Core Muscles - best routine

It is health industry propaganda that abdominal training is important or even necessary. Books that are dedicated predominantly to abs are scams, plain and simple, their success a function of a lazy and misguided culture.

Most common exercises, as elementary as the push-up, will activate most stabilizer muscles of the ab and lower back region (including the two muscles you listed). A whole spectrum of gym exercises will do the same.

Gene funny you say that, one of my old Sensai's told me that 2 mins of workout on your Abs (Weighted crunch's) is more than enough for once a week.

Is this because we use our core muscles so much through out the day and doing other routines?

Posted by: @JNJax

Is this because we use our core muscles so much through out the day and doing other routines?

Essentially, yes.

Do some squats, deadlifts and cleans then tell me you still need 15 minutes of abs 3 days per week.

Posted by: @Gene

It is health industry propaganda that abdominal training is important or even necessary. Books that are dedicated predominantly to abs are scams, plain and simple, their success a function of a lazy and misguided culture.

I believe he was refering to the core. The core is defined as the Lumbo-Pelvic-Hip region of the body, which encompasses much more than the abs.

If the Core is unstable and does not remain a solid foundation throughout the movement, it will not allow optimal force reduction, production and transference to occur throughout the kinetic chain, making it very important to include a variety of core stabilization exercise with your resistance training routine.

Just my .02

I never train my "core" and my abs are hard as rocks. I feel that training your abs is mostly a waste, because as long as you are training hard and heavy in your compound lifts you will strengthen your core well beyond what isolation work could do for it.

I prefer Integrated Stabilization Training to recruit the core, for example dumbell chest press while on a stability ball.

I noticed the greatest strength gains while I incorporated this type training. It also helped break my homeostasis rut I was in and I saw some added muscle hypertrophy.