Practical Core Training: Leveraging Standing & Unilateral Movements

For the masses of ‘weekend warriors’ training for purely aesthetic purposes, the ‘core’ is a term that’s either entirely absent from their vocabularies or an afterthought in the larger scheme of their physique aspirations. However, the importance of the core muscles (around the hips, lower back and abdomen) are not to be scoffed at. They serve to stabilise the body during movement and unfortunately, due to our sedentary lifestyles, do not nearly often enough receive the appropriate amount of stimulation.

Enter The Trainer:

If you’ve stepped foot in a commercial gym, you might find the odd person here or there working with a trainer to perform bicep curls (or worse; squats) on a bosu ball. The field of personal training has wasted little time in latching onto the finding that core muscles can be stimulated by doing exercises on an unstable surface and exploiting it in unique and colourful ways. At the same time, an often overlooked consideration in the program-building repertoire of many trainers is that core muscles are trained to a greater extent when they require you to keep your body stable, rather than ‘flex’ the muscles. This is why a plank is a better exercise than a crunch. As such, you may find the same clients supersetting their bosu-squats with weighted-decline Russian twists, etc.

Now, The Study ...

Taking the former finding into account, Saeterbakken & Fimland (2012) investigated the effect of performing common resistance exercises when standing, compared to seated and unilaterally compared to bilaterally. Their marker for success: the muscle activation of the core.

The researchers used EMG activity seen in the rectus abdominis, external oblique and erector spinae of 15 healthy males as they performed five repetitions (at 80% 1RM) of unilateral, bilateral, seated and standing dumbbell shoulder presses.

The rectus abdominis (6-pack muscles) were found to work harder when the exercises were performed standing, whereas the obliques worked harder when unilateral movements were executed.

 

Their findings suggest that, in order to elicit the greatest amount of neuromuscular core activation, standing instead of seated and unilateral instead of bilateral exercises should be used.

The Practical Application

Unilateral movements can be performed with almost any upper body exercise. Consider the unilateral:

• Bench Press (Incline, Decline, Neutral Position)
• Shoulder Press
• Dumbbell Fly
• Lat Pull-Down
• One-Handed Pull-Up
• One-Handed Push-Up
• Dumbbell Row
• Kettlebell Movements (e.g. Swings, Snatch, etc)
  

In the case of standing to activate the core, this is easily done with anything including:

• Shoulder Press
• Snatch
• Clean & Jerk
• Push-Press
• Front Raise
• Lateral Raise
• One-Handed Dumbbell Snatch
• Kettlebell Movements (e.g. Swings)

One exercise that I cannot extol enough is the hand-stand push-up. Although many bodybuilder scoff at the premise of bodyweight training, I guarantee that the handstand push-up is no laughing matter. Full repetitions require months of training to achieve and the ultimate progression would involve you performing reps with no wall for support. This will provide maximum core activation in combination with a hell of a strength building exercise.

Naturally, these exercises performed in a standing or unilateral method will be initially humbling. Those individuals used to heaving gargantuan weight may find themselves back at the ‘herculean’ level. However, for the benefit of your core as well as your long-term performance, it may be advisable to swallow said piece of humble pie. When you find yourself able to dragon-flag until the cows come home, you (& your partner) will thank me!

References:


Duncan, M. (2009). Muscle activity of the upper and lower rectus abdominis during exercises performed on and off a swiss ball. J Bodyw Mov Ther, 13(4), 364-7.

Saeterbakken, A.H., & Fimland, M.S. (2012). Muscle activity of the core during bilateral, unilateral, seated and standing resistance exercise. Eur J Appl Physiol, 112(5), 1671-8.