is side plank worth adding into warm ups?

I was just curious about this one since we already have normal plank and reverse plank. Would it be okay to add side plank in as well?

I currently do core strength exercises 3x a week. Its really just prone bridges, reverse crunches and side plank. Since prone bridges is essentially the same as the normal straight arm plank, I am thinking these core strength exercises are pointless. I am not sure about reverse crunches though? However, side plank does seem like an important one to me. These are all exercises ive got from my old strength training routines.

Yes

Yes, I did it with my male gymnasts. Quite tricky, I haven't used it so much with my female gymnasts but I have seen them do plenty of side planks or something similar in a sort of hip/side crunch variant.

I don't bother myself with any of the elbow planks though I do end up doing them occasionally when I visit a CF gym sometimes and they do as a finisher. 4 for the core and all.

For my girls, we will also do rear planks on their elbows/forearms at times. Especially if they are dealing with a wrist injury.

okay cool, thanks for that! basically this is what i use to do:

5x/week FSP-pre-requisite warm up (so thats the usual straight arm plank, reverse plank etc).

Then in addition to that I did core strength 3x a week which was:

Plank (on elbows) 3xF (till failure)

Reverse Crunches 3x12

Side Bridges 3xF

Now the reason I was doing this is because I came from a strength training background, following many articles from Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson and Mike Boyle. They recommended these three exercises for full core strength development, especially for beginners. However I figured that since I am doing FSP plus GB WODs soon, it should really be more than enough core work.

So thats why I wanted to eliminate it, but incorporate side bridges into FSP-Pre-requisite. My core strength is REALLY poor at the moment. But I am guessing that it will get stronger through the workout I am doing on this site.

I am eliminating reverse crunches though, is that a bad idea? Their rational behind reverse crunches was that it targets the lower abs I think, and the other exercises dont target that area properly. I just felt that it should be okay to eliminate since I am doing all the gymnastics exercises.

I've been thinking about incorporating side dishes and side rocks into my FSP prerequisites, especially since I'd love to be able to do side levers. Glad you asked the question.

Side planks are awesome, you should add them.

Edit: Especially if you can do them correctly.

slizzardman said:

Side planks are awesome, you should add them.

Edit: Especially if you can do them correctly.

Hey Slizz. Could you outline any key points in getting the side plank right. I've been doing this:

- On one arm. Not on my elbow

- 90 degree angle between my arm and bodyline

- Head position in line with body

- Free leg aligned and resting on bottom leg

- Free arm inline with body

- Keeping my shoulder packed by contracting the lat

- Swap arms every 15 sec for a total of 60 sec on each arm

Nothing wrong with being on the elbow, but having the feet elevated to make you horizontal with the ground (eventually) will be a nice way to scale this and make it more difficult. As long as your lower back isn't arched it all sounds good.

That's basically it, the one point that many find hardest is to prevent the body from twisting at the hips.

- Hips and waist aligned

I use them with my male and female power tumblers and over time I see huge differences. It does take some time to properly train them in hip placement but once they have it they are solid. I wouldn't recommend it for any beginners though as most of them are so soft in the core it is a waste of effort.

For them I use hanging knee lifts to the sides on stall bars.