Sunday, March 22, 2009

The 2 best core strengthening exercises

You may recall a couple posts ago about a nasty nosebleed deep inside my sinuses that actually put me in hospital for a few days. Well things are on the mend and so far so good. I've been taking it easy all week and never had any problems. In fact today I went to the gym just for some easy cardio on the treadmill, nothing serious but I wanted to do something as I really miss working out. Hopefully by this time next week I should be good to start weight training again.

Anyway, while I was doing my cardio on the treadmill I was flipping through a magazine, not just any magazine, but a Woman's Fitness Magazine...

Now I know you are probably asking yourself; "Why in the world is Lee reading a woman’s fitness magazine?" Well, first of all it was rolled up and tucked in the water bottle holder on the treadmill, but besides that you'll see more pics of hot sexy girls wearing skimpy clothes in a woman's magazine then you will in a men's magazine so it's not that bad at all LOL :-)

As I was flipping through the pages one article in particular caught my attention, it was about Core Training. Now as I'm sure you already know this whole thing about "core training" is the big buzz in the fitness industry these days. Fitness infomercials and exercise gimmicks all talk about how they can strengthen your "core" as if it were the next best thing since sliced bread. But strengthening your core (aka; working your mid-section) is as old as dirt.

So the thing that caught my attention with this particular article was that it said the 2 best exercises you can do to strengthen your core are squats and deadlifts...

Now I know all you regular gym going muscle heads are saying: "Duh, of course squats and deadlifts are the 2 best core exercises, in fact they are 2 of the best exercises period".

But the cool thing was that this was an article in a woman's magazine! Finally some real honest training information and not some stupid lift soup cans workout BS. The article even referenced a study done in the Journal Of Exercise Physiology that showed doing squats and deadlifts were 70% more effective at building the core muscles around the mid-section then doing a workout consisting of 5 different stability ball exercises.

So if you want to build some real muscle, regardless if you are a man or a woman, don't waste your time farting around with the fancy looking isolation mumble jumble moves and get back to the basics of good old fashion barbell squats and deadlifts. Not just for a strong core, but for a strong body all over.

4 comments:

  1. Hey Lee, when you can start lifting again after you heal from the nose bleed please post the results not lifting; like the effect on weights and reps. I'm curious about how a break affects others because I experience a drop off in the amount I can lift after a weeks vacation.

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  2. Hey Lee, Joe Vienneau here. Good training tools but I have a bulged disc( L4-L5 ).Any sugestions as to how I would train around or to make stronger the injury?Need to know. Legs are getting realy little. Hard on ego .lol.

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  3. Lee

    How much does using a weightlifting belt effect the core strengthening benefits of the deadlift and squat exercises?

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  4. Hi Lee,
    Glad your recovery is going ok. So you couldn't hold back going to the gym. Now comes the fun part. Watching everyone else pumping iron while you do cardio. The weights will seem to be closing in on you... Step by step... Inch by inch... slowwwly they turn... ( Abbott and Costello comedy skid ) Sort of like a scene from the TWILIGHT ZONE. TA DA DA DA ... TA DA DA DA... BUM BUM BUM BUM... BUM BUM BUM BUM... I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just trying to make light of your situation. Laughter is the best medicine for what ales you. Anyway... Great article on core. Men's fitness, Women's fitness as long as I can learn something new I'll read em all. You probably meant a non fitness magazine. Lee... I didn't know you read GLAMOUR MAGAZINE. LOL!
    Tanks for the article, and your services
    Robert Valdes

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