Approaches to Core Training

As an incoming college freshman, I was sent a manual through the mail with my football team’s workouts for the summer ahead. The manual was about 75 pages of mostly strength routines and information about the testing we would undergo once we arrived for pre-season training camp. The only core routines were hand-jotted at the bottom of the typed lifting program sheets, on a single line reading, “Abs: 250 reps”. Even at 18 years old, with no formal training in exercise, I remember thinking... Gosh, there’s got to be more to it than that!

What Are the Goals of Core Training?

As with every area of strength and conditioning, the common answer, “To Enhance Performance, and Prevent Injury” applies here. A performance goal of core training is to strengthen and support the middle of the body for improved coordination of the body as a whole. Many coaches aim to prevent injury by adding support to the mid-section’s structural beam, the lumbar spine, by using draw-in and bracing techniques, emphasizing stability exercises (i.e. planks), and ensuring that training does not compromise the natural anatomical arch of the low back. Other considerations may include improving hip mobility or scapulothoracic stability, depending upon how broadly the core is defined in your program.

A Movement Balanced Approach

This approach is about being anatomically balanced in all movement planes. Historically, exercise menus of various sit-ups, crunches, and twists have focused on building the endurance of the abdominal and oblique muscles. The erector spine, quadratus lumborum, and transverse abdominis, for example, have been more often neglected by traditional core routines. There are a few ways to create balanced core routines, either by incorporating all movements of the torso into each core program, or by equally dividing the movements throughout the training week. Here is a list of core movements to build exercise menus upon:

o Flexion: (e.g. Sit-Ups)
o Extension: (e.g. Superman)
o Lateral Flexion and Extension: (e.g. Side Plank Hip Lift)
o Rotation: (e.g. Medicine Ball Side Tosses)
o Low Back Support: (e.g. Supine Dead Bug Progressions)
o Hip Mobility: (e.g. Quadruped Hip Abduction)
o Scapulothoracic Stability: (e.g. Front Plank Scapula Pinch)

The goal is to diversify the types of core exercises being performed, as no one method of core training has been deemed most beneficial in scientific literature.

Rotational Core Training:

There are two predominant approaches to rotational core training: (1) Rotational Power-Endurance, and (2) Anti-Rotation. Rotational power-endurance exercises are dynamic in nature and most often include twisting movements using resistance. Some examples include medicine ball (MB) side tosses, MB standing torso rotations, “Russian twists”, and supine “knee-up” low trunk rotations.

Anti-rotation, or rotational stability, exercises include stability movements of the torso against rotational forces created from the momentum of the limbs. Common examples include, Grey Cook’s kneeling chop and lift exercises (from his menu of FMS corrective exercises), Convertaball twists, cable core presses, and Keiser push-pulls combinations.

What’s the difference… Rotation vs. Anti-Rotation? Rotational exercises train the concentric and eccentric nature of the twisting torso, while anti-rotation exercises are focused at stabilizing the rotation of the spine to best maintain the upright posture of the body. For example, there are anti-rotational elements to many functional single limb weightroom exercises (i.e. one-leg squats or deadlifts, lunges, one-arm presses, etc.). While rotational power-endurance exercises (i.e. MB throws) are excellent to develop rotational range of motion and explosiveness, developing anti-rotational stability should first be addressed to ensure the body can handle the force production of repetitive twisting.

Eric McMahon, M.Ed., RSCC
Minor League Strength and Conditioning Coach
Texas Rangers

Plyometrics for Baseball

Over the years plyometrics have been named many different things from reactive training, explosive training, to neuromotor reactive training. No matter the name the priciples are the same if it is truly plyometrics, and for the sake of argument we will continue to use plyometrics for this specific training style in this blog. So the question is what is plyometrics?
One of the best explanations I have found explains plyometrics as: the ballistic actions which exploit the stretch-shortening cycle; exercises aimed at improving elastic/ reactive qualities of strength.(Radcliffe) These type of exercises should enable the athlete to achieve maximal rates of force development and increase muscle stiffness regulation in short periods of time.
What is the stretch-shortening cycle? It is the synergistic coupling of the eccentric and concentric actions of the muscle when rapid deceleration of the bodies mass is accompanied by the amortization (pause between changes of directions) and acceleration of the bodies mass in the opposite direction at maximal effort. For training purposes it is broken down into 4 parts or phases, the eccentric action, the amortization phase, the concentric phase and the distinguishing part of plyometrics the maximal effort and speed of the concentric phase. I put great importance on the maximal effort and speed during the concentric phase because without it the training becomes less effective as plyometric. Every exercise an athlete performs has the first 3 phases in some form, but the 4th quality makes the difference. Let me give you and example; I have heard many people call an exercise like jumping rope plyometric, but does it meet the criteria just set forth. No because it does not require maximal effort on the concentric phase as well as the eccentric demands are low in most cases. This does not require the body to recruit nueromuscularly in a maximal explosive manner, and so a plyometric exercise it is not.
In application for baseball I encourage coaches and trainers to see that every exercise can be plyometric if the 4 phases or qualities are met. This type of training should be very high intensity and so planning appropriate times for this training are very important to the baseball player’s performance. In most cases higher volumes of plyometirc training are saved for the off-season, but integration of a few exercises in-season can keep the player fast and powerful.

Brian Niswender
Co-Founder BaseballStrengthCoaching.com