10 Core Training Exercises
Core muscles are some of the most important muscles in our bodies, but sometimes they can be overlooked in a regular exercise routine. They can be thought of as the muscles the upper and lower muscles in your body and allow everything to move together in harmony.
Strong core muscles promote balance, good posture, and flexibility and they can also increase the efficiency of working out your other muscles. Overall, strong core muscles can improve strength and performance throughout your entire body from head to toe.
In contrast, having weak core muscles can lead to a lot of problems in your body. Lower back pain is a common problem that can be caused by weak core muscles. This is because weak abdominal muscles promote a forward leaning posture which causes problems when moving or flexing your spine in activities such as bending or twisting.
To prevent these types of problems and strengthen your core muscles, there are many core exercises that can be done to target these three muscle areas. Most of them don’t require any equipment or expensive gym membership because they are body weight exercises, meaning that the resistance comes from your own body weight. A list of ten of the most popular core muscle exercises are below.
1. Dragon Flag Advanced Core Exercise
The Dragon Flag is a martial arts inspired core move that was made popular by martial arts master Bruce Lee. Because of the difficulty level, it should only be attempted by experienced exercisers that already have a good amount of strength. If you are looking for a body weight exercise that can target every single one of the muscles in your torso at one time, the Dragon Flag is right for you. It works out all the core stabilizers, helps to build incredible strength, and creates amazing, well-defined six-pack abs.
The dragon flag is done by lying on a bench and grabbing the back of the bench. Tense your body from your arms, through your core, and all the way down through your legs. Begin lifting your legs and continue lifting until the only part of your body that is touching the bench is your upper back between your shoulder blades. Hold, lower your body slowly, and repeat.
Building core muscles (especially building them all at once) creates more rigidity in the core. This gives added strength for other exercises such as squats or bench presses. The extra rigidity is also great to boost the performance of athletes, power lifters, and more.
10. Plank on a Balance Ball
The benefits of planking is described above, but like side planking, planking on a balance ball makes the workout more intense and allows you to strengthen muscles in other areas besides the abdominal muscles. When you plank on a balance ball, you are also practicing the improvement of balance and coordination since you must keep yourself balanced on the ball using just your forearms or your hands. You can also plank with your feet on the balance ball. When you plank on a balance ball, you are also working out your triceps, biceps, and pectoral muscles, as well as your glutes.
