Now if you don’t know this yet you are about to know that achieving that ripped midsection has more to do with what you stuff in your mouth than what exercises you select.  Getting lean enough to see your abs is nutrition based and you simply cannot out exercised poor eating.  Performing core work everyday for hours on end will not give you the abs your looking for if your stuffing calzones down your throat.

With that being said, today’s blog will be about choosing the best exercises for your core so that when you do shed those layers of body-fat your abs will look even that much better.  It is also about keeping your body healthy and a good core training routine should teach you how to use your abdominal while performing other tasks.

When we look at core stability and core training we want to categorize our core work into 2 categories:

1. Basic Static Stability
2. Dynamic Integrated Stabilization

Basic Static Stability

This type of  exercise is the simplest form of core training one can do.  What we mean by static stability is being able to perform an exercise while bracing your core without movement for a required amount of time or reps.  In this type of exercises you are trying to teach the body the proper way to brace the core muscles and hold them tight.

Dynamic Integrated Stabilization

This type of core training involves the static stability of the example above with additional aspects integrated into the exercise.  What we are learning to do with dynamic integrated stabilization training is keep the core braced while another area of our body is moving.  This produces a much greater demand on the core and therefore will produce a much stronger torso.

This type of exercise can be broken up into 2 sections.

1. Static Hips/Dynamic Shoulders:  this is when the core is braced and we move from the shoulder joint to produce a greater stress on the core musculature.  This can involve equipment such as the TRX suspension trainer, Val-Slides, Stability Ball, Ab wheel, etc  While our shoulders create a movement the rest of our body remains static and braced.
2. Static Shoulders/Dynamic Hips: this is when the core is braced and we move from the hip joint to produce a great load on the core musculature. This also involves such equipment as the ones mentioned above.  While our hips create movement our core and shoulder joint stabilize the rest of the body.

You want rock hard abs and a super strong core?

Forget doing hundreds of situps… Try these core exercises. We like to perform core work at the beginning of your workout right after our dynamic warm ups and activation exercises

These core exercises will help develop functional core stability and strength so you will have a powerful torso for dominating and if your eating right you can rip that shirt off and show off what you got!

Would You Show Her Your Abs?

So what I get out of the clean up week is a average daily intake of calories that I am eating.  I started using fitday again which I haven’t done in years.  So after logging my food into fitday last week I came up with my daily caloric intake.  My average caloric intake was 2600 calories on average for 5 days of logging. With that number my first step is to maintain that amount of food for 1-2 weeks.  I do not want to drop my calories from the start because I want to give my metabolism a chance to get adjusted to maintaining a set number of calories for a small period of time before I create a deficit.  This caloric average can actually be maintain for 6-10 weeks before creating deficits from it.

At this point my goal for the next 2 weeks is to log 2600 calories EVERYDAY and keep my workouts exactly as is which I will get to later or in another blog.  I will follow this for 2 weeks in which point I will make a small adjustment to either my caloric intake or my exercise volume.  Notice I said I will make a change to one OR the other and not both.  This is key to determining what method actually works best at that time for you.  If I decrease my calories and add more exercise all at the same time I will never truly know what is causing the change in my physique.  So in two weeks I will make an adjustment to my plan.  For now the goal at hand is to get my workouts in 4 times per week with intensity,  and break my daily caloric intake down into how much is needed in each meal in regards to protein, carbs and fats and stay on a steady path for 2 weeks.

Tip of the Day: Remember to make yourself small attainable goals in order to not overwhelm yourself with the bigger picture.  I will prepare each days meals and have my workouts written out for the week in order to stay focused.

I will be trying out various ways to log for you to see what way I like showing you what I am eating:

Protein:
1. 9 Egg Whites, 1 Whole Egg
2. 5 oz. Chx Breast
3. 5 oz. Chx Breast
4. 40 grams in Full Strength
5. 5 oz. Chx Breast
6. 4 oz. Steak

Carbs:
1. 1 cup Oats
2. 2 Slices Rye, Apple
3. 6 oz. Sweet Potato/Broccoli
4. 25 Grams in Full Strength
5. 6 oz. Sweet Potato/Broccoli
6. None

Fat:
1. 1 Yolk
2. None
3. Fish Oils
4. 5 grams in Full Strength
5. Fish Oil
6. Peanut Butter

Total Calories: 2580 (278P, 207C, 69C)

Felt hungry throughout the day and I am happy about that.  This week i am basically getting a estimated average calorie intake from what I eat in the first four days and that will be my base caloric intake which i will manipulate accordingly as the weeks go on.

Do you want to get ready for the summer!

Have you ever looked beach ready before?

Do you want to?

Are you ready to get SHREDDED?

Well than follow me on my journey to my wedding date in June and join me in the Summer Shred Program!

I will be posting my training log as well as my food log on my blog regularly. You will leave your logs in the comment section and we will Get Shredded TOGETHER!

Tomorrow I will start posting my food intake and my training along with tons of videos on metabolic conditioning, intervals, meal prepping tips, among various motivation tools to keep us on the path of victory.

Here is your first motivational video to get you ready for the ride, you must have a sense of humor for this one. It is a great abdominal bracing exercise that will make you laugh.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come on,  you have to laugh……life is short:)

Stayed tuned,  tomorrow it will be rocking over here at Hanley Strength.