Tips and guidance on how to develop a powerful and aesthetic core. Looks and performance are the same thing!
Many are obsessed with getting the six pack abs, but in order to get it you first need to understand what a defined core represents.
Athletes typically have some of the best cores out there. Most boxers are ripped with a solid six pack although they have never tried to purposely get one.
A well developed core represents performance and health.
In order to get the defined midsection, you shouldn't focus on aesthetics or looks at all. You should primarily focus on performance and health. The six pack abs will then come as a side product.
A lot of people have it backwards and somehow think they can just have one side without the other. The reality is that at the highest level, performance and aesthetics often walk hand in hand.
When we talk about "an athletic physique" in one of the previous videos, we aren't talking about just the aesthetics of an athletic physique, but also the performance.
Performance and health = aesthetics.
1. NUTRITION & LIFESTYLE
When it comes to developing the core, your nutrition and lifestyle habits will play major roles.
Ultimately, your diet and lifestyle habits will determine how low body fat percentage you will carry and thus how well visible the abs are.
You can get temporary results by dieting down and restricting calories, but these results won't last. What's actually important is to build a good lifestyle of healthy eating habits that will take care of everything else.
Primary focus should be on health, because it will not only directly affect your body fat percentage, but also your ability to recover, build muscle and perform.
Another thing to realize is that it's not just your diet that counts. How much vitamin D (sun) you get, how you manage inflammation (dental hygiene, gut health) and how you deal with stress are also vital factors in health and fitness.
Abs 20XX guide has an entire section dedicated to nutrition and an introduction to intuitive eating. Recipes, nutrition plans and 7-step ladder for getting fit are all covered.
2. MOVEMENT TRAINING / FULL BODY MOVEMENTS
Big full body movements like compound exercises or movements of movement training should always be the foundation of your training.
Many exercises like pull ups can be amazing for the core if you just keep the core stabilized during the repetitions. Same can be said for deadlifts and many other lifts.
Big movements like this are great, but they are often one dimensional because you are only moving up and down in a very repetitive manner.
What makes movement training so effective for the core is the fact that your core needs to be constantly working and adjusting to different posititions all the time.
In every movement your core needs to stabilize the trunk, but you will also be bending, twisting and crunching from many different angles and posititions.
The midsection is far more complex than many think and in order to create the ultimate core that is strong, mobile and aesthetic everywhere, all parts of the core need to be stimulated.
Versatile training like this will make the biggest difference in the performance and aesthetics of your core. The core will be developed to a high level as a side product.
In Movement 20XX online course there are 53 flow movements and majority of them should challenge your core very intensively.
3. CORE ISOLATION
Although movement training is phenomenal, people have tendencies to move in a way where they are the strongest (the most comfortable) and this can leave some areas under-developed.
Core isolation exercises are excellent to target the weak links and they will also effectively strengthen, mobilize and develop the core. There is nothing wrong with crunches or sit ups, they are just great exercises to strengthen the abdominals.
In many areas you also need to isolate the core to take it to the next level when you no longer see results from the big compound movements.
Beginners may also need to isolate the core first to be able to do full body movements and movement training properly.
Movement training should build a great foundation, but core isolation exercises fix the weak links and take the core to the next level.
