Chapter 1: What are the common myths about core training?
The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life. Welcome to Perform.
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.
Chapter 2: Why do most people train their abs incorrectly?
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?
Chapter 3: What is the difference between abs and core muscles?
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.
Chapter 4: How do the core muscles function during exercise?
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. Which is funny because if we were to ask all of you, basically every human being would like a strong core and great looking abs.
So we all want it, but as the saying goes, you'll find more people that have a million dollars in the bank account than those that have a six pack.
Chapter 5: Do abs require daily training for optimal results?
Here's the good story though. We actually can solve this problem pretty easily. We'll have to start off by actually understanding the difference between the core and abs. We also need to take into account what outcome I'm really looking for. And once we understand that, we'll actually understand how some of these questions are answered differently based upon my goal.
So in today's episode, I would love to walk you through exactly that. What is the core? How do our abs actually work? That will then give us insights into how we should train based upon our unique goals and demands.
Chapter 6: How can you effectively test your core strength?
And spoiler alert there, we don't all mean the same thing when we say we want a strong core and great abs. What variables do I manipulate? What exercises do I choose? What order do I do them in? How frequently? How heavy? What repetition range? All of these questions and more are going to be answered here in today's episode.
And so my hope is you will leave this with all of your questions answered, having a better guide and understanding for developing your core and your abs for whatever goal you choose. The presenting sponsor of this podcast is Momentous. Momentous makes the highest quality supplements on the market, period.
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Chapter 7: What are the best exercises for core development?
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If you're anything like me, you've probably gone through a phase of your life where you've done all of the sit-ups and crunches you could possibly do. You've hit all the planks. and you still not gotten many results. But I want to get started with how we got here in the first place.
Why is it people take their abdominals and their core and train them with the endless crunches and sit-ups with the planks? Now, the reason most people train their abs this way actually comes from a good place.
If you go back to the 1960s and 70s, these legendary figures in fitness and strength and conditioning like Joe Weider and Arnold Schwarzenegger were big proponents of training a lot of repetitions. So tons of sets, tons of reps per set, many days per week. In fact, this is exactly how Arnold outlined it in his legendary encyclopedia training book. And so we started from that place.
Now, not all bodybuilders at the time subscribed to that. Some did it differently. But Arnold was one of, if not the most famous person in the field ever. And so that really carried it in the mainstream. You roll into the 1980s and you have now the explosion of Pilates and Jane Fonda and literally the eight minute ab workouts. And these are all focused on burn, burn, burn, burn, burn. Right.
Get your abs burning. And the assumption is the more they burn, the stronger they get. And while that's reasonably OK to think, it's not as precise and specific as it can be. You had then the evolution in the 1990s and early 2000s with people like John and McGill who started taking the abs more from the perspective of low back pain.
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