is side plank worth adding into warm ups?

[juiop]

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.

[Cole Dano]

Yes

[Blairbob]

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.

[juiop]

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.

[Blythe Tait]

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.

[Joshua Naterman]

Side planks are awesome, you should add them.

Edit: Especially if you can do them correctly.

[Bobby B]

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

[Joshua Naterman]

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.

[Cole Dano]

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

[Troy Rodriguez]

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.