Not verbatim, but along these lines: “If you don’t know exactly what your next workout is supposed to do for you, you’d be better off sitting on the sofa and letting the hour pass.” This is his way of stating the specificity of training rule. Sadly, the only time I manage this is when I run backwards on a treadmill.Ī number of studies, such as this one, have demonstrated little relationship between core training and “functional performance”-stuff like competing in one of the sports that we like to compete in.Īnd then there’s Jack Daniels’s famous quote, which I stumbled across again recently. I like showing off in the gym as much as the next guy or gal. I think people who do core exercises get good at doing core exercises. I’ve yet to be dislodged from the “specificity of training” principle. That is, they should have attempted to measure a change in some “core” variable as well as a “strength” variable. If I were a big core fan, I might have suggested they should also have measured something like “minutes holding a traditional plank position” in addition to number of pushups or one-rep max strength. This didn’t surprise me, though I’m not sure the researchers measured the right variable.

The Newswire study found that subjects doing pushups on an unstable surface got no strength gains versus subjects who used a flat floor. No wonder I’m thinking about core exercises again.Ī quick review. A few hours later, I read the Newswire review of a study about push-ups on instability devices.

Two days ago, my local newspaper published an article on core training that included photos of a local woman, a personal trainer, doing things on a balance ball that I can barely manage on dry, motionless land.

2 week running challenge