H A R A T A N

So called “Core Training” has been a real craze in gyms around the country for the past few years now with a whole slew of gimmicky products such as Bosu balls, Bodyblades and other nonsense being sold off the back of it. It is now almost impossible to walk into a gym without hearing trainers talking about “using your core” or some related nonsense and the pages of health magazines are filled with new variations to get your core into shape. The problem with all this stuff is it is an absolute waste of time for most people and is doing almost nothing to develop strong abdominal muscle.

First of all, what do people talk about when we say core training? There was a time when core training referred to a few sets of crunches at the end of your leg workout. Now crunches pretty much suck as an exercise, but this was a hell of a lot better than the current trend. By this I mean every exercise you can imagine being performed on an unstable surface, and entire workouts being devoted to core exercises.

There is a lot wrong with this kind of training. But here are the three main falicies that are pretty much common sense once you hear it:

1. Standing on an unstable surface will involve some recruitment of the abdominal muscles. But to what degree? If you hold your arm out to your side you will feel your shoulder contract , but you wouldn’t expect this easy action to develop great shoulders would you? So why would you imagine that low level contractions will build abdominal muscle?!

2. Common sense: To create a six pack you need to burn fat. Its is as simple as that. The fattest person in the world has a six pack, it’s just hidden underneath a layer of fat. So for this person, targeting the abdominals in an effort to make them grow will do absolutely nothing to make them more visible. For this he will need to remove those layers of fat and that requires performing exercises that target a large number of muscles such as squats, dead lifts and lunges. This raises the metabolic rate and promotes the release of hormones which promote fat loss. So you see, squats are a better “core” exercise than sit ups. It makes you weaker – A study by Eric Cressey in 2006 found that training on unstable surfaces, over time, reduces power output making your weaker. This means less weight can be lifted, less calories are burned and you keep your gut. Not to mention the risk of injury which increases by 500% if you work with weights on an unstable ground!

3-. Look, core training has value in terms of specific rehab situations and maybe some professional sports but if you want to actually change your body, drop fat and have a six pack to be proud of you need to spend more time training your whole body and performing focussed resistance training. It’s about working out hard and not about training for Circe De Sole!

Focus on traditional proven exercises that have worked for athletes for hundreds of years: do squats and if you have to work out abs separately look at the list below!