5 minute core workout

Ever find yourself dreaming of strong and stable core muscles, let’s be honest, looking pretty good at the same time. Now you probably don’t need to be sold on the importance of a strong and regular core routine, but what if life gets in away, and you simply don’t find hours in your week to dedicate to core training?

Well, in that case, here’s my five minute core routine for making the most out of a short time you may have in your day.

Exercise 1: special dead bug

Your opposite side arm and leg are connected and pressing into one another. In this case, my right knee is pressing into my left hand. Whilst my left arm is stopping it from coming any closer to my chest. That way for not only building the stability through the movement, but also a diagonal contraction. Just remember that as you’re lowering your leg towards the floor, you want to make sure that your lower back doesn’t come off and overextend. So in other words, you’re not losing control of your core, you’re trying to compress it even more to make sure that there’s a full control over your pelvic area. Nice and slowly perform 30 seconds on each side.

Exercise 2: chest press

Here we’re not so much concentrating on our arms as we are bringing our upper body up towards our knees. Once again, as with a dead bug, we’re trying to create a tension between our palms of your hands and tops of your knees. So you’re bringing your knees towards your chest while your arms are stopping it from coming any closer to you, bring your chest and your upper back as high off the ground as possible. And try to maintain that contraction for about five to 10 seconds. Then take five seconds rest and repeat for a duration of a minute.

Exercise 3: shoulder taps

This one is one of our favourites, a real test for your pelvic control and the strength and core stability. And here, we’re going to bring your knees about an inch above the ground. If you are able to sustain yourself in this position for whole duration of a minute add a shoulder tap, but be careful to make sure your hips stay as still as possible. So you want to minimise the rocking from left to right.

Exercise 4: plank knee lifts

Pretty straightforward and easy, but make sure you do it correctly. Instead of lifting your hips up and down, you need to fully control your knees, so perform the movement through bending and extending your knees, not so much lifting and lowering your bum. And as always continue for a minute.

Exercise 5: side plank

Let’s be honest, a great core routine would not be complete without a good old side plank. And here you can add a little bit of a twist to it, well, literally. You’re going to be rotating the top elbow over to the bottom elbow simultaneously bringing your hips higher to the ceiling, try to perform it with full control, moving through the waistline. Including a side plank in your routines can very much so expose any imbalances between your right and left side of the body.

Be patient and see the progress throughout the weeks, you’ll be surprised how much better your control will be if you dedicate the time to improve the areas that are weaker and balance your body out.