Skip Crunches and Roll Your Way to a Better Core

Sometimes it can be more beneficial to train your core at a lower level than utilizing popular core exercises. This is where rolling enters the chat. Dr. Lee Burton recommends starting at a more fundamental level for core stability training. Many people start with advanced exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, and explosive rotational movements that use a high threshold strategy. However, these exercises can overwork and overwhelm the small, postural muscles. Seemingly simple progressions that take you from rolling to standing are a great entry point because they rely on disassociation of the upper body and lower body. With these rolls, you don’t want to use your big muscles like the hip flexors and extensors - don’t think log roll. We want to deactivate those prime movers. For the upper body, start supine with one arm down, lift your head and reach the other arm over your face and let your upper body pull your lower body into a prone position, pulling the down arm under you as you roll. Come up to your elbows in a sphinx position, shoot an arm under and use the upper body to lead yourself back into a roll to supine. The lower body roll follows the same sequence, just leading with a raised leg. Try hand-to-knee and hand-to-ankle variations for a greater challenge. Look for asymmetries. As you gain more control of the movements, move from sphinx to quadruped to squat to stand and back down through the entire upper body roll sequence. For the lower body roll to stand, use a half-kneel instead of the squat posture. Incorporate these rolling exercises into your core stability training to improve your overall core strength and stability. 0:00 Intro 0:31 Fundamental Rolling Patterns 3:00 Intermediate Rolling Technique 4:06 Rolling Flows