Core Body Cross Training Fitness Tips

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Dr. Garrett Smith here with Expert Village. Today I'm here to explain to you some CrossFit style exercises for the core which includes the abs, obliques, and lower back, also known as the posterior chain. I'm a licensed naturopathic physician in the state of Arizona, I'm a certified strength and conditioning specialist, I've been in the personal training field for over thirteen years, I'm a cross fit level II instructor, I'm a certified Kettlebell instructor, I've started two personal training studios including my current CrossFit Tucson, and I've also worked in the physical therapy and rehabilitation fields. CrossFit is a type of training when most important thing about it is how the exercises are put together and what elements of fitness it covers. Elements of fitness includes things like strength, flexibility, mobility, agility, accuracy, coordination. There are actually ten elements of fitness. In CrossFit we try to address all of them as opposed to, let's say, a triathlete who's really concentrating on endurance only instead of strength. Or, there's power lifter who might be only training for strength and they have no endurance so we want a balanced blend of all these elements of fitness so that we're not lacking in any one area. That is the entire goal. Some days are pure strength training, some days are what we call metabolic conditioning, what most people call cardio. It would be combining things like, let's say jumping rope with flipping tires, push ups and other things, done in a quick succession so we're using strength training in a way that builds cardiovascular endurance. So we're combining them at the same time and that's really the basis for most of CrossFit training. Here's a little overview of what I mean when we're talking about training the core. Most people think of just abs and obliques or the front part that you can see. Well, the core involves the front and the back. Really, what I talk about when I'm talking about the core, there's three parts. There's the anterior chain, anterior is to the front. Chain means that we use multiple parts together, we don't just isolate the abs, we use anywhere from the abs down to the hip flexors. They almost always work in concert so that's the way we train them. There's the anterior chain then there's the posterior chain. The posterior chain runs down the back from about here down to just below your knee. That's all the muscles that tend to straighten the body as opposed to the anterior chain which bends the body. Then we do some exercises for the sides or the obliques, which do need their own training in a way and they tend to get worked with the other stuff. All of the exercises we will be doing for the core are going to be what are called functional exercises. They're not isolated exercises where we're trying to isolate just the abs. We're trying to use the body as it functions in real life.

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