So it's winter time here in Canberra. It's pretty damn cold, so lots of layers makes it a great time to bulk! It traditionally means it's time to go and lift lots of heavy weights at the expense of more finessed exercises, like those body weight ones. But I think crossfit may have a thing or two to teach us on this angle. While I have my gripes against crossfit (don't even get me started on my rant on why box jumps are a bad idea) it's focus on whole body movements has some merits. Here is one of my favourite body weight exercises!
About a year ago I discovered the dragon flag. This exercise is crazy. It was Bruce Lee's kind of signature ab exercise, so you know it's gunna be hard... And winter is the perfect time to start working on it! It took me a good six months to be able to do the properly and is the best core exercise I've come across and as the I true above shows, it's not simple! But if you want your abs to 'pop' this is one for the books.
So here is my suggestion of how to work up to it. It assumes though that you can already do a straight leg lift when lying on the ground. Progress down the list when you can comfortably do 3 sets of 5. With all of these you keep your shoulder blades on the bench.
1) lay on a bench and do a straight leg raise, holding onto the bench above your head (like in the picture above). Just before your legs get to 90 degrees, lift you're butt off the bench, using your upper abs, rather than momentum if you can. Then place your butt back on the bench, before you lower your legs. To make this harder, lift your butt off the bench earlier in the movement.
2) use momentum to get your butt and lower back off the bench, then with bent legs bring your body back down, keeping the rest of your body as straight as possible. Your lower back and butt should hit the bench at the same time. Basically this is a negative rep with bent legs.
3) do number 2, but with straight legs. This one will hurt your abs! Don't push it and you may like to get a friend to help you maintain form by helping you as you lower yourself down.
4) with bent legs, try to pull your lower body up of the bench then lower it. Make sure your butt gets back to the bench every time when you're starting. Don't be a hero, you will need the rest.
5) number 4 with straight legs! Again you might like to get a friend to help.
6) a full dragon flag! Pull your whole straight body off the bench, then lower it back down keeping your core engaged and your legs straight, but don't let your butt touch the bench between reps.
The dragon flag changed my core workout. It took a lot of months to get there, but nothing else gave me similar results. Start now, build up that core strength and with the right diet, that core will be looking great for summer.
What other body weight exercises do you use during winter? Or in summer? Share your secrets!
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