I was bought up in the muscle and fitness days so for a long time its been situps, crunches, bicycles.

Last 5 years, that became planks, saucers, hanging leg raises.

Now – I take a complete opposite approach – expansion instead of contraction, diaphragmatic pressure like a goblet squats, hand stands. Not sure if its right but it makes more sense in my head.

Curious what your doing for cycling? general fitness? Max buffness?

Squats

With 140mm+

Watching Yoga with Abi videos on PinkBike.
Don’t actually do the workouts. But it’s a start.

Curious what your doing for cycling?

All depends..

Are you doing extra stuff to solely improve cycling or to compenstate for the deficiencies that a cycling only fitness regieme would have?

If the latter then everything un-cycling eg upper body strength (eg bench, chinups etc), lower back strength (eg Deadlifts).

As a general rule if you do lots of Sport X and want to do Strength and Conditioning to complement it, think of all the muscles under utilised by Sport X and train them as that’s what you’re lacking.

Cycling is a non impact sport, notorious (at the pro level) for low bone density, so big lifts using the whole body eg deadlifts / squats would be good to trigger calcium densification of the spine. I’d go for deadlifts as a start.

Singlespeed seems to do the job.

I guess what I’m really asking is has anyone swapped crunching for expanding? And has it made a positive difference?

Watching Yoga with Abi videos on PinkBike.
Don’t actually do the workouts. But it’s a start.

Certainly helps you firm up though 😀

Tried planking, after that googled enough to convince myself doing curls and presses standing up, squats and rows is enough.

I guess what I’m really asking is has anyone swapped crunching for expanding? And has it made a positive difference?

Define difference…

Crunches get you good at doing crunches, planks get you good at doing planks…

What is your objective?

Do you want to be ripped (100% body fat, no crunches needed), do you want absolute abdominal muscle strength (front lever training would be better), do you want to enhance muscular endurance, etc etc….

As for how I do core, currently I do a few sets of 5 dragon flags once a week….

There’s a book called Core Advantage which specifically deals with core training for cycling.

This has been popping up in my YT suggestions so am going to give it a go:

Just before the start of June I had a go at this warm up routine:

Unfortunately performing the lunges with arm raises while leaning back twinged something in my lower back. Took a month and a half to get to near full recovery because I kept thinking it had recovered well enough to go out on my trials bike. It hadn’t.

During lockdown I have been sitting on a gym ball every day I work from home.
has made a remarkable difference both in core strength and in my balance. Can sit on the thing cross legged now

Cheers for that, the bad posture in that video is often me. I’ve seen physio’s, massage therapist’s and a chiropractor and have all worked in the short term. But the only thing that has helped me long term was going to the gym and doing weighted dead lifts, squats, chest presses, rows and pull downs. As I can’t get to the gym at the mo I’ve been struggling to find exercises that I can do (I’m doing Joe wicks exercises and using my chin up bar but I don’t think I get the same effect).

The Core Advantage book is pretty good, taking you from the basics and has a lot of variety in the exercises. He states that one of the exercises will help stop you veering towards the middle of the road when you reach for your bottle and blow me if it didn’t work.
For body weight strength training I’m really enjoying the progressive programme on this site:

http://www.startbodyweight.com/p/start-bodyweight-basic-routine.html

During lockdown I have been sitting on a gym ball every day I work from home.
has made a remarkable difference both in core strength and in my balance.

+1

I accidentally ended up with two gym balls. So if anyone wants my unused (brand new in original packaging) spare it’s here on eBay for only £14.99:
http://ebay.us/PgKJT6?cmpnId=5338273189

Quick gym ball question – is there a better valve type than the cheapo tapered white bung? They always seem to deflate pretty quickly.

I do a 20 minute abs routine
Jack knives, planks, reverse crunches, russian twists etc

I also do 45 minute kettle bell and low impact bodyweight routines (videos from a PT on Facebook)

I also do* 90 minute freeweight sessions with lots of big compound movements – squats, deadlifts, clean and press etc. Going for progressive overload and generally 4 sets of 8 reps or some cascading sets – (12 reps at one weight, 10 reps at a higher weight and so on) as well as reps to failure.

I now have good enough core and thigh strength to be happy doing long downhill runs in the attack position.

* well, not now because the gyms are shut.

I do a basic upper body workout when the gym is open.

I’m currently doing this:

https://www.coachmag.co.uk/fitness/workouts/dumbbell-workouts

When lockdown ends and gyms open, I’m considering Olympic weightlifting.

I’d love to do some weighted squating/deadlifting at the moment but no gym/ no gear/ no room makes it hard at the mo.

From where I’m going – they will main core exercises.

Heaven knows what will happen when gyms open back up.

For squats you only need the square footage of a phonebox and you must have something heavy you can hold whilst your doing it (like a Bag For Life full of books, use your imagination)

Turkish get ups, nobody does em because they’re horrible and if an exercise is horrible it tells you it works.
I’ve seen many a beast humbled by them.
I used to be able to do a full planche so I know what works.

If you want to combine the lifting of a decent weight (not balancing on bosu balls nonsense) with using the “core” then a lot of single sided landmine variations of exercises are useful. For example, doing a standing/shoulder/bench press effort you can either involve a bit of body “English” to help it on the way or stand facing the bar square on and try and retain that position.

If any of that makes sense!

Tend to use the 80/20% rule, 80% compound lifts and 20% isolation. I have seen much more improvement from increasing weight on squats, deadlifts and romanian deadlifts than just isolated core exercises.

So i tend to do the big lifts with some core in between, so when i do a flat barbell bench press, i’ll grip bars and do leg raises in between etc. In between shoulder work exercises, i’ll do planks etc..

But i think you’ll see a lot more development in core strength from deadlifting than you will from endless crunches or other easier core exercises.

Goblet squats would be far superior than deadlift for core, deadlift is hip dominant.
Planks for time is just endurance, try them with 60kg on your back.

Do you want to be ripped (100% body fat, no crunches needed)

I’m working on the 100% body fat part, although the last 20% from 80 to 100% is proving tough…

It’ll get easier tomorrow when Gregg’s reopen.

Dr Stuart McGill’s “Big 3”:

The McGill Big 3 For Core Stability

Also a fan of Core Advantage, although my physio just wants me doing squats, squats and squats, which Core Advantage isn’t too heavy on.

Am happy to combine the two, especially as (sorry, this is becoming my catchphrase) I’m trying to recover from lower back surgery as carefully as possible.

Currently doing sets of unweighted stuff (3×10) single leg squats, forward lunges, hamstring sliders and single leg bridges. I add in some resistance band monster walks because it always feels like it’s working the glutes!

Just started doing dynamic side planks (e.g. lifting hip from floor to plank position, then down) and also mountain climbers (sliding knee to chest from a push up plank position). That last one in particular rinsed me pretty fast!

Feeling so much better for all of these already. Hoping to build up to lower reps and higher weights in a month or so, just like to take it easy to begin with, I think twingy and spasmy backs are sometimes just a result of surprising your muscles with something new so they freak out a bit.

I’ve been using a TRX kit since lockdown started and I’ve been impressed.

Always enjoyed cycling/running but hated any form of core/weights. Now I’m just as happy doing either and I can feel the all round benefit.

Watching Yoga with Abi videos on PinkBike.
Don’t actually do the workouts. But it’s a start.

I enjoy hard work, I can sit and watch people doing it for hours… 😁