The core of the matter
OLD SCHOOL FITNESS: FLASHY FITNESS FADS DON’T ALWAYS SHINE
Humans are always looking for the next best thing or newest fad but more often than not they end up wasting their time. Sure, you would have learnt a lesson, but that also only lasts as long as the next shiny toy. In my industry, which ranges from coaches to personal training to sports scientists to teachers, it is no different. It is easy to get caught up in “the next best thing” claiming to have the next best results. Yet the evidence lacks the depth of a scientific study. When all else fails, professionals need to look to the inside rather than the outside. Being faster and stronger would be great and could help you in the short term. But ultimately if your posture, balance and stability is poor, all that is going to happen is you will have more speed and power on an unstable base. If you don’t focus on building your pillar strength or core foundation, then you might as well tell your physiotherapist or sports doctor you will be seeing them soon. The bigger your dream of becoming a professional athlete, the stronger your core foundation needs to be. That is why we advise our athletes to start young, and to start now. In the same way you don’t forget to brush your teeth every day, you need to be disciplined in performing your core athletic performance essentials. One of those is targeting the right exercise to engage the right muscles and stimulate the core of your body. Remember, your beautiful six-pack is not an indication of you having strong functional abs. Even if you did 1 000 sit-ups a day, I strongly recommend you refrain from doing this due to the massive imbalance you are creating. Let’s say you do 100 sit-ups. This alone will not ensure you have worked your core muscles or even be an indicator of whether your core is strong. We have assessed athletes who do fantastically well in their two-minute sit-up performance assessment yet their core plank test is downright poor. Over the years, this has proved to be a consistent trend. I won’t go into too much technical detail on what core is, I will expand this in a future article, but just to understand, see core strength as those deep tissue muscles in your mid-section, your gluteus extending into hamstring, your hip flexors, quads and groin. Let’s not forget your lower back as well. The core strength and synergy between these muscles is what helps prevent you from injury, increases your endurance and efficiency on the field and is responsible for taking your athletic performance from good to great. Don’t even think about wanting to become faster, bigger or stronger unless you have a proper plan to develop your core foundation. The minute you decide to slack off because of all the excuses life has to offer, your core will weaken and so too will your sports performance. Here are five Level 1 core exercises to start building a solid foundation. Remember that the goal with Essentials training is not to be a beast, but to do as many as you can; the goal is to do a fair amount consistently every day. For example, when we test core we want to know an athlete can hold their core for 6 minutes, but we also know that they are going to be sore for two days afterwards. Therefore, we prefer you perform three sets of 30 seconds plank holds, seven days a week, 30 days a month and 365 days a year. If I asked you to do three sets of 10 push-ups every day, that might not sound like a lot, but it does amount to 110 push-ups a week, 440 in a month, 5 280 in a year. Do you think you can easily do this task? Of course you can and in a year very few people will push you off the ball. Your goal is to do one set of 20 seconds for each exercise every day for a month.