Issue 075

May 2011

Finally, after years of articles on hip mobility, strength development and rehab I finally get round to giving you fine people what you want: a guide to getting glorious, carved-from-warm-marble abdominal musculature. Fortunately, for all of us, that shouldn’t take too long. 

The secret is... ‘eat less cake.’ Chances are that if you consume fewer calories than you do normally, your abs will be more pronounced. At my gym, The Griphouse, we had 11 professional MMA fighters competing at the end of February. They were all dieting to make their respective weight categories, and training hard. As a result the place began to look like a convention for failed male strippers with ear deformities. 

If you want to see a marked improvement in your physique learn how to cook, so you can enjoy whatever you are eating (even if it is mostly chicken and broccoli). Set yourself a deadline and let your friends know about it. The accountability is the most important thing. But, as regular readers will be aware, appearance is pretty low down on my list of priorities, so let’s get on with actually training the core, perhaps the most contentious area of the body.

Why Core Confusion?

It seems that any exercise that causes you to tighten up your abs gets promoted for its ‘core benefits.’ Watch any shopping channel’s exercise infomercials and you will see what I mean. Marketers have taken a cool idea, then over-used and devalued it. Now there is no general consensus on what the word ‘core’ means, which muscles are described, or how training these unspecified muscles improves performance. Speak to any good strength and conditioning coach, mention core training and look into his or her eyes. Chances are you will see some despair mixed with a little dying on the inside. The best coaches I know do not even use ‘the ‘c’ word.’

This Is How We Do It

For me, ‘core’ describes the musculature surrounding the midsection that aids in the transfer of force from the lower body to the upper body. That includes all the muscles surrounding the lumbar spine, not just the rectus abdominus (your abs).

Although the muscle origins and insertions suggest that they’ve evolved to produce movement of the torso, many really smart guys feel that this area can be trained more effectively as resistors to movement. With this idea in mind we can break up core training into three categories of exercise:

Anti Extension

The first exercise many people think of when core training is mentioned is the crunch (sit-up) or one of 

its variations. I feel that this is now a redundant exercise. I don’t really want to promote any additional rectus dominance in my athletes as they already tend to develop it while training a lot of boxing and jiu-jitsu. As the anterior core muscles get stronger and tighter the rib cage is drawn towards the pelvis. This results 

in a loss of thoracic spine extension and hyper kyphosis. As well as messing with your shoulders, in overhead postures this would also impair your ability to finish a single-leg takedown on your knees, among other things.

I believe using movements that cause you to resist extension of the lumbar spine is a more productive use of time. Top right is the progression I like to use. Each phase lasts four weeks, and an athlete only progresses when they can do the previous movement flawlessly. 

Pre Requiste - Front plank hold for 120 seconds

Phase 1 - Stability ball roll-out

Phase 2 - Ab-wheel roll-out kneeling

Phase 3 - TRX fall-outs

Phase 4 - Ab-wheel roll-outs with knees elevated

Phase 5 - Ab-wheel roll-outs standing

Anti-Lateral Flexion

Think about the dumbbell side-bend exercise: that’s exactly the movement we are looking to resist. Stay tall, breathe and prevent any lateral lumber spine flexion creeping into the movements.

?Pre Requiste - Side plank hold for 90 seconds each side

Phase 1 - Side plank with leg abduction 

Phase 2 - One-arm farmer’s walk

Phase 3 - One-arm waiter’s carry

Phase 4 - Suitcase deadlift

Anti-Rotation

The prevention of spinal rotation against 

external force is the name of the game here. Think about those two bony bits sticking out of your hips that people occasionally smash into on double legs. Keep them level and you’ll be doing the exercise correctly

Pre Requiste - Tall kneeling land mines

Phase 1 - Landmines 

Phase 2 - Ab-wheel roll-out kneeling

Phase 3 - Tight rotation

Phase 4 - Medicine ball tight rotation

Phase 5 - Tornado ball

I hope this helps to make a confusing topic more manageable and it assists you on your way to becoming an unbreakable super athlete. If you have any questions about this stuff my email is up top.