There’s no doubt you can get a great core workout on the floor with planks, crunches, and other exercises. And yet, you spend most of your day in an upright position. It makes sense to do at least some of your core work in standing.
In addition to abs, your core includes the muscles in your back and around your pelvis. A balance of strength between these muscles establishes a solid foundation for all movement. In the video below, I take you through ten minutes of standing exercises to activate and work your core.
A Few Notes on Form
- If you find that you’re working too hard to keep your balance, put one hand on the back of a chair or wall. You want to perform the exercises with good form.
- Try doing this workout barefoot. When done properly, barefoot work can strengthen the muscles in your feet and improve your overall alignment and balance. I’ve included a link for barefoot strengthening at the bottom of this post.
- Try to really key in on the abdominals. In two of the exercises, you’ll find it’s pretty easy to move the elbows toward the knees and not get much activation of the abdominals. Help your abs kick in by putting putting a hand over top of them and check just how much they’re working.
- Hip flexors always try to help out your abs with standing ab exercises. Try to put more load on the abs and less on the hip flexors by focusing as described above. And then, make sure you put a solid effort into the standing glute exercises to balance out that hip flexor dominance with extension exercises.
This core work in standing is an excellent way to change things up and work your core differently. If you have access to a cable machine, you can adapt some of these exercises to incorporate resistance. And, of course, you’ll want to continue with your planks and other core exercises on the floor.
Stay fit!
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