Do These Exercises And Prime Your Body For Your Practice Or Training:
Did you know that most people do their workout – well kind of backwards? They leave the ‘core exercises’ at the end of a workout almost as an afterthought. Do these at the BEGINNING where it’s critical to get crucial muscles firing. This will help protect your back and shoulders where most lifters get injured.
Most people see ‘core’ training as an afterthought when it really should be worked on FIRST.
Our ‘Core’ isn’t just our abs because our core muscles also include our lats, scapula or shoulder blades, hip flexors and our glutes. And having a ‘strong core’ isn’t just having ‘rippling abs’. So here are some of my favourite exercises to get these areas firing.
First of all we’re going to warm up our hands and learn use them properly. Most people don’t know how to actively use their hands to create neuromuscular recruitment when pressing into the ground.
You need to learn how to spread the fingers apart as much as possible. Then press the fingertips into the floor really firmly. This is called ‘cambering’ the fingers. It helps to activate your forearm muscles which will help to support the wrists. It makes your upper body a lot stronger. Also, try to have your middle finger pointing straight ahead so you can connect better with your shoulder blades. Most people turn their hands out too much or inwards with their fingers pressed together. The very base of the fingers is not making contact with the floor. This is asking for injury so make sure you are spreading fingers as much as possible. I like to think of my hands like ‘Spiderman’s’ or ‘Spidergirl’ climbing up a wall.
Learn to press into the floor correctly and you’ll start to strengthen your forearms. This will help with the rest of your workout.
1. Get Your Transverse Abdominis Firing: L-sits
3-5 sets – 3 x 30 seconds on blocks
Now you’re ready to do these exercises to get your core firing. If you have back pain, check out: The Best Core Exercises To Do For A Bad Back
I won’t mince words – these suck initially. They are those exercises you’ll grow to love/hate because they’re so effective. The TVA is the body’s natural corset and is the primary stabilizer of the spine. It wraps around your torso and lies underneath the visible muscles in your core. These include the obliques and the rectus abdominis (or 6 pack muscle). Because it’s invisible, it is hard to know if it’s firing. The best way to target it is to put the spine in an unstable position such as on your hands.
To do the L-sit – place a yoga block on either side of your hips. Inhale, roll your shoulders away from your ears, exhale pull your hips BACK. Remember to engage your feet by flexing them and breathe. Hold this for 10-30 seconds, depending on where you’re starting from, then come down and repeat 3-5 times.
2. Get Your Lats Firing: Feet Elevated Low Dog Presses –5 x 5-8 second holds.
The lats (or Latissimus Dorsi) are the largest muscles on your back. Very often we have lost our mind-muscle connection to them. This is a real loss from a strength and power perspective. And it’s a big reason why we have a plague of shoulder injuries amongst yogis and lifters. Get the lats strong, and you will unleash a new level of strength and resilience.
Before you can strengthen a muscle, you need to activate it. So these Feet Elevated Low Dog Presses do the trick. Here’s how to do these:
Take a Swiss Ball (or a chair) and place your knees on the elevated surface. Place your hands shoulder distant apart, cambering the fingers as explained earlier. Inhale, relax the head. Exhale, bend the elbows a tiny bit out to the side, feeling the muscles in your side body tightening. If you can’t feel them tightening, bend the elbows a little bit more,. Use the minimum amount of bend as possible to get the lats firing. Hold this for about 5-8 seconds, then straighten the arms and repeat 5-8 times.
3. Get Your In Touch With Your Shoulder Blades: Scapula Protraction/Retraction On Roller – 3 x 8-10 Each Side
This is an awesome exercise I learned from top strength and conditioning coach Canadian Meghan Callaway. The ability to create scapular stability is a big part of core strength. It helps to create what I call ‘full-body tension’ where you must create maximum muscular recruitment. Push-ups are a good example of an exercise that requires this.
Take a foam roller and place long-ways up. Come to hands and knees and place one hand behind your back. The other hand is spread on the roller. Inhale, push away with the hand on the roller, feeling that scapular move around your rib cage. Here you’re protracting your shoulder blade. Exhale, retract the shoulder blade. Repeat 8-10 times each side and repeat twice more. You can progress this exercise when you’re ready. Move from hands and knees to lifted knees just off the floor in a bear crawl position.
4. Get Your Hip Flexors Firing: Hip Flexor Triangles – 3 x 10-15
The hip flexors are the deep muscles around your hips and are often tight and weak. This is bad news because this can lead to all kinds of imbalances. Weak hip flexors can cause a sore lower back, tight hamstrings and joint problems. Luckily they respond very well to training, especially with a targeted exercise like these Hip Flexor Triangles.
Sit on the floor with your legs outstretched. I’d recommend having no shoes on so you can point your toes easily. Bring your hands on either side of your hips to keep a tall spine. Inhale lift one leg up in front of you, out to the side, then back again. Repeat 10-15 times and switch sides. Keeping the toes pointed will help stop the quads from taking over and cramping. They will probably cramp anyway if your hip flexors are weak. You may find yourself leaning back a lot until your hip flexors and back get stronger. That is totally fine – just remember to sit tall and over time, this will improve. To progress this exercise, you can sit against a wall or use light ankle weights.
5. Get Your Glutes Firing: Block Between Knees Glute Bridge: 2 x 10-15 reps.
With the popularity of glute training, there are more glute exercises and variations than there are hot dinners. I like this one because it’s simple. These target effectively the largest muscles in your butt, the Glute Maximus. Take a block and place it between your knees. Make sure your feet are grounded into the floor. I like to create scapular stability here by inhaling, bringing my fists up the ceiling. Then I exhale, driving the elbows into the ground. Start to bridge up and down, really being mindful of having that mind-muscle connection with the glutes. Do this for 10-15 reps and repeat.
For many years of being in the yoga world, I had zero idea of how important the glutes are. Not just for power and athleticism but also for keeping our hips healthy and supported. We focus so much on mobility in yoga. For more on this, check out this article by one of my old teachers Jill Miller. Jill was one of the most ‘flexible’ people I knew. It wasn’t until years later I learned she had to have a double hip replacement. This was due to years chasing ‘mobility without stability’: ‘Anatomy 101 – Get To Know Your Glute Muscles’.
The name of the game here guys is NOT blasting through the warm-up. Make sure you take the time to feel that each area you are warming up is firing. Commit what that feeling is like to memory. Over time, you can start to deepen your awareness of the exercise or poses and start to create better mechanics. Over time with repetition, we want this to an unconscious skill, and create true resilience in our body and mind.
