Intermediate Core Stability Exercises
Intermediate exercises
The following exercises are intended for those who have mastered the basics and are looking for a little more of a challenge while developing core stability. Let’s start with the basic position: lying on your back with your knees bent, in a neutral position…
Exercise 1
While relaxed, breathing deeply, and contracting your deep muscles, gently lift your right foot an inch or so above the floor, and hold for 5 seconds, then lower it gently to the floor again. Re-set your neutral position and try this with your left foot. Remember to keep relaxed and control your breathing. When you are ready, start some ‘reps’ of the exercise: 10 lifts of each foot, holding for 10 seconds, with 10 seconds recovery. You can alternate your feet, or do 10 reps on each foot, depending on what’s easiest to remember! Make sure you are in your neutral position before each lift (as you become more proficient at the exercises, you won’t need to keep re-setting your position).
Exercise 2
While relaxed, breathing deeply, and contracting you deep muscles, slowly lower your right knee to an angle of 45 degrees and hold this position for 5 seconds. When you return the knee to the start position, do this again in a controlled manner. Re-set your neutral position and start again, this time with the left knee. Stay relaxed and breathing comfortably. When you are ready to start the reps for this exercise, find your neutral pelvis and begin: 10 reps on each side, taking 3 seconds to lower the knee, holding for 5 seconds, and returning the knee to the original position in 3 seconds, with 10 seconds recovery. Remember to keep your neutral position throughout the exercise – this will be harder than previous exercises because by lowering your knee, you are destabalising your pelvis. If you feel your pelvis tilting or moving, then stop, re-set your neutral position, and have another go.
Exercise 3
Similar to exercise 1, but a progression: relax, breath deeply, contract your deep muscles, and gently lift your right foot an inch above the floor. From this position, keeping your foot an inch off the ground, extend your leg to parallel with the floor. Hold this for a couple of seconds, and then return the leg to the original position (foot off the floor), and then lower the foot. This whole movement should be controlled – pelvic movement should be limited, and if you lose your neutral position, stop, re-set, and start again. Similar to exercise 2, your pelvis will be encouraged to move by the movement of your foot, and so you must try and control your movements as much as possible, while breathing deeply, staying relaxed, and contracting your deep core muscles. When you are ready to start reps of this exercise, try completing 5 leg extensions on each leg, taking 4 seconds to extend your leg, holding for 3 seconds at full extension, and returning the leg to the start position in 4 seconds.
Now lets move onto another position: lying on your front, with your forehead resting on your arms…
Exercise 4
While relaxed, breathing deeply and contracting your deep muscles, try and lift your right leg. This is a hard movement, and requires you to contract your glute muscles in your bottom, but while maintaining a relaxed state. As this is a hard exercise, try lifting your leg in a controlled manner, holding it about 10cm off the ground, and holding the position for only 3 seconds, before lowering it under control to the ground again. Keep this rhythm for the reps, and try 6 lifts for each leg. This is hard, and may put some strain through your lower back, but if you try and maintain a relaxed state, and continue to contract your core muscles, you will build strength in this area.
Exercise 5
While breathing deeply, and contracting your core muscles, gently raise your shoulders off the ground (with your hands now by your ears) and pull your shoulders back towards your pelvis (a ‘back raise’). This should be a controlled, slow movement – try taking 6-10 seconds to lift your shoulders off the ground and then replace them in the starting position. The number of reps you do may be determined by the ease of the movement – if you find it easy to lift yourself very high, then increase the number of reps (say 20), but if you find it hard, then decrease the number of reps (say 6), but make sure they are of a good quality. Start at 10 reps (continuous, with no recovery), and see how this feels. Remember that although the movement is coming from your lower back, you should still be able to contract your core muscles throughout the exercise.
If you’ve got this far, you’re doing well! Let’s move onto the hardest of the positions outlined in the basics: the horse stance. Remember in this position, your hands should be directly under your shoulders, and your knees should be directly under your hips, so you have right angles at all the joints involved (shoulders, hips and knees).
Exercise 6
After you have found your neutral shoulder and neutral pelvic position, relax, breath deeply and contract your core muscles. Now while maintaining a neutral shoulder position, lift one hand off the floor, and extend the arm upwards, so that it is now parallel with your back, extended fully past your head. Hold this position briefly, and return the arm, under control, so your hand is back on the floor, under your shoulder. You will need to transfer weight across your shoulders before you move your hand, but make sure that you don’t move position too much and alter your neutral shoulders. If this happens, try re-setting yourself and starting again. When you have got used to the exercise, try it with the other arm. When you are comfortable with the movement, try 10 reps on each side, taking 6 seconds for a completed movement (arm up, arm down). The exercise is made harder by extending your arm further – if you have difficulty in the execution of the movement, then just try lifting your hand off the floor to begin with, then gradually increase the extension as you get used to the movement.
Exercise 7
Identical to exercise 1, except you lift a leg rather than an arm. After finding your neutral position for pelvis and shoulders, contract your core muscles and lift your right knee off the ground, while extending your foot backwards and up. The movement should be completed by fully extending the leg so that it is parallel with the back from the glute to the heel of the foot. Again, you will need to transfer weight across your body, this time the pelvis: make sure that you don’t move the position too much, otherwise you will lose the neutral position and have to start again. When you have lifted your leg to its full extension, hold the position briefly, and then lower the leg, under control, and return to the starting position. Now try the other leg. When you are happy with the movement, try 6 reps on each leg, taking 10 seconds to complete the movement (leg up, leg down). Again, the exercise is made harder depending on how extended you can get keep your leg. If you struggle with the movement, then start by lifting your knee off the floor, and progress up to leg extension. Remember that it is best to complete the exercise well, but more simply, than completing it in an advanced manner, but poorly.
Intermediate Exercise Summary
The above exercises require a core contraction while trying to complete a series of movements. There are, however, other exercises that can be used to strengthen your core that require no movement, but a good awareness of your body… These are ‘body bridges’ (or ‘planks’).
You can try three types of body bridge: a front bridge, a side bridge, or a back bridge. The front bridge is the simplest of the exercises, but is very effective in strengthening your core. Lie on your front, with your toes in contact with the floor, and your arms folded under your shoulders. Lift yourself up from this position, so you are resting on your forearms, and on your toes, and flatten your bottom, so that your neck/back/bottom/legs are in a line. To work your core, when you are in this position, think about rotating your pelvis under you, while performing a ‘scapular pinch’, where you tense your shoulder blades and pull them in and down (feeling a pinch in between them). This makes you feel rigid in your mid and lower back, and should make you feel strong in your lower stomach as your abdominal muscles are contracted. Remember to keep breathing, and trying to be relaxed, but it is not necessary to resist trying to tense your six-pack. With this exercise, any tension is allowed. If you feel strong enough, try and tense your glutes, your shoulders, your hamstrings and your calves… BUT remember that you have to conduct the exercise well, and if you find your position slipping, then keep it simple and stop. Do not sag at your hips, or your shoulders, and maintain a straight back, with a low, but not sagging bottom. If you can hold this position, try holding for 10 seconds, then having a break. The next time you try, hold for 20 seconds…up until you can hold comfortably for a minute. It is not worth holding for more than a minute as you will invariably lose the correct position and just be training your muscles incorrectly – if you can conduct this exercise for a minute without too much difficulty, then try doing reps of 30 or 45 seconds, or of 20 – 30 seconds while tensing all your other muscles.
The side bridge is a little more complicated as can involve three types rotation that need to be corrected. To begin with, lie on your side, with one leg and foot in contact with the floor, and the other leg resting on top. Then ease yourself up onto your forearm, so that your hips are now not resting on the floor, but form a straight line from your shoulders to your foot. This straight line is important – if your hips are too high, or too low, then you are in an incorrect position. Secondly, you need to think about whether your shoulders and hips are in line from your shoulder blades to bottom – if your hips are pushing in front of your shoulders, pull them back until they are in line, and similarly push them forward if they are behind. Lastly, make sure that your both your hips and shoulders are not rotated: ie if you’re bridging on your left side, then make sure your left shoulder and hip is under your right shoulder and hip, and there is no forward or backward rotation. If there is, you need to correct the rotation by moving your hips and shoulders forwards or backwards. To make this exercise easier, you may lift your free arm directly above you, at 90 degrees to your side, which will encourage you to keep stable. When you are used to the exercise, try holding the position on one side for 30 seconds and then move straight over to the other side for the same amount of time. Remember to keep in a good position throughout the exercise, and when you are happy with the position, tense as many muscles as you can, as with the front bridge.
The back bridge is less complicated than the side bridges… Lie on your back with your arms by your side. When you are ready, lift yourself up onto your elbows, so that now your body rests on your heels and elbows/forearms, and your hips and shoulders are off the ground. The exercise is done correctly when you try and rotate your pelvis upwards and engage your glute muscles. Try holding this position for 30 seconds – 1 minute and then resting. Mix this position with front and side bridges for an all-round core stability session.
If you are able to do all of the above exercises, it is time for you to move onto a more advanced core stability program…
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