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POSTED IN Strength Exercises // Comments (18)

Core Training > Ab Exercise

Please enjoy this re-posted arti­cle from last year. While the com­ments may be out­dated, the info in the arti­cle is timeless!

BY LAUREN

Think core train­ing involves just a bunch of sit-ups, crunches and bicy­cles? Actu­ally, true core train­ing requires much more than just abdom­i­nal con­di­tion­ing. The abdom­i­nal mus­cles play a very lim­ited and spe­cific role in your over­all core.

Your core actu­ally con­sists of many dif­fer­ent mus­cles that run the entire length of the torso. These mus­cles sta­bi­lize the spine from the pelvis to the neck and shoul­der, and pro­vide a solid foun­da­tion for pow­er­ful move­ments of the arms and legs.

Your strength orig­i­nates from the cen­ter of your body out — never from your limbs alone. The goal of core sta­bil­ity is to main­tain a solid foun­da­tion and trans­fer energy from the cen­ter of the body out to the limbs. The more sta­ble the core, the more pow­er­ful the extrem­i­ties can contract.

In addi­tion to improv­ing your over­all strength, core train­ing has some valu­able side ben­e­fits: First, core train­ing cor­rects pos­tural imbal­ances that can lead to injuries. And, core train­ing is inte­gral in devel­op­ing func­tional fit­ness — that is, fit­ness that is essen­tial to reg­u­lar, daily activities.

What are your favorite core exer­cises? Mine is squats. Share your thoughts by click­ing the “Com­ments” link above this post.

IMAGE CREDIT & ARTICLE ADAPTED FROM: About​.com: Sports Medicine

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18 Responses to “Core Training > Ab Exercise”

1. Lauren says:

   June 2, 2010 at 8:32 am

   Like I said in the post, my favorite core exer­cise is squats. When per­formed prop­erly, the squat move­ment is one of the best ways to improve your ham­strings, hip flex­ors, glutes — and really, all the major core muscles.

   Some peo­ple think that squats can cause knee injury, but stud­ies have shown that peo­ple who squat (prop­erly) long-term have tighter, stronger knee lig­a­ments than peo­ple who don’t squat at all.

   Any­way, enough about squats! I’m already think­ing about FUN FRIDAY. I pro­pose CRAZY SHORTS DAY. Can I get a second?

   BIG SHOUT-OUTS to Allie (for push­ing it at the end), Cha-Cha (for a cute nick­name and fast sprint-ability), Wes (for always giv­ing it his all), Lentheus (for not slap­ping me when I kept both­er­ing him), Darsh (for pow­er­ful dips), and every­one else for sur­viv­ing another hot mess of a workout!

   See you all tomorrow!
2. Rama says:

   June 2, 2010 at 9:01 am

   I agree with Lau­ren — squats are my favorite core exer­cise. You get so much ben­e­fit from one sim­ple move­ment. After get­ting over the ini­tial shock of my back­side get­ting larger, I real­ized that all the squats in the past few months have helped to increase my power and speed — so hooray for SQUATS!

   I’ve got some shout-outs of my own:

   Karen, con­grat­u­la­tions on your first day back to boot camp in a long while. I’m sure Andrew’s work­out today knocked some of the cob­webs out! Way to hang tough with everyone!

   Lentheus, it’s always a plea­sure! Thanks for stick­ing with me in the soggy trenches and for mak­ing the work­outs even more fun!

   Nicole — what can I say? Tell Jonathan to buy you some new clothes because you are work­ing so hard that you’re dis­ap­pear­ing in the ones you have now! Go Girl!

   Ger­linda: Where were you this morning????
3. graham says:

   June 2, 2010 at 9:14 am

   Well, my new iPhone alarm let me down this morn­ing … sorry I missed being in the trenches with everybody.

   I did my pen­nance (sp?) with a solo pyra­mid work­out, and added Lauren’s favorites — squats! — into the mix. I found that I sweat just as much at home as I do at the Park … but it isn’t as fun with­out the group.

   I def­i­nitely have a love / hate rela­tion­ship with squats … my knees feel a lit­tle creaky after­wards, but I can def­i­nitely feel the “core” benefit!!

   Got my iPhone alarm straight­ened out, so I’ll see every­body tomor­row for the day after National Run Day … Tracy, what’s the word for that??
4. Andy says:

   June 2, 2010 at 9:35 am

   Push-ups are one of my favorite core work­outs. Keep­ing your abs tight and you back flat are keys to doing a per­fect push-up. You don’t think of it as a core exer­cise, but to do it right it really works your core.

   Thank you for keep­ing us rel­a­tively dry today Andrew — well, at least off the ground — the sweat did the rest to get me soaked.

   Remem­ber to drink a lot as the days get more humid.

   Lastly, if you like what we are doing — give us a shout on Yelp. http://​www​.yelp​.com/​b​i​z​/​b​o​o​t​-​c​a​m​p​-​4​a​-​c​a​u​s​e​-​a​t​l​a​nta

   You can also find us on else­where on the Inter­webs — http://​face​book​.com/​B​o​o​t​C​a​m​p​4​a​C​a​use
   http://​twit​ter​.com/​B​C4C

   And on FourSquare at Boot Camp 4a Cause.

   We love stay­ing connected.

   We were in Giza today, I won­der where we’ll be tomorrow?
5. Mary Ellen says:

   June 2, 2010 at 10:18 am

   Since today’s work­out was called Giza, does that make Andrew a Pharoh?

   Nice count­ing today, every­one. I guess the actual work­out ele­ments were pretty good, too.

   See you all in the morn!

   M.E.

   ps — more info on our word of the day: http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​A​s​-​S​a​l​a​m​u​_​A​l​a​y​kum
6. Gerlinda says:

   June 2, 2010 at 10:39 am

   Beware the “decaf” cof­fee at Your Dekalb Farmer’s Mar­ket! It ain’t decaf! As I found myself drum­ming my fin­gers, tap­ping my feet, with a notice­able tic at 1am this morn­ing, I deter­mined that the my 8pm “decaf” cuppa must be the cul­prit for my insom­nia. Bastards!

   But I will be back in the park dark & early tomorrow!
7. Wes says:

   June 2, 2010 at 10:43 am

   Ahh, after a four day inter-month break it’s back to the shaky painful stand­ing up, strange sud­den aches in my legs, trou­ble lift­ing my arms to type and the race to fin­ish my break­fast so I can take an Advil. Great to be back at boot camp!

   Thanks for today’s work­out, Andrew. I really enjoyed it. It was nice change to focus on some strength train­ing instead of gasp­ing for air for 25 min­utes. I’m sure we’ll be back to gasp­ing tomor­row. See you then!
8. Tracy says:

   June 2, 2010 at 11:19 am

   Great effort today by every­one! I have to admit I am still get­ting used to the wet, humid and hot weather. Today seemed espe­cially wet, humid, hot and STICKY. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower — a cold one!

   We were miss­ing a few nota­bles this morn­ing includ­ing Den­nis, Gra­ham, Ter­resa, Ger­linda, Hanno and Hal­lie. I know some are sick, some had issues with alarms but just wanted you to know that even though you are vets, we still miss you!
9. Kayron says:

   June 2, 2010 at 11:29 am

   Oh my! Tak­ing a year off HURTS! My legs were shak­ing as I dried my hair this morn­ing — after a short invol­un­tary nap on the couch.

   Thanks for the shout-out Rama, I hon­estly wouldn’t be there with­out you and Scrappy’s sup­port! Great to see so many famil­iar faces out there.

   I like the plank for Core strength. I’m not say­ing I can do it very well or that I do it often enough, but I know if I did it for a minute every­day, not only would it get eas­ier, but I would get also me some wash­board abs like Mary.
10. Hanno says:

    June 2, 2010 at 11:46 am

    Still out of town, glad to see every­one is still work­ing it hard. I should be there this Fri­day! I’ve been get­ting some runs in while I’m in NC, so I haven’t become a total slacker!!
11. Nicole says:

    June 2, 2010 at 3:28 pm

    Hilar­i­ous Rama! Mary loves my shorts (haha…yeah right)…so I can’t retire them just yet. Hope­fully I’ll get to add some new addi­tions to my fab­u­lous (ha!) col­lec­tion soon.

    Great work­out today…seemed to be a good bal­ance to get­ting burn while also deal­ing with the 150% humidity.

    See you all in the AM!
12. Leigh says:

    June 2, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    Great Job every­one today. Every­one I saw han­dled the pyra­mids with­out any trou­ble at all. The thing to keep in mind, you can take pyra­mids wher­ever you go. They make an easy vacation/travel/weekend work­out if you don’t have some­thing else to do.

    Look for­ward to see­ing every­one again in the morn­ing. Hope­fully it won’t be too soggy.
13. Andy says:

    August 8, 2011 at 8:33 am

    Well done today. I saw many of you fin­ish­ing upwards of 5, 6 and even 7 rounds.

    I like Sui­ci­dal Ten­den­cies because it is a ter­rific com­bi­na­tion of strength train­ing and cardio.

    Spe­cial shout-outs to Nikki for push­ing very hard today and for let­ting me pick on her and Geoff for his form on his final push-ups and the ear­lier ones that I missed see­ing him complete.

    See every­one tomor­row for some more fun.

    And, most impor­tant, Happy Birth­day M.E.
14. Julie says:

    August 8, 2011 at 10:16 am

    It’s so great to see vet­eran boot campers encour­ag­ing new recruit boot campers. And, since the 2 girls I started BC4C with 4 months ago have bailed, I’m glad to see vet­er­ans every day who moti­vate me. Thanks, ya’ll!

    (On a side, and very depress­ing note: It dawned on me on my way home this a.m. that M.E. is about a month shy of being 10 YEARS YOUNGER THAN I AM!!!! Vomit.)
15. tracy says:

    August 8, 2011 at 10:39 am

    Yeah for Mon­days. Siiiiiiike.

    It was mostly fun today work­ing out with my new friend Amy, except for the part where I was sweat­ing like a ______ in a ______. Ask Daniel if you don’t get it. But Amy was really push­ing hard on those sprints, so that part was fun. It was also really fun walk­ing around watch­ing other peo­ple do push-ups and squats, I really like that.

    Glad today is Mon­day Mon­day. Look­ing for­ward to tomor­row cuz its Tues­day Tues­day. Then its Wednes­day Wednes­day. Too bad it isn’t Fri­day Fri­day (yet).
16. Wes Wes says:

    August 8, 2011 at 11:25 am

    It’s so funny to see your own posts a year later. I remem­ber writ­ing that and feel­ing that way! It makes you real­ize how far you’ve come; back then I was icing my knees just about every night. I don’t need Advil any­more, either.

    I actu­ally enjoyed this morn­ing. Just enough vari­ety to make it not seem so daunt­ing. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Shazia for actu­ally show­ing up for once this month!
17. Kara says:

    August 8, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    Great, tough work­out today. Awe­some. Can tell you exactly what the back of Jeff and Dennis’s shoes look like … as usual ! Shouts to my girl Amy who was rock’n. Shouts to Brid­gette and Mark who were runn’n it like a machine. Happy Monday!
18. Shazia says:

    August 8, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Ahh­hhh– mon­day am with all of y’all just made my day awe­somer. I for­get when school starts every­thing goes to he’ll for a bit. I even ate a you know what out of des­per­a­tion , and I never eat any­thing from a place that hands you food through a win­dow. Wes– I thought we were done call­ing each other out on the blog this month.