Thursday, December 03, 2009

Dec 4th - Core Friday

Before kick starting the weekend by pumping in a few beers, get the following done first:

5 supersets of Planks X 1 min and Double Crunches X 20 reps.

Planks = lieing face down on the floor, prop yourself up onto your elbows/forearms as though riding in the aerobars. Keep your feet close together and your body/torso as straight as possible. Most either have their ass too high or sag towards the floor so look in the mirror and perfect the plank. Hold steady for 1 minute. If this is easy, keep one leg straight and one inch off the ground while doing these.

Double Crunches = do a basic crunch with hands behind your head, however simultaneously use your psoas/hip flexors to raise your knees/legs up and in towards your elbows, contracting your stomach muscles firmly, then slowly lower back to the starting position.

Superset = one exercise done for the desired reps, then with no rest go right into a second exercise for desired reps, then rest. In this case, it will be planks for 1 min, followed immediately by 20 reps of slow double crunches, then rest 1 minute before doing superset number 2.

Again, you can do these all at once or break it up throughout the day. Get it done!

Cheers,

EH

2 comments:

Don Gustavson said...

hey Eric- a variation on the plank that i like is to do single-leg lifts while holding the plank position (alternate lifting each leg up about a foot off the floor - think flutter kick except without pointing toes.) as soon as one leg touches the ground, lift the other one up. 20 reps per leg will take about a minute. thanks for the daily tips. - Don Gustavson

Eric said...

Hi Don,

That's a great variation on boring planks. Another one I like is to use a slide board or do these on a hardwood floor and put your feet on two seperate towels. Go into the regular plank position and while holding the plank, do hip abduction and adduction by sliding each foot out as wide as you can then pulling back in to the narrow foot plank position. I need to get some pictures up of these.