Exercise: Pallof Press

Who I got it from: Dr. Stuart McGill

Coaching Cues: Get yourself into an athletic position. Bend your knees slightly, stick your butt out, and keep your chest forward. With your fingers interlocked, extend your arms fully, pause for a 3 count, brace your core, then return to the starting position. Perform 3 sets of 10 reps on each side.

Why You Should be Doing it: Crunches, sit ups, and their abdominal flexion buddies kill me. By performing these exercises and exercises like them, you’re only training the front side of your core. The side and back are still left unattended. According to Dr. McGill, everytime you do a crunch, you create a force of 760 lbs on to your lumbar spine with EACH REPETITION. Let’s do the math…Say you workout 3 times a week and at the end of each workout, you do 3 sets of 15 sit ups. 760 x 15 = 11,400 lbs. of pressure/set x 3 sets = 34,200 lbs. of pressure/day x 3 days a week = 102,600 lbs of pressure on your lumbar spine/weekholycrapnowondermybackiskillingme!. The pallof press, it’s variations, along with many other core stabilization exercises that you can find on our youtube channel, will help you COMPLETELY train your core. Hey, we all want six pack abs, I get it. We can still have them AND keep our back’s good and healthy with complete core exercises. Do yourself a favor and replace your crunches at the end of your workout with this exercise. You’ll save yourself a pain in the back down the road, if you’re not experiencing pain already. Take care.

Chris