I see it all the time. It’s probably the most common problem in amateur (and even some professional) athletes. Maybe you’re a softball player, wondering why you’re just not getting that power behind your swing. You lift weights often. You have strong arms and a strong chest. You do plenty of ab exercises. I see it in golfers who just can’t drive the ball very far and soccer players who don’t get any power behind their shots.

Core activation is a key component of developing power.

It’s not enough to just have strong abs. Maybe you have GREAT looking abs. But unless you know how to activate your entire core, you’ll never develop as much power as you could. Why swing a bat with just your arms when you can put the power of your entire body into a swing? Golfers and soccer players both tend to slice and hook the ball because of a lack of a solid foundation. It’s not enough to have strong, massive legs if you cannot control where they swing.

When training, you must ask yourself “What are these muscles really used for?” How many sit-ups do you do when playing baseball? How about football? Probably not very many. You might do tons and tons of crunches at the gym, but when you go out and play sports, your core is sore. Does that make any sense to you? It doesn’t to me. It wouldn’t happen if you were properly training and preparing your body for these activities.

Your core is there to stabilize your body. It isn’t just your six-pack. Your core wraps all the way around your body, keeping your body upright and stabilizing your spine, among other things. When you are running full speed and make a hard cut, your leg muscles tense first. But your core tenses also, providing a base for your upper body. If your core didn’t activate during these movements, you’d end up flopping over your legs like a cartoon character. Sit-ups and crunches do not adequately prepare your body for complex movements.

Sit-ups are not a substitute for proper core training.

When you want to make these muscle groups more effective, you need to train them as they will be used. You need to know how to use the strength of your obliques, abs, lower back and even glutes and hips to develop power and stability. With this, comes success. And it won’t just help in sports. Proper core training and activation will allow you to increase the amount that you can bench, squat and deadlift. It can even help as you do things around the house.

The Full-Contact Twist

The first thing you need to do is train your core muscles to fire at the same time. A really great exercise for this is the Full Contact Twist. Yavor talks about this on his blog, Relativestrengthadvantage.com. This full-body movement is perfect for training your body for stability. You need to learn what it feels like to have a stable, solid core while performing movements.

Start off with lighter weight than you think you can handle. You need to grease that nervous system. Your nerves are likely used to firing individually, and not as one. You need get to the point where your body is performing as one solid machine, instead of a bunch of parts flying in formation. If you haven’t done this kind of training before, you will likely try to compensate and end up doing the exercise incorrectly. Read through this post to ensure that you are not developing bad habits, or heading toward potentially devastating injury.

The Cable Woodchop

Another great exercise for practicing core activation is the Cable Woodchop. Now, most people I see doing this exercise use far too much weight. Because of this, they end up compensating by using their arms and shoulders. This is not a shoulder exercise. This is a core exercise. You need to use enough weight that you are getting some resistance when you twist, but not so much that you end up using your arms and legs.

The above video is a good example of the kind of pace you are looking for. Although, as Yavor points out, you need make sure you get your feet properly positioned to avoid twisting the knee. Make sure you keep your hips pointed mostly forward, and not pointed toward the weight stack. Otherwise, you just end up turning your body, possibly twisting your knees, and not pulling through the core.

Start with the cable at shoulder level or just slightly above. It doesn’t need to be quite as high as it is in the video, but depending on your particular cable machine, you may not have much choice. Your arms should be fully extended and remain so for the duration of the rep. Brace your core. By this, I mean, imagine someone were about to punch you in the stomach. How do you instinctively react? This is what you should be going for.

You should also squeeze the glutes. You need to learn to activate all of these muscles in concert. Pull through your core, and not with your arms. As you are performing the reps, you should be able to feel your glutes tightening and the hips activating to stabilize the twisting motion of the body. As you are coming across the body, your knee should bend ever so slightly. There’s no need to exaggerate the movement. You don’t need a deep, deep knee bend here, nor do you need to rotate your hips very much. Concentrate on stabilization, not so much on the movement. Perform the rep slowly, and return to the starting position. Do 10-15 reps on each side, with brief rest periods in between. No more than 60 seconds or so. You may not need to rest at all between sets and that’s okay.

The Benefits

These movements might feel a bit awkward at first. You might find yourself initially unable to use a lot of weight because you are so focused on activating your core. But as you train and strengthen this connection between exertion and core activation, it will become second-nature. Your lifts will go up. Your athletic performance will improve. When you get ready to make contact with the ball, no matter what sport, you’ll have that solid base activated and ready to put the full power of your body behind the swing. And because you’re already stable, you’ll drive the ball not only further, but exactly where you want it to go. When you are running full-speed and make a cut, your core will be used to acting in concert with your glutes and hips. You’ll be able to drive into the ground and power out of it much more quickly.

Tomorrow, we’ll examine a few more exercises that will help improve your core and improve your power.

-Drew

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