How to Build Core Strength

Some people get claustrophobic in elevators, I get claustrophobic in shoes.  As a child I was one of those wild jungle kids that ran around bare foot climbing trees.  My feet were calloused and hard because my parents could never keep shoes on me.  Even now I mostly wear sandals because I absolutely hate to wear shoes.  

Growing up in sunny California I was able to get away with a pair of sandals, but once I moved to the midwest I was forced to buy a pair of tennis shoes to outlast the winter months.  This past winter as I bent down to tie my shoes I realized that I am now too heavy to bend over and tie my shoes.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much my weight affected me.  Pain under my ribs from my bra being too tight, pants too short because I'm growing too big for them and a dozen other things I don't wish to recount for an audience.  

Not being able to tie my shoes was the last straw, the hump that broke the camel's back so to speak.  It was time to do something about my weight, but what could I do?  All the exercises I loved to do before my back injury just flared up my condition, part of the reason I gained all this weight in the first place.  There had to be another way.  

I needed a way to strengthen my core, without doing sit ups (they only make it worse), in order to support my back.  As a last ditch effort to do something I started doing push ups to work out my upper body and inadvertently stumbled upon a way to improve my core strength.  I now do push ups and plank type excercises everyday to improve core strength which is doing wonders to help support my back.  

After reading my post yesterday my mom tried to take my advice and do some push ups herself, but found that she couldn't quite do one.  I'll let you in on a little secret, at first I couldn't do a push up either, not even on my knees.  So today I thought I would detail exactly how to go about building up your core and arm strength so that eventually you too can do real push ups.

How to Build up to a Bona Fide Push Up

Step 1:  Start simple.  You probably won't have enough arm or core strength yet to do real push ups.  Instead you need to build muscle first.  Start off by doing push ups against a wall as pictured below.  Form is everything, keep your back straight at all times, bending at the arms.

Keep in mind that the closer you are to the wall or the wider your arms are, the easier it will be.  

Start off by doing as many of these as you can a day.  When you get up to 20-30 then move on to step 2.

Step 2:  Begin doing your push ups on an incline like a stair or bench or if you can on your knees on the floor.  Again make sure you are keeping correct form.  If you are too shaky to keep the back straight, butt down then you are not strong enough to do these right now and will need to do some planks or go back to step 1.

Work up to doing 20-30 in these postitions as well.  You may also start adding in a plank for core strength if you feel you are having a hard time keeping your back straight.

Step 3:  As you get stronger and feel more comfortable it is time to go to a full plank and real push ups.

Once you can easily hold a plank for 60 seconds and do 20-30 push ups at a time you can do more advanced exercises if you wish.

Step 4:  Get crazy.  Add leg lifts while doing the plank.  Or better yet work the obliques by turning to the side.

You can also vary your push ups by adjusting the arm width.  Wider is easier, closer together is harder.  Or you can even add a clap inbetween.  

While I can at this point do regular push ups and planks, I still prefer to stay at step 2 as I can't comfortably do 20-30 at a time on my knees.  It does take hard work and dedication, you will need to do it every day several times a day if possible to really build up your strength.  I still have a long way to go myself.  Wish me luck.