What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
Today it's another Washboard Wednesday video and of course we're going to attack the Core
here,
but we have to see, how are you going to define Core.
If you think that it is just your Abs you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Or at least you might be until you actually try what I'm going to show you today
because this might be exactly what you need if you always think about the Core in terms
of just your Abs.
You see we're going to jump back in time here, think about maybe when you were a kid when
you were out in the snow and you made those snow angels, right,
just up and down, legs in and out, arms up and over your head in an arc.
We're going to do the same thing here, we're going to make an angel here but of course
it's going to quickly, as you guys know and should expect by now,
become more of a devil when you see how we perform this exercise from the other side.
You see, when we want to define the Core we've got to make sure that we're including all
the muscles that surround our entire Torso.
And again like I said, surround, that's front and backside and most of the time our Posterior
chain muscles are not nearly as strong as our Anterior chain
and you're going to find that out first hand as you try this.
So here I am demonstrating the classic snow angel movement except I've got Dumbbells in
my hands.
And when I do this, you can see that obviously I'm working all the muscles on the frontside
of my body.
And in order to do this and maintain my stability while I do it, I'm going to have to have some
Chest strength,
Anterior Shoulder strength, Ab strength, even Quad strength to keep my legs up off the ground.
It's all working together but guess what?
You should be strong in these movements and these muscles because you're used to doing
a lot of these Anterior chain dominant exercises.
Where the real fun comes in is when you try to turn over and see if you can do the same
thing.
And I can pretty much guarantee you, whatever weight you were using and managing on the
frontside,
you're going to have to cut it in half if not more.
And sometimes guys have to even cut it down to nothing.
Some of my top Athletes literally can't use any weight.
But what's happening here is exposing a major problem in terms of the balance between frontside
and backside strength.
And when we talk about the Core, we have to have a good balance of strength here between
our frontside and our backside
because our Core does continue to wrap around our body, as I said in three dimensions.
It doesn't end right here at our sides or end where it goes out of sight.
So, I flip over to my stomach and now I have to do this Prone version of this exercises
and it becomes way the hell harder.
This is where guys start calling this the Angel of Death.
Because you'll see that I'm now down to 5 pound Dumbbells the 10 I was originally using.
And as I bring my arm up over my head, I obviously have to have full mobility in my Shoulder
and also through my Shoulder Blade,
but also the stability to allow me to do this without my arms sinking back down to the ground
under the weight of the Dumbbells.
And when I come back down towards my sides I'm going from that externally rotated position
down to an internally rotated Shoulder.
But most importantly here as you do this and you'll see it yourself,
my Glutes and low back have to fire extremely hard to be able to keep my legs off of the
ground
and also keep my upper body stabilized from sinking as the weights come down towards my
lower body.
So there's a lot going on here.
The fact is, you want to make sure that you can handle at least half of the weight that
you can handle on the frontside.
And if you can't, you've got your work cut out for you.
You're probably one of those guys that's thinking about the Core in a lot more narrow sense
than you should be.
You might even be thinking to yourself, what is the big deal, what's the point of working
on these smaller muscles?
And I can tell you, even as you look at the movement that I just showed you there,
Glutes, Lumbar Spine, Thoracic Spinal Erectors all these muscles are going to be extremely
important in guess what?
Those big lifts, like the Deadlift, like a Bend Row.
All these exercises matter, everything matters when you're trying to Train Like an Athlete.
And if you don't have the proper balance or attention paid to some of the smaller muscles,
it's going to become the weakest link that will derail your performance in the bigger
exercises.
The ones that you rely on to help you build muscle, bigger, faster, stronger.
So we have to make sure that we take care of everything here and that's what we do at
ATHLEANX.COM.
If you guys are looking for a program that leaves no link in the chain unnoticed,
then head to ATHLEANX, get our ATHLEANX Training System.
And you'll see how to actually Train Like an Athlete to make sure that you're leaving
no weaknesses behind.
Alright guys, I'll be back here again in just a few days.
If you found this video helpful, make sure you leave your comments and thumbs up below.
And give it a try, let me know.
What is the imbalance you've got going on?
Maybe you can't use any weight at all.
That's ok, you can always improve your strength.
I'll see you guys back here soon.