With the recent fascination in the fitness world to focus on developing functional fitness levels, you may find it comes as a surprise to discover that the best core exercise is not based on a yoga mat. In fact, if you want to develop a leaner, stronger base from which to boost all your big lifts you'll have to go back to the annals of bodybuilding years gone by.
Many people are fooled into believing that the greatest moves for strengthening your core muscles involve working out in a park and doing push ups while hanging from a tree, such is the industry's obsession with new fads and passing gimmicks.
But surprisingly, the greatest exercises for strengthening your midsection is barbell front squats.
Not only is this gym based barbell work, but it's an exercise which is consistently overlooked by gym users in favor of trendy mat-based exercises which do little to stimulate anything other than the abdominal muscles. You see, developing a strong core does not mean simply blasting your abs with thousands of crunches. The core is made up of muscles which surround the spine from front to back, therefore it would be very foolish to only focusing on the front ones, right?
Researchers from the UK recently looked at the core strength gains possible from front squats and they compared it to a favorite body weight move, the swiss ball superman. The findings were so surprising that the study itself went on to be featured in a July 2011 edition of the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning.
Both exercises are great for developing core ability, but front squats actually recruited 5% more muscle activation in the erector spinae than the superman on a swiss ball.
It is worth noting that front squats in this study were all performed with only a barbell - no weights were actually used. Given that this resulted in a 5% increase and when you factor in that by adding further resistance you will engage the erector spinae muscles even further, it becomes clear how effective front squats are in this category.
The increase in strength was due to the fact that front squats stimulated the erector spinae muscles considerably. These are the muscles which sit around the spine and play a major role in overall core strength and ability.
Do not be fooled by fitness fads and trends, which have seen terms like 'functional fitness' and 'core strength' conjure up images of people doing push-ups in parks, holding yoga moves like the plank or buying expensive suspension trainers to exercise while hanging from trees. Sometimes, the oldest tricks in the book are still the most effective and true success comes from learning how to marry those old principles to some of the new developments which have also stood the scientific test, such as high intensity interval training.
If you prefer lifting heavy iron in the gym then today's news will come as a welcome break from suspension trainers and shake weights. The latest research hails the front squat as the undisputed king, the best core exercise for developing overall strength and power.
Many people are fooled into believing that the greatest moves for strengthening your core muscles involve working out in a park and doing push ups while hanging from a tree, such is the industry's obsession with new fads and passing gimmicks.
But surprisingly, the greatest exercises for strengthening your midsection is barbell front squats.
Not only is this gym based barbell work, but it's an exercise which is consistently overlooked by gym users in favor of trendy mat-based exercises which do little to stimulate anything other than the abdominal muscles. You see, developing a strong core does not mean simply blasting your abs with thousands of crunches. The core is made up of muscles which surround the spine from front to back, therefore it would be very foolish to only focusing on the front ones, right?
Researchers from the UK recently looked at the core strength gains possible from front squats and they compared it to a favorite body weight move, the swiss ball superman. The findings were so surprising that the study itself went on to be featured in a July 2011 edition of the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning.
Both exercises are great for developing core ability, but front squats actually recruited 5% more muscle activation in the erector spinae than the superman on a swiss ball.
It is worth noting that front squats in this study were all performed with only a barbell - no weights were actually used. Given that this resulted in a 5% increase and when you factor in that by adding further resistance you will engage the erector spinae muscles even further, it becomes clear how effective front squats are in this category.
The increase in strength was due to the fact that front squats stimulated the erector spinae muscles considerably. These are the muscles which sit around the spine and play a major role in overall core strength and ability.
Do not be fooled by fitness fads and trends, which have seen terms like 'functional fitness' and 'core strength' conjure up images of people doing push-ups in parks, holding yoga moves like the plank or buying expensive suspension trainers to exercise while hanging from trees. Sometimes, the oldest tricks in the book are still the most effective and true success comes from learning how to marry those old principles to some of the new developments which have also stood the scientific test, such as high intensity interval training.
If you prefer lifting heavy iron in the gym then today's news will come as a welcome break from suspension trainers and shake weights. The latest research hails the front squat as the undisputed king, the best core exercise for developing overall strength and power.
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More information: Expert south shields personal trainer Russ Howe PTI wrote our article. Learn his best core exercise for strength and tons of weight loss tips via his fitness and muscle building blog today.
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