What good is power if you can’t use it? Endurance plays a huge factor in how much power you have over the course of an athletic event, or even a workout. Now that you know what it feels like to have an active core, we’re going to work on making that power last. There’s nothing worse than being at the end of a game and not being able change direction quickly enough or hold a defender off the ball. You might even experience core fatigue near the end of a round of golf.

What separates you is the ability to maintain your power levels over a long period of time. You want to be as strong at the end as you are at the beginning. Core endurance training is one of the things that can push your performance to the next level. The simple fact is not many people properly train their core, and so fatigue out quite quickly. This is when you have a sure advantage.

Look, I know this doesn’t sound like the most exciting stuff. It’s not as fun as talking about benching or squatting huge. But this is the kind of foundation you need to lay that will help improve all of those areas. Most people neglect this kind of training, and that’s why you will have an edge. ALL of the movements in sports, and even compound lifting movements, originate in the core. You cannot be a good athlete and have a weak foundation. By doing these exercises, you will have the power of a strong, functional core. I cannot stress enough how much a great core will improve every aspect of your physical performance. I don’t know about you, but if I don’t achieve my goals, I want it to be because I’m just not good enough and not because I didn’t prepare my body properly.

Swiss Ball Plank

There are many ways to do planks. If you have never done them before, I would suggest doing them on the floor for a while until you build up your core a bit. But making the switch to a swiss ball will really help develop your stabilizers. Making the transition to the swiss ball really pushes the difficulty up a few notches, but it also drastically increases the effectiveness of the exercise.

What you really need to focus on here is keeping your hips low, and your back straight. There should be no “V” action going on in the hip area. Just look at that top picture. Absolutely arrow straight.

This position is a lot harder than a regular plank. You should really feel the lower abdominals working here. If they start to get tired, and you feel your lower back start to take over, it’s time to rest. Again, keeping the hips low and eliminating the “V”  at the hip makes it a lot more difficult, but that’s what you need to shoot for. Work your way up to three sets of two minute holds with about 30 seconds of rest in between sets. If you can reach these levels, your core is rock solid strong.

Swiss Ball Mountain Climbers

This is how the exercise is performed. However, you need to keep the hips low and the back straight while doing these. Eliminate that arch in the back that he has going. Also, this guy is going too fast. You don’t want to use momentum to just throw the legs up to the chest. This is a stability exercise. Go SLOWLY. Work up to ten reps per leg, 3 sets, 30 seconds of rest. And remember: Faster isn’t better. The point here is to be functional, not to simply hit an arbitrary number of reps as fast as possible.

Hanging Leg Raise

For these, you want to keep your lower back in contact with the pad at all times. Make that solid contact all the way down the spine, tilting the pelvis inward. Raise the legs, and hold as long as you can. I like the holds here because they help prevent you from just throwing your legs up with momentum. Work your way up to 2 minute holds. After you get tired of doing these, check out Yavor’s L-Sit page. This is another great exercise that works on creating that activation link between the upper body and lower body.

Supermans

I don’t have much to add  here. But this exercise is crucial for developing a strong and stable lower back. This will not only help balance out a strong rectus abdominus, but it can help prevent injury. If you’re currently experiencing some back pain, simply doing this exercise can provide some immediate relief. For this exercise, I just pick a song that’s about 5 minutes long, and do holds. I’ll hold it for 12 beats of the music, then rest for 4. Remember to squeeze the glutes as you hold the legs up.

Bird-dogs

Perfect execution here is a straight line from the arm, down the back to a straight leg. I’m a big fan of these, and doing them as long and as often as possible. Having strong glutes muscles may sound odd, but they help much more than most people realize. Any time you run or change directions, those glutes are firing, keeping your pelvis and lower back in alignment. This is what allows you to make power moves, so it’s important to develop them as much as you possibly can. But they hardly ever get worked in most strength training sessions, even on dedicated leg days. Work on squeezing the glutes as the leg is in the air. For sets and reps, I follow the same hold scheme as I did for the Supermans. 12 beats of music on, 4 resting, about 5 minutes’ worth.

I like doing this series of exercises at the end of my lifting sessions. Tiring out the rest of the body puts the onus directly on your core. It makes it harder for you to compensate for weak core muscles by using your other muscles. I do two days of the exercises in part 1 of the series, and two days of these exercises. That’s probably enough if you’re advanced, but you could do things like planks, supermans and bird-dogs every DAY if you really wanted to, especially if you’re struggling with holding them for the prescribed periods of time.

-Drew

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