Dr. Andy Galpin

I'm Andy Galpin, and I'm the Executive Director of the Human Performance Center at Parker University.

Today we're going to be talking all about how to develop a strong core and great-looking abs.

And I figured we'd get started with a bit of a warm-up to get your brain going, and I'll ask some simple questions that all of you definitely know the right answer to.

Let's get started with some basics.

If I picked a couple of different exercises, could you tell me which ones are better for developing your core and abs and which one is least effective?

Let's throw out some simple ones.

What about a sit-up versus a deadlift?

I'm sure most of you are thinking, of course, it's a sit-up, but are you really sure?

What about if we did something like a machine versus a free weight exercise?

Do we automatically know

that the machine will activate my core less and the free weights will do more and therefore be better for my ab development than the machine.

I know what you're thinking.

Oh, well, when I have my free weights, I've got to create stability and I've got to regulate it.

That's got to be activating my core more.

But is it really?

What does the science really say about machines versus free weights?

How often do we train our core?

Every day, they're small muscles, they recover.

Are you sure that that's how it works?

And so in actually preparing for this episode, I started to realize there's so many topics like this and how people are generally training their abs and their core that are not actually in line with the current scientific evidence.