You Should Do This: McGill Side Plank With Band

Planks are really good for you.

IF you do them correctly they can help teach and train a few very important concepts..

1. Pillar Strength/ Bracing

2. True “Core” Activation

3. Core Endurance

Abzzz 101:

The “core” isn’t just meant to look all awesome on the beach with your bros when your tan is banging and you’re trying to pick up bitches…. bro…

It’s also supposed to stabilize your spine and protect you from hoop, compressive and shear forces.

You know, keep you from breaking the first time you pick up a kid, have to carry groceries, or push a car out of a snow rut…<—–all of these are secondary to the more bro(ish) use listed above, obviously.

Point is, your “core” is really, really important, but a lot of folks walk around with virtually nothing going on there all day.

That is, except for their ever-growing “Keg”.

Even though it’s probably not the best way to go, most people in the gym still focus on crunches and situps for their core training.

But what about the obliques?

The redheaded step-children of the abs.

I know what you’re thinking:

Yeah, they’re important Bro, but uhhh aint no body taking body shots off your obliques….

This is true, but they do help to hold you together against rotational forces and upright against unilateral or uneven bilateral loads.<–think suitcase carries

WHICH YOU ENCOUNTER ALL THE TIME.

Sooooo, you might want some….obliques that is. You might want some obliques.

Enter the McGill Side Plank:

This exercise is deceptively awesome. ie. it’s a real bitch.

Stu McGill, it’s named after him thinks it should be included in the Big 3 core training exercises.

Along with the Curl Up and Bird Dog. <—-these are the three baseline “core” exercises that everyone should master.

What makes the McGill side plank different from other side planks is:

The scissor foot position: This helps to unload the lumbar spine compared to the feet stacked position.

The top arm is reached under the ribcage instead of put in the air or along the top of the body: This helps to get the ribcage into neutral and creates a better position and more tension on the obliques.

Just doing these correctly, emphasis on correctly, is a big enough bitch. But I gotta go and make things all extra awful….

So one day I said to myself,

Self,

If one of the primary functions of the core is to resist hoop forces how can we increase this demand?

So I started doing these.

Now, credit where it’s due. Mike Boyle had people doing these a long time ago but rowing instead of holding the band.

And I tried that, but I always felt like the row would throw things off a bit because by the time the handle got to the chest you’ve got better leverage on the weight and it’s not a challenge.

BUT, if I used a band, the tension at the chest is the HIGHEST.

So that’s what I did, and this was born (I’m sure other people, I don’t know do these, and have for a long time. Just new to me, K?)

McGill Side Plank With Band: