Engaging Core Work?

[legkicktko]

Does anyone have an core routines that are engaging enough so they are not such a drag?

I am motivated by improvement and numbers. I keep a log of all my training and could trace it back down to the day 4 or 5 years ago. I stick with basic, effective lifts and enjoy the feeling of progress and getting stronger. I genuinely love being in the gym, but what I don't love is ab work.

I feel like most core work is such a drag. About a year ago, I had some pretty solid progress in core strength and ab definition, but I fell out of the groove and never got back in it. I would just sit there and do an arbitrary amount of some ab exercises for ten or fifteen minutes and go until they burned like hell, and I would do this three days per week. In retrospect, it sucked, was boring, and I have a tough time wanting to do that again.

I hear people talking all the time about:

"Work abs like any other part of the body; one day per week, increase the weight."

But I've never actually tried a training program like that for my core. Have any of you? What did you see as far as aesthetic progress and a stronger core? It seems like everyone I talk to with a killer core is on the million rep routine which is what I kinda hate because its not easy to monitor progress.

 

[SexyMahnaz]

Try adding in pallof presses, I think they carry over well into deads & you can program them like a lift.

 

[Viskovitz]

Work towards some intense bodyweight movements, like dragon flags, ab-wheel rollouts progressions to do it standing...

For obliques you can do pallof presses, chops, landmine exercises... like sexy says you can just program them like any other lift with weigth-reps.

 

[MandirigmaFit]

Ab-wheel roll out progressions at 3x5-8 and
Full ROM Oblique Crunches from a dead stop on a GHD.

Both fun movements, IMO.

And Pallof Presses, of course. This is in all of my programming: my own and my athletes/clients.

 

[LatFlare]

I agree core training is boring af so i go bouldering

 

[Codger]

At least it feels like proper weight training and you get to move the pin down every week.

 

[dsdoubled]

I used to do this exercise where id hand a close grip over a chin up bar or some other high point. Hold the flexed position, put a medicine ball between my elbows, and alternate kneeing the med ball right, left, right, left......Its like having someone in a thai clinch. You could also hit a truck tire with a sledge hammer for time.

 

[Yugo King]

It´s in your head, you literally improve with ab work numerically too, can do more reps, weighted reps, more weight on weighted reps, can do them easier or slower motion, grow, feel stronger, stomach looks tighter.

It´s all in your head

 

[blaseblah]

I can't say if it works as I just started doing it, but I've been adding weights to my ab routines. I do crunches while holding weights and planks while balancing weights on my body. Seems effective.

 

[Deleted member 382931]

My favourites for flexion are ab-wheel rollouts and l-sits (or regressions thereof), you'll get a stimulus unlike anything you can replicate with weigted crunches. At the moment I'm focusing on progressing leg raises from point zero, because I had hit a wall on the exercises above relatively quickly.

Or you could pile weight on your planks, I've seen videos of people supporting 200lbs+ on their backs.

I haven't been to diligent with lateral flexion and rotational movements, but BJJ and carrying stuff at home has me mostly covered for now, extension is comfortably covered by deadlifts, snatches and back extensions.

 

[TheeFaulted]

Ab-wheel rollouts, front squats, hanging leg raises.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

Vince Gironda "ring of fire" is something else if you do it correctly. It's best to read up on it before watching a video demo as some points are missing.

AthleanX on Youtube has a ton of different variations with and without equipment. A lot of the standing variations with bands are interesting and fresh. There is one in particular using a band looped around the end of a baseball bat or pipe that is a different approach to a standing plank that is cool.

 

[BearGrounds]

Tuck L pull-ups. The only ab workout I bother doing.

 

[boingyman]

I like one-arm dumbbell bench press and one-legged decline situps. Already so many good suggestions. There are tons of good movements for the core that it's almost endless in a broad sense.