In golf or tennis, you need both muscular strength and stability, and flexibility. In fact, about 60% of amateur golfers experience injuries related to over-use, poor swing mechanics and/or striking the ground with the club. Having a strong core greatly reduces your risk of injury, no matter what your sport is.

The traditional approach to core training worked the abs through crunches and maybe a few oblique twists and the rest was often neglected.

The new approach: Use your abs through the entire workout – not just for 10 mins at the end of class or at the end of your run.

Benefits:

Increased athletic performance, injury prevention and functional ability improves.

So, 2-3 times per week, do focused core training:

You can still do traditional, isolated moves like crunches and back extensions, but try to incorporate nontraditional stabilization exercises, such as:

• Superman (lie on floor on stomach (prone) and alternate lifting opposite arm and leg simultaneously. Keep shoulder blades together, lift the head and torso, squeeze the glutes, then lift opp. Arm/leg, hold for 2 counts, lower and repeat with other arm/leg.

• The Quadruped: Similar exercise: on hands and knees, engage abdominals by drawing naval toward the spine, keep head in neutral position, and simultaneously life opp arm and leg. Requires a great deal of balance. Hold for two counts, lower and repeat on the other side.

• Standing Hip Flexion:     Stand in a neutral position with knees slightly bent, feet about hip width apart, arms at sides. Lower torso toward floor with maximum of 90 degrees of hip flexion (parallel to floor). Return to start position. Repeat 8–12x. For added resistance, hold a Body Bar or dumbbells in hands in front of thighs. Repeat above, lowering torso and weights, 8–12x. While holding Body Bar or dumbbells, flex forward, extend and lift R leg behind (maximum height: parallel to floor). Return to start and repeat, lifting L leg. Perform 8–12x, both sides (alternating R and L).

• Plank: Lie prone, forearms resting on the floor and elbows under shoulders, chest and head slightly lifted, legs and toes on floor. Lift torso and knees off floor, and engage abdominals.  You should resemble and ironing board (i.e, tush down and in line with top of head and feet. Think long and straight.) Extend knees until legs are straight. Maintaining neutral spine, hold for 3–5 slow, deep breaths (approximately 30 seconds.) Over time, work up to 60 seconds.

• Gluteal Bridge:  Start supine (lying on your back), with your head and shoulders on floor, shoulders broad, and arms along sides, feet hip width apart, knees bent. Extend hips, lifting buttocks (avoid excessive spinal hyperextension). Hold for 3–5 slow, deep breaths, and lower buttocks to floor without completely releasing. Over time, work up to 12-15 repetitions, and when you can complete those with ease, light dumbbells (5-10 lbs) can be added to the hips to increase resistance.

Remember hooking your feet under the couch and cranking out 20 full sit-ups, thinking this was the route to six-pack abs? Exercise physiologists realized sit-ups worked the hip flexors more than the abs, and put you at risk for lower back injury. This “new” information piloted the ab crunch movement, which promised a safer, more effective route to strong, flat abs. And five million crunches later, you might be wondering if and when those six-pack abs will emerge.

The core is the “power house” of body, and training it properly makes daily living much easier, as well as certain activities (running, golf, tennis, and other recreational sports). The latest research in core conditioning indicates that the most direct route to a strong, fit, flexible mid-section combines a wide-variety of exercises that work not only the rectus abdominis, but all of the musles that act like a girdle around your mid-section: the transversus abdominis, internal and external obliques, spinal erectors, intercostals, iliopsoas and quadratus lumborum. All of these muscles have specific roles in flexing and extending the spine.

A strong core enables you to move through life with easy and stay injury free, and enhances sport performance (think golf, running, tennis…). Begin your conditioning program with 2-3 days of training per week, utilizing 6-7 core exercises, 12-15 reps each.

This Intermediate Core Conditioning program is a good place to start if you are currently fit and would like to improve core strength.

???
Intermediate Core Galore
(Click on image to view this workout…)

Here are a few helpful resources for getting started, and remember, if you are new to exercise – get your physician’s “all clear” first.

• Core Power DVD, by Peter Twist

• Athletic Abs, book by Scott Cole and Tom Seabourne

• Ace Fitness Exercise Library
This health/fitness website’s exercise library has specific, easy to learn exercises that target the abs and back.