Core Strengthening Exercises For Beginners
In this video, I’ll show you how to perform three-light core exercises that will effectively rebuild strength in your deep core and pelvic floor. These three exercises are also suitable for the first week postpartum, Core strengthening exercises for beginners so if you’ve just had a baby and you want to reduce your diastasis recti these three exercises will also be suitable for you. Hi guys, my name is Amanda Louise. I’m a physical therapist and personal trainer, which means I help women just like you get in the best shape of your life. Today I’m going to take you through a program for the deep core muscles and this will be program number one out of three.
So this is the easiest version of this program. What we’re going to do is we’re going to tag the deep core muscles. That is usually the transverse abdominis. We also have the internal/external obliques, and on top of that, Core strengthening exercises for beginners we have the rectus abdominis, which is usually what we want to train.
When we train the core, we want to do crunches, we want to do all these different things, but for many people, the rectus abdominis is actually relatively strong, Core strengthening exercises for beginners but the weakness is from the transverse abdominis especially, and then the internal/external obliques as well.
So we don’t really have control of deep core muscles. We don’t have control of how our pelvis and our body rotates. We don’t have control when we want to avoid rotating. And in my experience as a physical therapist and a personal trainer, a lot of the people I see that have back pain have very low control of rotation and have a very hard time activating the transverse abdominis.
And also women that have given birth have had their abdominal muscles expanded, their rectus abdominis has been split as a thin line of fascia between the two sides of the rectus abdominis on each side of your belly and that fascia in the middle, especially when you’ve been pregnant, that has split and that makes crunches not the most ideal exercise to do.
I also have men who have this issue, so I’m not saying this is only for women who’ve been pregnant or for people with back pain.
These exercises up beneficial for anyone to do, but of course especially if you have issues with back pain or if you’ve had diastasis recti, which is the split of the abdominal muscles, this is even more targeted to you. But anyone can do these exercises, probably everyone should be doing these exercises, even if you are a guy who lifts heavy or a girl who lifts heavy. Having nice strong core muscles also helps you keep in the belly so you don’t have that little belly poop that pops out when you’re relaxing, but you’ll always have that nice firm stomach. Because the muscles are like a core set, they work as a core set holding in your organs, holding in your intestines, and who wants their intestines popping out?
One thing I’m not really covering in detail in this video is the correct breathing technique.
I will go over it briefly, but if you don’t know how to breathe right and you want me to do a video on it, just comment down below or send me a message that you would like me to do a video on it and I will. That is the foundation for all these three episodes of How to Train Your Deep Core. So if you don’t know how to breathe, let me know and I’ll do a video on it for you. Also, if any of these exercises, if you don’t feel them in your core, feel free to comment below or message me, contact me, get in touch with me and I’ll help you feel the exercises because you need to be able to activate your deep core.
It’s really important to me that people out there don’t walk around having a weak deep core, not having a muscle core set holding them up, not having the waist they could have because the muscles are not holding in your organs. So get in touch, if you don’t feel this, get in touch with me and I will help you.
I promise, I’m here to help you. All right, now let’s get into this. Exercise number one is the supine pelvic tilt, and you begin by laying on your back with your knees bent and both feet flat on the floor, and the knees aligned with the second toe of each foot.
Take a deep breath in and expand your belly, and as you exhale, gently contract your abdominal muscles to flatten your low back into the floor. A boat trying to lift up your hips off the mat and hold this position briefly. Then inhale and slowly relax your abdominal muscles and gently contract your low back muscles to increase the arch in your lower back. A boat raising your hips off the floor should do this. Hold the position with the arched back briefly before exhaling and returning to your starting position.
The second exercise is the supine knee drop. Again, start the access by lying on your back with your knees bent and both feet flat on the floor, and the knees aligned with the second two of each foot. Make sure your feet and your knees are both touching. Now place your fingertips on the pelvis where the hipbones are most prominent. From this position, exhale and gently contract your abdominal muscles to flatten your lower back into the floor. Transverse Abdominis Exercises For Smaller Waist
Avoid trying to lift your hips off the floor. Hold this position. And now let one knee fall out to the side very slowly and controlled while keeping your core engaged and controlling any rotation in your pelvis or lower back.
Use your fingertips to give you feedback on any movement of the pelvis. A common mistake in this exercise is letting the knee go too far towards the side and losing control of the anti-rotation of the hip or lower back.
So make sure you only let the knee fall out as far as you have control, 100% control of the position of your lower back and your hip. Doesn’t matter how far you go out, as long as you can keep your pelvis and your lower back in full control throughout the whole exercise. Exercise number three is the supine modified leg raise. Again, start the exercise by lying on your back with your knees bent and both feet flat on the floor, and knees aligned with the second toe of each foot. From here, gently contract your abdominal muscles to flatten your low back into the floor.
Again, avoid trying to lift up your tailbone off the floor. Hold this position briefly, then lift up one foot and if you can do it without the lower back lifting off of the floor, you can stretch out the knee. Try and keep the foot as close to the floor as you do this stretch, then return the foot to the starting position and alternate with the other leg. Throughout everything, you keep your lower back flat on the floor.
A common mistake with this exercise is challenging yourself too much too soon and allowing the lower back to lift off of the floor to extend the knee.
This is not worth it. Instead, stay in the position with your back flat on the floor and just lift the foot slightly off the floor without any movement from your lower back or your hips and then return the foot to the floor and repeat. As you get stronger, you can start experimenting with extending the knee halfway, still keeping that lower back down, until eventually, you’ll get strong enough to extend the knee fully.
Take your time with this and don’t go too far. You won’t get the deep core activation you want if you do that.
I really hope you found this exercise useful. Remember, if you don’t feel it in your core, don’t hesitate to message me or comment down below and I’ll do my best to help you out and get you to feel your core properly. Core strengthening exercises for beginners This was episode number one, I have two more coming. And again, if you want me to do a fourth one about breathing and activating your deep core while you breathe, again comment down below or message me that is something you want and I’ll make sure to do that as well. But for now, two more episodes coming up.
If you don’t want to miss them make sure you subscribe to my channel. And if you want to support me also like this video and leave a comment down below, it all really helps me to figure out what it is that I can give you guys, what do you want from me? Core strengthening exercises for beginners I’m a physical therapist and a personal trainer, and I am here to help you activate your muscles, feel your muscles get stronger, get in the best shape of your life. If you want more free content like this, don’t forget to also follow me on my Instagram and on my blog where I post more free content like this every single week. That’s all for me today. Remember, train right and stay fit…
