Posted on April 15, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Building a strong functional core is very very simple, so many magazines and websites over complicate something that everyone can be working towards right now. Most people are normally surprised when I say that the cheese grater isn’t made by crunches, sit ups and planks (don’t get me wrong they have their place) however true core strength is built using big compound movements, squats, deadlifts, and the ultimate exercises…Olympic lift variations! So you can build a strong functional core without even one ab crunch in sight!

Now let me start by saying I don’t think the plank is useless however it’s not the exercise I look to when I’m trying to help a client build an aesthetically pleasing abdominal region, instead I focus on incorporating great form pull ups, deadlifts and squats in the 75-80% of 1 rep max rep range for sets of 6-10.

The logic behind this is quite simple we don’t do anything in day to day life in the static position which is trained in the plank. Here are some simple tips below to incoperate more abdominal work into your current program without spending 20 minutes every session doing sit-ups.

• For strong big obliques incorporate the hang snatch and hang clean- research has well established that the fast twitch muscles fibres which dominate the oblique group respond best to these two lifts over every other exercise. 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps with a weight of around 80% of your 1 rep max works the best

• When you do pull ups keep the legs straight and raised up one inch in front of the horizontal position, this slight deviation will cause a tremendous amount of work to performed by the abdominal group of muscles, this trumps sit-ups and crunches every time!
• Incorporate front squats, if these are performed correctly the activation in the abdominal region is unmatched! The reason being that they have to help stabilize your whole torso, and if you squat with a reasonably heavy weight it will far outweigh any weight you lift in crunch variations etc.

• Include heavy overhead throwing exercises, these develop the fast twitch explosive fibres of the abdominal region very easily and in my experience clients respond by building abdominal muscle very quickly using this style of training, stick to heavy weight with high set numbers 6-8 and low rep ranges 3-5.

In conclusion it has to be said all of this makes little difference if you have a layer of insulation over them, men need to aim for 10% body fat and women need to aim for 16% to expose those abs. Train hard and don’t believe all the magazines that overcomplicate a simple process, get lifting and pulling to build a strong functional core.