![]() ![]() Keeping your legs together, slowly lift them off the floor until they form a 45-degree angle to your torso.Sit up straight with your legs bent, feet flat on the floor. ![]() It’s always a challenge, and that’s what keeps me interested and engaged.” - Bethany Lyons, RYT-500 yoga instructor and cofounder of Lyons Den Power Yoga “This exercise strengthens the hip flexors, erector spinae, and the rectus abdominis. Repeat on the other side, extending your left leg and your right arm.Bring your arm and leg back to the starting position.Squeeze your butt and keep your core engaged the entire time, lower back pressed into the floor. ![]() Slowly extend your right leg straight, while simultaneously dropping your left arm overhead.Lie faceup with your arms extended toward the ceiling and your legs in a tabletop position (knees bent 90 degrees and stacked over your hips).It teaches great technique and posture for squats and deadlifts.” - Keith Hodges, CPT, corrective exercise specialist, performance coach, and founder of Mind in Muscle in Los Angeles “The dead bug is an anti-extension move, which means your goal is to engage your core to resist extending your lumbar spine. What’s great about this exercise-which targets the transverse abdominis and spinal erectors-is that it also trains core stability, which is vital for everyday life, not just general strength training.” -Ellen Thompson, CPT, area personal training manager with Blink Fitness I often program the dead bug into the beginning of my client’s workouts, since I want them to hone the practice of feeling their core at work, especially as we move into more full-body strength exercises. “There’s nothing quite like a dead bug when it comes to sparking that mind-muscle connection, which is key when building strength and stability in the various core muscles. Position your head so that your neck is in a neutral position and your gaze is on your hands.Make sure you are not dropping your hips or hiking your butt up high toward the ceiling. Squeeze your entire core, glutes, and quads, and tuck your butt under a little to keep your lower back straight.Your body should form one straight line from your shoulders to your heels. Extend your legs out behind you and rest your toes on the floor.Rest your forearms on the floor, with your elbows directly underneath your shoulders and hands facing forward so that your arms are parallel.Meggan Berg, certified personal trainer and studio leader at Life Time The plank is challenging for any fitness level because you always have gravity to push against in order to stay afloat and maintain stability throughout your core and body. ![]() “You can do a forearm plank anywhere! It’s an isometric exercise-meaning, you get into a position and hold it-that engages your entire body, especially your spine, shoulder girdle, back, and legs. Sprinkle a few of these throughout your next full-body workout, or string together a few for a straightforward core sequence. Not only can that help with injury prevention (including back pain!), but it can also improve your range of motion, boost strength, and maintain mobility.īelow, check out 34 great core moves that top trainers swear by. Plus, some workout routines with moves you may not think of as “core exercises” really smoke those muscles too, especially ones in which you’re hefting weight over your head, like with overhead presses, holding weight in front of your, as with goblet squats, or challenging your balance, à la single-leg deadlifts.īut because of how much you use your abs in everyday life and during your workouts, it’s worth showing them some extra love with some specific core exercises, Abarca says. If you engage your abs when you’re lifting-bracing your core muscles to keep you more stable and allow you to resist rotating or arching- any exercise can become an abs exercise. Abarca says even your rotator cuffs, lats, traps, and pectoral muscles can be involved in core work. These include the rectus abdominis (along the front of your abdomen, likely what you think of when you think "abs"), transverse abdominis (around your sides and spine), erector spinae (in your lower back), pelvic floor muscles, and the internal and external obliques (along the sides of your abdomen). “People usually think of abs when referring to the core, but our core is actually made up of a much more complex network of muscles found in the trunk of our body,” certified personal trainer Brian Abarca, CPT, owner of Abarca Fitness in New Jersey, tells SELF. Whether you’re walking, reaching, balancing, getting up from a chair, or simply just standing upright, the muscles of your midsection are firing to keep you stable and supported in nearly every movement. Although you may think of your “core” only when you’re doing specific abs moves, you actually use these muscles all day, every day-which is why core exercises are so important. ![]()
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