[[{“value”:”Your core serves as your body’s foundation and includes your abdominal muscles, hips, pelvis, and lower back. It helps keep you balanced on your feet while protecting your spine. Your core makes doing just about every daily task and movement easier and more efficient, providing the force to run, walk, twist, and bend. This means one thing: Your core requires proper maintenance.
What’s the best way to care for your core? With proper exercise, of course. We turned to Luka Hocevar, Founder and Co-Owner of the Vigor Ground Gym in Ljubljana, Slovenia and owner of the Vigor Ground Fitness and Performance in Seattle, WA, who has been a coach for 21 years, to learn the five best bodyweight core exercises you can do to build strength faster than gym machines after 50.
RKC Plank
“Most planks you see are done without intent, sloppy, and with it, don’t engage the core the way that would build real strength. Instead of resting on your joints for minutes, the goal of an RKC plank is to contract your muscles as hard as possible for 10 to 20 seconds,” explains Hocevar.
Start in a forearm plank with your elbows under your shoulders and your legs extended behind you.
Activate your core, squeeze your glutes, and squeeze your heels together.
At the same time, drive your elbows down into the ground to activate your lats.
Keep your body straight from your head to your heels.
Hold the position for 10 to 20 seconds. (If you can hold it for 30 seconds, you’re not doing it properly.)
RELATED: If You Can Complete These 4 Exercises Without Stopping After 50, Your Body Strength Is Exceptional
Reverse Crunches
“When you do a normal crunch, you pull your head up toward your toes. The reverse crunch does the opposite—you lift your bottom and knees up toward your stomach. This targets the bottom half of your ab muscles, which are usually harder to engage with normal exercises,” Hocevar says.
Lie flat on your back with bent knees and feet flat on the ground, hip-width apart.
Place your hands at your sides, palms facing down.
Brace your core and gradually curl your tailbone off the floor, bringing your knees to your chest with control.
Hold at the top for a moment before lowering without letting your feet touch the ground.
RELATED: This 8-Minute Standing Routine Builds More Core Strength Than 30 Minutes of Crunches After 50
Side Plank
“This works the oblique part of the abs which tend to be left out with most ab training, especially after the age of 50. The side plank is an isometric exercise where you support your body on one forearm and the outer edge of one foot, holding your torso in a straight, diagonal line off the floor,” Hocevar tells us. “Unlike standard front planks that target your front abdominal wall, the side plank challenges the lateral core on the sides of your body that resist side bending and hip dropping.”
Begin by lying on your side and placing your elbow below your shoulder.
Your feet should be stacked.
Lift your hips off the floor so that your body forms a straight line from your head to your feet.
Hold for the prescribed time on each side.
RELATED: If You Can Hold These 4 Standing Positions After 55, Your Core Strength Is Elite
Hollow Body Hold
“The hollow hold (or hollow body hold) is a gymnastics based core isometric exercise where you lock your entire body into a slight ‘banana’ shape. By pressing your lower back flush into the floor and extending your arms and legs, you force your abdominal wall to support your entire body lever under constant tension,” Hocevar explains.
Lie flat on your back with your arms extended overhead.
Press your lower back into the bed while lifting your legs and shoulders off the surface, maintaining a slight curve with your body.
Hold the position for the prescribed time.
RELATED: 5 Body-Sculpting Moves To Build a Lean Waistline
Dead Bug
“Think of the Dead Bug as an upside-down Bird-Dog. Because your entire back is supported flat against the floor, it takes 100% of the strain off your neck and lower back while heavily training your deep core muscles to keep your spine stable as your arms and legs move,” Hocevar tells us. “Moving opposite limbs simultaneously sharpens brain-body motor control, which is beneficial to people over 50.”
Lie face-up with your arms extended toward the sky and knees lifted and bent to 90 degrees.
Press your lower back into the mattress as you gradually lower your left arm and extend your right leg.
Return to the center.
Then, lower your right arm and left leg.
Continue to alternate.
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