How to Build a Strong Core & Abs

**Andy Galpin** (0:00)
The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play and life. Welcome to Perform. I'm Andy Galpin, and I'm the Executive Director of the Human Performance Center at Parker University. Today, we're going to be talking all about how to develop a strong core and great looking abs. And I figured we get started with a bit of a warm up to get your brain going and I'll ask some simple questions that all of you definitely know the right answer to. Let's get started with some basics. If I picked a couple of different exercises, could you tell me which ones are better for developing your core and abs and which one is least effective? Let's throw out some simple ones. What about a sit up versus a deadlift? I'm sure most of you are thinking, of course, this is it up. But are you really sure? What about if we did something like a machine versus a free weight exercise? Do we automatically know that the machine will activate my core less and the free weights will do more and therefore be better for my ab development than the machine? I know what you're thinking. Oh, well, when I have my free weights, I've got to create stability and I've got to regulate it. That's got to be activating my core more. But is it really? What does the science really say about machines versus free weights? How often do we train our core? Every day, their small muscles, they recover. Are you sure that that's how it works? And so in actually preparing for this episode, I started to realize there's so many topics like this and how people are generally training their abs and their core that are not actually in line with the current scientific evidence. Which is funny because if we were to ask all of you, I'm basically every human being would like a strong core and great looking abs. So we all want it, but as the saying goes, you'll find more people that have a million dollars in the bank account than those that have a six pack. Here's the good story though. We actually can solve this problem pretty easily. We'll have to start off by actually understanding the difference between the core and abs. We also need to take into account what outcome I'm really looking for. And once we understand that, we'll actually understand how some of these questions are answered differently based upon my goal. So in today's episode, I would love to walk you through exactly that. What is the core? How do our abs actually work? That will then give us insights into how we should train based upon our unique goals and demands. And, spoiler alert there, we don't all mean the same thing when we say we want a strong core and great abs. What variables do I manipulate? What exercises do I choose? What order do I do them in? How frequently? How heavy? What repetition range? All of these questions and more are going to be answered here in today's episode. And so my hope is you will leave this with all of your questions answered, having a better guide and understanding for developing your core and your abs for whatever goal you choose. The presenting sponsor of this podcast is Momentous. Momentous makes the highest quality supplements on the market period. I literally spent years vetting their products, company and leadership team before officially partnering with them in 2023 Every single one of Momentous' products is third party tested to ensure quality, and many are even NSF certified for sport. Now while I love all their products, I am incredibly excited about their new Fiber Plus prebiotic. Almost everyone is seeking more energy, improved recovery and better performance. But most people are missing a key foundation to their overall health, and that's getting enough good fiber. In fact, 95% of Americans are failing to hit the recommended daily amount of fiber. Fiber powers gut health, which we know drives long term performance. Proper gut health allows for better nutrient absorption, energy stability, recovery, inflammation control, and much more. I personally simply mix a scoop with their cinnamon flavor and some water every night. And by doing so, I make sure I'm covering any gaps I might have in my daily fiber intake, that I try to get through eating a balanced whole food diet. If you'd like to try Fiber Plus or any of Momentus' best in class supplements, just go to livemomentus.com/galpin and use the code Galpin for up to 35% off your first order. Again, that's livemomentus.com/galpin and use the code Galpin for up to 35% off your first order. If you're anything like me, you've probably gone through a phase of your life where you've done all of the sit ups and crunches you could possibly do. You've hit all the planks and you still not gotten many results. But I want to get started with how we got here in the first place. Why is it people take their abdominals and their core and train them with the end list crunches and sit ups with the planks? Now the reason most people train their abs this way actually comes from a good place. If you go back to the 1960s and 70s, these legendary figures in fitness and strength and conditioning like Joe Weider and Arnold Schwarzenegger were big proponents of training a lot of repetitions. So tons of sets, tons of reps per set, many days per week. In fact, this is exactly how Arnold outlined it in his legendary Encyclopedia training book. And so we started from that place. Now, not all bodybuilders at the time subscribed to that. Some did it differently. But Arnold was if one of, if not the most famous person in the field ever. And so that really carried it in the mainstream. You roll into the 1980s and you have now the explosion of Pilates and Jane Fonda and literally the eight minute ab workout. And these are all focused on burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, right? Get your abs burning. And the assumption is the more they burn, the stronger they get. And while that's reasonably okay to think, it's not as precise and specific as it can be. You had then the evolution in the 1990s and early 2000s with people like John De and McGill, who started taking the abs more from the perspective of low back pain and started saying, hey, your core is important to your pain. And so we should actually train it with the specific goal of minimizing low back injury or pain. People hadn't really done ab training for this purpose before that. We didn't really have discussions in the 70s, 80s, 90s about why your back hurts, why your hips hurt is because your core is weak. And so when we started to unravel this stuff scientifically and from the field, people had to start saying, okay, well, you may be trained like this if you want your abs to look great, but maybe you train like that if you just want your back to not hurt as much. And this represents the first bifurcation of this training approach. And so when you hear fitness professionals, physical therapists may be differing from your strength coaches in terms of how to train your abs, it probably goes all the way back to this initial changing point where what we're really talking about is what is our outcome goal. On one hand, you've got people who are focused exclusively on making your abs look a certain way, and the others are coming at it from a functionality perspective. Now I'm not here to tell you which one is more important. I am here to tell you, though, the perspective in which they're educating you will determine in large part what they say works better or worse. That's the thing we're going to have to keep in mind for the rest of this episode. Our outcome goal in large part determines what is better or worse when it comes to training our abs and our core. Now before we go any further, we need to actually discuss what I mentioned a second ago, and that is, what's the difference between your abs and your core? If I asked most of you out there, you'd probably be like, I don't know. I thought they were the same thing. And of course, in large part, they are. But the precision matters right now because again, it will unveil insights into how we best train them. Generally when we say things like your abs, we're thinking aesthetics, you know, how do you look rather than function? Not always, but in general. And we're generally talking about three big groups of muscles. The first is called your rectus abdominis. This is the six pack. This is right in the middle. The second are actually two muscle groups combined, and that is your obliques. These are the ones on your side. And then the third is your transverse abdominis. I'll get into the anatomy in more detail here in one moment, but keep this in mind. So generally, we think abs, we think aesthetics, we think those three groups of muscles. When we go to the core, it is your abs plus a whole host of other muscle groups. We're generally now talking about performance and outcome-based activities. So it is your abs, it's your pelvic floor, your diaphragm, your rib cage. We actually then go into your back. We start talking about the four big groups of spinal erectors and the deep spine muscles and the QL and lateral trunk and all these things. If you're like, what are those? Don't worry about it or go look them up. It's not critical that you know that right now. But what is critical is to understand is that is as effective or important to your core as your rectus abdominis. We also then have things like your hip stabilizers, your glute muscles. In fact, some people will look at the muscles of the upper back and the shoulder girdle and call those a part of your core. So really what we're saying is your core is everything, not your limbs, not your forearm, not your knee, not your toes. And so then it becomes really complicated because it's reasonable to understand that we probably don't have the exact same training principles for your upper trap muscle as I have for your diaphragm. And that's probably not the same as it is for your rectus abdominis. And so right out the gates here, we start to go, oh, okay, I understand that now training my rectus abdominis to make me look like a nice six pack might have some slightly different principles than training my multifidus in my low back. That distinction right there will clear up a lot of misconceptions. Now by the same token, it's also important to understand that training your abs is not exclusively for the purposes of visual appearance. We have excellent research now at this point that will indicate things like a weak core will increase your likelihood of things like low back pain. So it's not just something I do to look better. We also have evidence from sport performance and admittedly, this is a little bit weaker. You will not see a lot of research directly translating, for example, how many sit ups you can do with how far you can kick a soccer ball. But there is some stuff that provides loose associations with general athletic performance that says, hey, if you have an insufficient core defined differently in every study, that that probably leads to some slight inefficiencies. Most practitioners, though, we're going to tell you the eye test from the experience test, that if a core is weak, you have a hard time transmitting force. This is a fancy way of saying things like, if I am a rotational athlete, I throw a baseball, I hit a golf ball, I throw a javelin, and I'm able to transmit a certain amount of force through my hips and my feet into the ground. But then my core can't handle that force. It may not translate into my arm or my hand as much, net resulting in me not hitting the golf ball as far as I should, or throwing the javelin or baseball or what have you. So the framework I would like to move forward with, here is something I've been using for a long time now, and that is look, feel and perform. So here's the outline. When I talk about look, let's assume this is people who are here primarily, if not entirely, because they want their abs to look better. Again, as I just described, I don't have any issue with that. Totally fine.