Who doesn’t want to look more attractive?
Using the seven core exercises outlined below, you can do just that by improving your posture.
Not only will it make you more physically attractive, it will also alleviate many of the aches and pains caused by chronic sitting that plague most of the office dwelling population.
When most people think of “training the core” they think endless crunches and 6-pack abs. While the abdominals are no doubt part of the core musculature, they are only a portion of what must be trained to not only prevent injury, but also drastically improve posture and overall physique.
The core includes the abdominals, muscles of the lower back, and the obliques (side abs) and must all be targeted or there will be muscle/strength imbalances on one side or the other. The most obvious cues you have an imbalance are rounding of the lower back in the bottom of a squat/deadlift and excessive arching of the lower back in the same.
Using common sense, you can conclude that if your lower back is rounding, you probably need some targeted lower back work. The same goes for the abs if you have overcompensating lower back muscles causing an arch. Some exercises target each of these groups separately while others, such as compound movements, train all of them at the same time.
Just like training any other muscle group, you want to have a blend of these compound movements along with some isolation movements to strengthen the smaller muscle groups without the systematic fatigue caused by the larger lifts.
Some of my favorite core exercises are as follows:
Planks – Entire core
Ab Wheel Rollouts – Entire core
Hanging Leg Raises – Lower/upper abs
Windshield Wipers – Entire core
Side Plank – Obliques main target but works entire core
45 Degree Back Extension w/ Lower Back Emphasis – Lower back
Reverse Hyper with Lower Back Emphasis – Lower back
Throw one or two of these exercises in twice a week and not only will you see an improvement in posture, but your big lifts will also go up as a result of being able to transfer force through the core more efficiently.
Many folks like to do ab or lower back work on upper body day but if you are following a upper/lower split (Which I highly recommend) your core will be fatigued for the heavy lower body movements which is a recipe for injury. For this reason, I program the work at the end of lower body day so you have a couple days to recover before the next heavy lower day.
When choosing the exercises, make sure you pick one for lower back and one for abs/obliques or you are heading towards a muscle imbalance and, as always, use these in an intelligently designed training program.