Destroy Your Core at the End of your Session

I was working with a client today and she asked to be killed. She wanted to be pushed to the limit, but she was talking about a future session.... she should not have said that to me with forty minutes remaining in her session.

I had her completing cable chops (set a cable to the highest setting, keep your upper body rigid, and chop the rope or other attachment to your opposite shin) 12 each side, dumbbell shoulder press, and then a core routine listed below.

Each was done for thirty seconds:
Two point planks (alternating supermans done from a plank)
Three point planks (elevate and lower each limb separately before raising another)
four point planks
side plank
other side plank

And then threw in mountain climbers, seen below



I am currently writing her kill week workout which hopefully will help her lose the remaining 8 pounds that she is wanting to lose.

Speed up workout, get twice the core work

A typical workout routine looks something like cardio warmup, lift some weights or do some more cardio, stretch maybe if you get to it, and then lay on your back... exhausted... and do some half crunches until you have almost stopped sweating and then leave the gym...

A HUGE problem (well, one of the large problems) with this routine is that by the time you get to the core work, you are too tired and have lost a lot of the motivation you started the workout with. I have an idea that could help you.

Google core exercises. or use some serach engine to get some abdominal and lower back strengthening exercises... that is why i want you to type in CORE EXERCISES not just "ab routine" or abdominal circuit. In order to be balanced you need to strengthen your lower back with exercises like supermans ad hyperextensions as well as your abs and obliques with dyanmic movements that activate your core.

Use some of the core exercises that fit your current fitness level and write them down on your workout... HAVE I MENTIONED TO ALWAYS CHART YOUR PROGRESS???? Please write down your workout. If you don't write it down, your workout will move along at a slow pace, iwth a large possibility that you will not remember how many minutes you ran at what heart rate or what weight you used for how many reps. Chart your progress. Every workout you can push yourself to beat the guy or girl from that last workout.

Back to writing down the core exercises... Superset core with a weight lifting exercise. If you do 3 sets of 20 reps on leg press then after each set do a set of russian twists with a medicine ball.
Leg press
Russian Twists
Leg Press
Russian twists
leg press
russian twists

Instead of sitting on the machine or getting a drink of water after every set, throw core in to take up that time, keep your heart rate elevated, AND increase the amount of core work you get every day.

Do this with every weight lifting exercise you do... honestly, even if it is the same core exercise (not recommended) for each set of 20 repetitions and you do a cricuit of 15 exercises... that is equiavlent to 300 "crunches". 300 core strengthening reps that were all done during "rest periods" during your workout. It would take a lot more discipline to lay down after a workout and say to yourself... OK, 300 situps.

WORK HARD!