I'm in gym clothes, so we must be at
the form lab in Portland where it's
all about taking the moves that we
learn here and incorporating them into
our daily lives and a lot of people
are gonna be at home working out,
taking advantage of the nice weather
that we're having getting outside,
and it's really important to remember
that that core strength, stability,
super important and you're going to help
us with that. I'm going to
help you guys with that. Like
you said, it's super super important,
not just for the six pack and everyone
wants but for functional movement.
Your basic everyday squat has
a lot of core involvement in it
that people don't even realize.
So if you can strengthen not
just the ABS but the actual trunk
and the entirety of the core,
your exercises in the gym or
your other exercises at home are
going to get a lot stronger.
So today I'm going to walk you through
a couple of different exercises for the
front of the truck and also the sides,
because we don't want to forget
both those oblique muscles and
the side of the core as well.
So a couple of common things
people do are planks and.
Also a bird dog,
so I don't know if you know bird dogs,
but I will show you them
if you don't so right
a couple of the common.
Issues that people run into when
they're doing bird dogs is they
don't feel them and you can,
just like almost any exercise in here,
you can kind of just go through
the motion and not get anything
out of it as all about that.
Focus on your form.
Focus on working the right muscles.
So with a bird dog,
for those of you who don't,
that don't know what a bird dog is.
It's when you're in a tabletop
position here and you're raising the
opposite arm and the opposite leg to create
that nice straight line through
the torso and create that stability
through the trunk of the core.
When you're doing a bird dog, yes,
you could fly through this and do
this all day long. That looks easy.
Yeah, without really working the core.
But if you focus on the way the
movement is supposed to be done,
then it's gonna feel tough.
There's gonna be a few points that
I'm even gonna have a hard time
talking through because I'm going
to be engaging that course so much.
So really, focusing on your core stability
when you're engaging your core when you
really try to squeeze your trunk together,
you do get that slight
little round out Outback,
and that's OK rounding and.
Marching the spine is fine when you
don't have gravity pulling it down,
so here gravity
is not trying to shorten and
compress our spine so we can arch
and we can round as much as we want,
and that's not gonna hurt the back here.
So when you're going into a bird dog,
the very first thing you want
to do is really engage the core.
So I'm going to take a big breath in
and then I'm going to squeeze my core,
create that slight little round,
and now with that core
on I'm going to raise that
opposite arm and that. Opposite
leg without losing that slight round
without losing that squeeze in the core.
And then I'm just moving my limbs
around that trunk stability,
so when I'm tapping the hand to the knee,
I'm going to reset my breath and then I'm
going to extend all the way back out,
keeping that nice engaged core the entire
time and you'll notice the difference
even here. I'm having a little bit of
a tough time talking to you through
it because I'm engaging my core
so much so you feel it the setup.
Yeah, and it's all about that.
Approach in that setup to
the movement absolutely.
I talked about planks as well.
So yeah, there are the standard full plank.
There is the forearm plank.
Those are all great,
but we're gonna talk about a side
plank because a side plank is gonna
get those oblique muscles going OK.
There's a lot of different variations you
can do from that side plank position,
but the first one I'm going to show
you is just a regular standard hold,
so from here what we're going to
do for our setup is we're going
to drop onto our side,
put our forearm down on the floor.
Your feet can be together so I'm
gonna show you the the more advanced
one first and then I'll give you
guys at home and option to kind
of take that range down.
Make it a little bit easier for the
trunk if you're feeling unstable.
Yep,
so from here I want to be in
a straight line with my body.
Obviously there's a little bit
of a bend going on here,
so when I raise up into my plank position,
I'm focusing on engaging the core so the
obliques that are closest to the four,
the to the floor are going to be
responsible for me lifting my hips.
Off the ground.
So I'm not just picking my hips up.
I'm thinking about squeezing and
engaging my core on this side to
keep that nice stable body here.
From here you can always add
to the exercises.
You can add crunches at the top.
You can add extensions.
You can add twists,
but just your basic side plank.
Here you're trying to keep that
oblique line engaged to really just
keep that stability through the torso.
Keep that nice straight line
through the trunk.
Obviously that movement's tough.
So in order to.
Kind of knock it down a step or two.
I'm gonna bend that bottom knee in.
Keep that bent knee in at about
90 degrees and I'm gonna keep my
knee on the floor here now from
the distance from the knee to the
shoulder is a lot less so that's gonna
make this movement a little bit easier,
but you can still focus on engaging
that core to pull the hips up
in that nice straight line.
And then you can just hold.
Start with maybe 1015 seconds.
See if you can work up to a
minute or two and that's that.
Good progression to get stronger
and stronger.
Yeah, obviously you guys want to do them.
On all sides,
you're not just gonna hit one oblique
and leave the other side empty,
so those are just a couple of
really Common Core movements that
people can do at home with ease
with no equipment that
are a really good trunk builder to
build that stability through your core
absolutely, and that's what
we're going to be wanting to do
if we're working out at home
exactly, it's going to make
all your lifts much better,
exactly, so we're going to have
all of these tips right on the 207
section of our website for you,
we're gonna drink some water.
Now and we'll be right back.