Training the CORE for Strength Athletes

Training the core for strength athletes should be direct and straight forward, but depending on who you ask, you will get a different thought process and reasoning. Most of you know that I train my strength athletes with stiffness building core exercises. Powerlifters are very uni-dimensional – Get stiff, lift an enormous weight, and don’t fall over or buckle.

Instead of giving you my thoughts, I will let you enjoy this fantastic video where Dr. McGill explains the science as to why you should train your core this way, and how vs the bending and twisting you see people doing. A great book to read in the entire context is Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance 6th edition. I think a lot of the back and forth about how to train a strength athletes core is merely people either not knowing what they’re talking about and/or people wanting to reinvent the wheel. I digress.

“You don’t want to get loose, then try to correct. You want to get stiff, pull the slack out of the spring.. stiff, stiff, stiff to realign the line of drive through your hips, not your back.” – Dr. McGill.

Brian is available for in-person and virtual video consultations and is the Florida McGill Method provider