I have developed a true love for weight training over the years and enjoy the physical and mental strength I gain from doing it. But since I’ve channeled my time and effort into learning this skill, I’ve taken less time to focus on growing my abs. So I’ve been trying to muster up the motivation to train my core without taking the fun out of my usual training schedule.
I was back on lockdown during the pandemic and was completing a lot of the best workouts for abs close enough every day to hang out and feel like I’m keeping fit. But as soon as I was able to get back into the gym, I made a point of rebuilding my strength and muscles using equipment like the barbell and some of the best kettlebell to challenge my lower and upper body.
Lo and behold, core strength is essential when it comes to weight training to improve form, help with posture, and protect your back from injury. I may have learned how to deadlift correctly but if I wanted to progress in my training and lift more weight, I knew I’d have to pick up some core strengthening exercises Better sooner than later.
I decided that the only way I could form any type of habit with ab training and stay consistent was to add a short set of movements to the end of my regular workouts. After each strength session, I grabbed one of the best yoga mats from my gym and rounded things off with a five-minute crunch finisher. I tried to target all areas of my core by performing 45-60 seconds of different exercises like planks, side planks, crunches, and dead bugs. This is what I noticed.
1. I enjoyed the pain
Without sounding too sadistic, I liked the pain I felt in my core after I solved it. It was reassuring that I had successfully targeted my abs and core muscles even though I was only doing five minutes of bodyweight movements to get results.
It was also very normal for me to experience muscle pain in my stomach when I laughed or sat up in bed after my ab workout. the American Council on Exercise (opens in a new tab)explain what SUN (delayed onset muscle soreness) is a natural process of the body after intense exercise. It usually develops 24-48 hours after a workout and within 72 hours your body will usually have repaired the tears in your muscles.
Don’t get me wrong, the first week of training was pretty brutal. My abs weren’t used to being challenged like this and needed more time to recover. However, the more sessions I finished with crunches, the less painful the exercises felt. It reminded me of the sore feeling you get in your butt after getting on a bike seat after a long time. The first ride is agonizing and the pain lingers until your lower half adjusts to the sensation of sitting back on a small bike seat.
2. It was a different challenge than lifting weights.
The free weight section of a gym can have a more intense feel than other sections. Depending on his goal, he often focuses on moving up a weight. For me, I try to use the progressive overload technique to avoid reaching a plateau and continue to gain strength and muscle. When I pull up a weight plate or dumbbell, I usually see this as a sign of improvement and power, but I still like to take a more holistic approach to fitness and not just define my strength by weights.
It was certainly humbling, finishing a great leg day, getting into a plank position and struggling to hold a perfect plank position for over a minute. I had more admiration for the people around me in the floor section doing v-squats and doing heavy russian twists than anyone else in the gym as it takes as much discipline and consistency as the person in the gym does. gym that can do squats. heavier
(Image credit: Getty)
3. Ab workouts can incorporate weights
The stronger my core became, the more challenging my five-minute crunches could do. Instead of increasing the duration I spent on crunches at the end of my strength sessions, I decided to incorporate some weights into my exercises.
Sometimes this seemed to add these abdominal exercises with dumbbells at the end of my workout and incorporating the weight into well-known moves like sit-ups, dead bugs, and plank variations. If I ever miss the gym, I can use a game of best adjustable dumbbells at home to do an abdominal workout and you can still increase the challenge by increasing the weight load on the spot with this type of weight.
Or for days when I don’t feel like being on the floor for core training or my back aches a bit, I do standing crunches. Some of my favorite activities are weighted side bends, crossed toe touches, and around the world kettlebells.
Weights or no weights, five minutes of sit-ups and core exercises are now a staple of my regular gym routine. It’s a time-efficient activity that makes me feel good and complements my strength training. If you fancy an even simpler abs challenge, you can find out what happened when a writer I made a table every day for a month..
