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Let me guess. When you think of core exercises, you’re thinking: planks, dead bugs, and bird dogs. While those are all great exercises, there is one missing piece worth mentioning: rotational core exercises.
While planks, dead bugs, and bird dogs are all excellent exercises and ones that I recommend regardless of where you're at in your fitness journey, whether it's your day one or day 587. But you want to make sure that you’re doing more than just anti-rotation exercises.
Anti-rotation means that you’re staying strong in the core and avoiding moving from side to side. So, in a bird dog, for example, when you're on all fours and you reach out opposite limbs, you do not want to rotate your hips or curve your spine one way or the other, right? So, this is an anti-rotation exercise because you're keeping your core stable and you’re not rotating. And again, while this is an excellent exercise, you also want to make sure that you’re practicing rotational core exercises so you can mobilize your thoracic spine, as well as, get into the obliques.
One of the more common exercises that you've probably heard of or perhaps seen before is a wood chop. You can do this with a cable machine, resistance band, or dumbbell. In a wood chop, you are going to keep your toes facing forward and rotate away from the post before bringing the handles back to center. What you don't want to do is have the band or cable anchored behind you. You want it to be lined up so your hands are in line with the resistance before you rotate.
Another example of a rotational exercise found in our hybrid training programs is a side plank with rotation. A side plank itself is actually an anti-rotation exercise because you're not allowing the body to rotate down or up. To add rotation, you will reach through the keyhole with your free arm and reach back up. What you don't want to do is keep rotating all the way back and lose your balance, right? So, you want to stop your rotation at the top and come back down to rotate and reach back through the keyhole. You can find this one programmed with a band, especially for my postpartum clients, because it helps encourage thoracic mobility.
Another plank variation that you could take into consideration is a tall plank with rotation. Get into a tall plank so your shoulders are right over your wrists, and extend your legs back. From here, you’ll want to rotate your body up and reach toward the ceiling and then come back down into that tall plank. Now, this is similar to the side plank, but you're starting in that tall plank position rather than starting in that side plank. So, slightly different, but still requiring more activation from your obliques.
The last and final exercise that we're going to go over is a lunge with rotation. Now, this exercise is one that you're probably not going to be using quite as much weight with the legs as you could because you are adding in this rotation. This is not something that I would consider a heavy leg exercise, but you are getting the stability through your core, including your obliques, and you're getting your leg stabilizers and all the way down through the ankle involved as well. You can use a plate, kettlebell, dumbbell, or really any type of weight held at chest height in front of you. You can either do a front lunge or a reverse lunge. Step into the lunge, rotate toward the working leg in front, and bring your feet back together. While your knee is out in front, you want to make sure the knee is in line with the second and third toes, rotate, and then come back to center and step together.
These are just four different exercises that you can do and have in your strength training program to improve your stability and ensure that you're rotating frequently and not only doing anti-rotation exercises for your core.
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