what are some good exercises I should be doing for my core in order to increase poundages?? should I just do bodyweight exercises (flutter kicks, side crunches, situps,atomic situps, etc.)?? how many exercises should be in a core routine normally??
Do as much of your Ab work as you can standing in order to increase your squat, deadlift, and Olympic lifts.
Standing Cable Crunches, Dumbbell Side Bends, and All sorts of Medicine Ball Throwing (Overhead, Slamming, Twisting) are all great for strong Abs and functional strength. Hanging Leg Raises aren’t standing, but they’re still a good exercise. A 30 second weighted side plank is much more valuable than a 60 second unweighted side plank.
Stick to 6-15 reps and move up in weight as fast as you can. Once you get to the point where you can’t do cable crunches or dumbbell side bends because the weights relative to your own bodyweight make the exercise too hard to perform correctly, increase your sets and reps in order to continue progressing.
Front Squats, Overhead Squats, Lunges, and Step-ups are also challenging to the core.
Don’t forget that your spinal erectors are also part of your “core.” Barbell Good-Mornings, Romanian Deadlifts, Glute-Ham Raises, and Roman Chair Back Extensions are all good ways to strengthen the Lower Back. Your lower back will get a lot of heavy, low rep work from your core lifts so use these moves to get in some high-rep work if you aren’t already.
Your Lat strength is a surprisingly important element in core strength that is often ignored. No doubt you’re already doing chin-ups or Lat Pulldowns, but challenging yourself on Rowing Movements will defiantly pay off in terms of increasing core and torso strength.
I see people do extra “Core-Only” workouts where after their normal practice or weight training they’ll do lots and lots of high-rep ab work. I also know some bodybuilders will only do Abdominals once a week. I think both of these methods are not the most efficient paths to a strong torso or a defined six-pack. In my observations of the world, people who train their abs for endurance are usually wasting their time while people who train their abs for strength and power are more athletic and more ripped.
Do your Ab work during your normal workouts. Do your Abs 2-3 times a week. Give them as much priority as any other muscle group. Not counting warm-up sets you might do, 4 sets of Abs should be more than enough.
Sure, 100 rep ab sets or training abs 5 days a week once in a while to “shock” the muscle might work, but there’s no reason to do this type of training any more often than you would do it for your other body parts. Occasionally Tom Platz would do Squats with 50 or 100 reps. Occasionally Arnold would do 10 sets of bench press. These extremely high rep ranges shouldn’t be a staple of your training if you are primarily concerned with strength and size.
hey thanks for all the advice. Just one question though, should I be doing different ab exercises each time?? or should I stick with a certain number of movements and do those 2-3 times a week until it’s time to switch up my program??
This is what I’m planning on doing today for abs, tell me what you think:
weighted situps 4sets 8-10 reps
dumbbell side bends 4 sets 8-10 reps
med ball slams 4 sets 6-15 reps
good mornings 3 sets 5-8 reps
3-4 sets of high rep bicycle abs
This routine is done after my main lifts today (squat,pushpress, t-bar rows).
Rotate your exercises so you do different ones each day within your microcycle. That looks like a good workout.
cable crunches and leg lifts (either hanging or lying) are great…you can add weight with these to control your rep range
[quote]NeedforStrength wrote:
hey thanks for all the advice. Just one question though, should I be doing different ab exercises each time?? or should I stick with a certain number of movements and do those 2-3 times a week until it’s time to switch up my program??
This is what I’m planning on doing today for abs, tell me what you think:
weighted situps 4sets 8-10 reps
dumbbell side bends 4 sets 8-10 reps
med ball slams 4 sets 6-15 reps
good mornings 3 sets 5-8 reps
3-4 sets of high rep bicycle abs
This routine is done after my main lifts today (squat,pushpress, t-bar rows).
[/quote]
The moves you have selected are great. The rep ranges are fine. I wouldn’t do that many sets. I’d probably only to 2 of the 3 exercises and change the combination you use each time.
I would treat good-mornings as one of your “main” moves.
45’ Back Raises aren’t as stressful as good-mornings.