T Nation

Good Core Workout

Bodybuilding
#1

Well i am working out 6 days a week and i don’t really have a core workout in my routine.

monday- lower body
tuesday- Upper body(presses)
wednesday-plyometrics
thursday- upper body(pulls)
friday - Lower body
saturday - upper body(presses)

the upper body workouts rotate every other day so week 2 would have pulls on tuesday and saturday and presses on thursday and so on. the only core work i do is like some knee raises, side bends, and a couple of sets of situps on the stability ball. Its alright i guess but i would like some advice on a better core program to increase my power and speed.

#2

First of all, I (and many others on this board) will probably tell you that the best core workout is heavy deadlifts. When you are deadlifting heavy weights, if you don’t have a strong core, that weight’s not going to go anywhere!

A few specific core exercises that you might want to try.

Cable crunches
Cable woodchops
Decline board iso holds
Decline board russian twists
Farmer’s walks

But if I had to choose one it would be the overhead squat. I overhead squat every workout, usually just with light weights as a warmup, but I also work it in with heavier weights. Simply put, overhead squatting will work every single muscle in your body. I’ve definitly seen an increase in my deadlift since I’ve started doing ohs’s.

#3

You may also want to check out this thread

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=929747

#4

[quote]bikemike wrote:
You may also want to check out this thread

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=929747
[/quote]

yeah i just saw that this morning, some good stuff in there

#5

check out one of John Davies’ articles here on core training. the Bent press is really good. Deadlifts and military presses are a given

#6

Squats and DLs work the core very well.

#7

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459681

i might try the exercises from this article, they look pretty tough.