Exercises to strengthen the core muscles

Anybody have recommendations of exercises you can do to build and strengthen your core? And, while you're at it, if you have any recommendations that help with isolations, I'll take those, too! LOL.

My personal trainer has me working on quite a few specific "core" exercises, but some require specialized equipment and others require an assistant. Many others can be done alone.

One exercise is to stand on a balance ball and have the assistant throw you a medicine ball. You have to twist to one side to catch it and then throw it back as hard as you can.

Another exercise is to jump from side to side on a special device where the sides are raised at an angle. As you jump off, you twist around so you are facing the opposite direction. As you land, you crouch into a deep lunge position.

Another exercise is to attach a harness over your shoulders that is held down with four strong bungee cords. You crouch into a deep lunge position and jump as high as you can, against the resistance of the cords.

The other core exercises he has me do are basic things that anyone can do, which develop both your core muscles and your speed of movement. Things like stepping rapidly through a rope ladder lying on the ground, lifting weights while twisting and/or standing on a balance ball, jumping on a balance board. Even ordinary dips and chin ups help strengthen your core.

While I don't do any pilates, there are some excellent pilates moves that work your core, like the Drunken Pilot, side raises and all that kinky-looking fancy stuff with ropes.

I would definately recommend pilates, core strength is one of the fundamental concepts and most of the exercises work the trunk or core.
I highly recommend "The Pilates Body", by Brooke Siler as an intro.

I haven't done much with isolations other than in jazz class, and the way we improved our isolations was doing isolations. Perhaps streching would make your isolations easier?

Scott

I'd also recommend a pilates class.

A book I like is Alvin Ailey Dance Moves!: A New Way to Exercise.

I do power yoga.

I've been doing Pilates for 3 1/2 years and love it. I go twice a week to a private instructor, though, who is also a dancer. She watches my tapes and comes to my competitions and figures out what we need to develop and work on next. It's more expensive this way, but the results are personalized to me instead of me just going to a group mat class at the gym. Not do disparage group mat classes, though! I take them when I'm travelling, they're a good way to keep everything going when I can't see my regular teacher.

Last time I was travelling I took a bunch of beginning yoga classes. I'd never done yoga before, but based on the few classes I took I'd also recommend that. yoga is more "limby" than Pilates -- yoga really works your balance and endurance!

Has anyone tried pilates based floor barre? My local studio offers such a class

http://www.exploredance.com/zena11303.html

Probaby the two all around best strengthing exercises for something like this would good old fashioned push ups, and then a form of sit ups call v-ups that you learn in gymnastics, basically you make a V by raising your legs to your arms- pilates also has it -now that that fad is in vogue. I have a few more on the tip of my tongue but I can't think of the names right now.

I don't know how you can call a system of excercises (Pilates) that has been around since World War I a fad, but to each their own. The famous Martha Graham, way back in the day, had Josef Pilates himself train her dancers.

It is certainly in vogue now, and some say that the standards for certification training have dropped. Back when my teacher got certified, she went through a three-year training period. Nowadays you can get certified to teach a mat class in six weeks, although there are more thorough certification programs that take a year to get through.

Laura said:

I don't know how you can call a system of excercises (Pilates) that has been around since World War I a fad, but to each their own. The famous Martha Graham, way back in the day, had Josef Pilates himself train her dancers.

It is certainly in vogue now, and some say that the standards for certification training have dropped. Back when my teacher got certified, she went through a three-year training period. Nowadays you can get certified to teach a mat class in six weeks, although there are more thorough certification programs that take a year to get through.

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Its a fad pretty much for the reasons you just mentioned. It has nothing that martial arts and yoga hadn't been doing for 500 years or longer, and just like Tae Bo seemingly you can get almost instant certification. No one really talked about it until just a few years ago and I suspect it will be replaced by another exercise of the month soon enough. Doesn't mean it doesn't have some good stuff to offer it just funny when they talk about Pilates 'inventing' these exercise after watching animals, and you can go to asia and see fresco depicting the same exerices that date back centuries before pilates was even born.

Modern ballroom dancing has only been around since about World War I, the same amount of time as Pilates, and we all know that ballroom instructors can get some kind of certification six weeks. So, is modern ballroom, including Lindy Hop, also a fad?

I think we have different definitions for the term fad. I call a thing a fad, when people only know of it when it popular and forget about when it goes out of style. I can walk out into my work place right now ask somebody if they have heard of Pilates and 50 will say no they have no idea what that is. The other 50% are members of a health club. Ninjitsu has been around since 1300 A.D. but it is still just a fad in the martial arts world. Ballroom however I can go ask almost any persone about and they will at least of heard of it and know someone who dances it. Fads to me are cash cows- things that places like health clubs or even dance studios try to cash in while they're 'hot', Pilates, Body Pump, Lambada, the macarena, Tae Bo, Spinning (I used to work in a health club so I've had first hand experience with the roll out of of lot of these things),Ninjutsu, krav magna, All these things have had or are having their 15 minutes of fame and then will fade from the public at large's eye.
Ballroom is a core business but many studios will offer fad dances like I mentioned above.

Dragon3085,

I find your definition of fad a bit too inclusive. To reduce Pilates to the level of Pet Rocks, Reality TV, Friendship Bracelts, and the Macarena seems to me a bit disingenious.

My definition of a fad would suggest that the activity in question doesn't have any intrinsic value other than its ability to stir a craze.

Unfortunately, Pilates - which seems to me a wonderful practice for the body - is/has been marketed by the bloated and opportunistic weight loss industry.

Scott

ewwwww Reality Tv I forgot about that one. In any case the great thing about language is that we can call it whatever we want it doesn't change the try nature of what we are describing, it will be what it will be. Now moving back to the orginal topic... Back when I worked in a PT office we would work a lot of athletes with bands attached to the wall and to them via a harness, we actually had a teenage girl gymnast break all four bands at once. The basic idea of this exerices boils down to lunges. So you don't need the harness if you have good form, but it helped them move from their centers, if they broke aligmnet the harness will finish the job by pulling them off balance the rest of the way. Also standing in a nice horse stance for very lengths of time helps build you a nice base. I guess it depends what we are talking about when we say 'core' are we talking about 10 must do exercices, or exercises specific to area of the abs downs to just above your quads?

When my Pilates teacher says "core," she means anything that isn't a limb, including your neck and head.