VIDEO
Kettlebell Russian Twist
- Core
- Abs
- Triceps
- Shoulders
- Obliques
Level:Intermediate
Trainer:Brad Cooper
Equipment:Kettlebell
Kettlebell Russian Twist
- Core
- Abs
- Triceps
- Shoulders
- Obliques
Level:Intermediate
Trainer:Brad Cooper
Equipment:Kettlebell
Sit on your butt with your feet off the ground and grabbing the kettlebell with both hands. Start with the kettlebell just above the outer side of one of your hips. Look foward throughout the move, keep your core braced. Then pull the kettlebell across your body until it's just above the outer side of your other hip. Repeat for the desired amount of repetitions.
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Blog
СWorking on the core muscles is not only essential for good looks, but also for your health. In this article, we will talk about core muscles and how to develop them. So without any further ado, let us begin.
Core Muscles: What Do They Consist of?
To put it simply, core muscles consist of two main groups, which are central and peripheral. The central muscles resemble a sac that protects internal organs by covering the abdominal cavity. In other words, we need these muscles to keep the vital organs safe. In fact, if we didn’t have these muscles, a slight kick in the abdominal area would cause significant damage to vital organs. Central muscles can be divided into several parts, which are:
Front - abs
Lateral parts - oblique muscles and the surrounding muscles
Back - the muscles that support the spine
Upper wall - diaphragm
Lower wall - pelvic floor muscles
The second group of core muscles, the peripheral muscle group, consists of the trapezius, the latissimus dorsi muscle, the pectoralis muscle, the buttocks, and the muscles of the shoulder girdle. These muscles are essential for our posture and back health, which means that developing those is rather important for everyone who wants to be healthy and look beautiful.
Both central and peripheral core muscle groups are extremely significant for our health, posture, as well as the way we look. Therefore, in the next paragraph, we are going to talk about the best exercises for strengthening these muscles.
Best Workouts for Strengthening Core Muscles
So we made it pretty clear that developing core muscles is important for pretty much everyone. So what exercises can you do to strengthen these muscles? Well, here they come:
High plank
Supine toe tap
Hollowman
Bird Dog
Crunches
Bicycle crunch
Superman
Warrior crunch
Supine leg lifts
Elbow to knee
Bridge
Mountain climber
V-sit
V-ups
Side plank
Plank shoulder taps
Turkish get-up
Elbow plank twists
As you can see, there are many workouts that will no doubt help you develop core muscles and eventually become healthy and fit. So why don’t you grab your fitness mat and try at least some of these useful exercises to see their effectiveness yourself?
Wrapping Up
Not only are core muscles essential for beautiful abs, but also rather important for your back health and posture. Furthermore, these muscles protect your internal organs, which is a pretty important feature. Therefore, if you regularly train but you always avoid core exercises thinking they are not as important as the workouts for your legs or arms, you better stop doing that because core muscles are perhaps the most important muscle group in your body.
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Gorgeous abs are perhaps the biggest dream of all fitness enthusiasts as well as professionals. However, not many people know how to get abs and pretty often make a lot of mistakes while trying to work on their abs. Therefore, in this article, we will talk about abs and how to get them quickly and stress-free
Your Abs Are What You Eat
Not many people know it, but your diet is extremely important for achieving relief abs. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you have to starve yourself or follow weird diets, but working out is definitely not enough to achieve such a goal. The thing is to build muscles you need protein, which means that you have to include more protein into your diet. At the same time, high qualities of sugar and Natrium (salt) provoke swelling that sort of hides the relief of the muscles even if you don’t have much belly fat. Thus, to get the six-pack, you have to make your diet healthier as well as drink enough water, and together with exercising, it will help you get the body of your dreams.
Don’t Overestimate Your Abilities
Many people think that the more they exercise and the less they eat - the better. Obviously, it’s not true. You have to adequately evaluate your abilities and consider those while working out and dieting. Trust us, starving yourself and exercising for 3 hours every day won’t bring better results. It will only damage your health, both physical and mental. So don’t worry if you cannot see the results after a few weeks of training and healthy dieting, just keep going and you’ll surely reach your goal.
Core and Back Muscles Are Essential
Probably 90% of people who would like to get abs usually forget about the core muscles and work only on their abs. This is a huge mistake. As a matter of fact, to have relief abs, you have to work on your core muscles simply because these muscles are close to each other, moreover, abs are a part of the core, so it’s impossible to get relief abs without working on the core. Therefore, working on your core will significantly boost the entire process. In addition to that, you shouldn’t forget about the back muscles. You see, our posture heavily influences the way our belly looks. You have probably already seen skinny people with weird and unproportioned bellies. Well, that happens because they have weak back muscles and their spine is curved in the way that makes their bellies sort of come forward. So in order to avoid that, make sure to strengthen your back muscles too.
Best Workouts for Abs
To wrap up, we would like to list some of the best workouts for abs, core, and back. So here they come:
Plank
Diagonal twists
Deadlift
Pushups
Bent-over row
Plank push-ups
Pull-up
Crunches
TRX suspension row
Leg lifts from lying position
Lat pulldown
Final Thoughts
A stunning six-pack is the biggest dream of many fitness enthusiasts and, luckily, it’s totally possible to make it come true. So consider the things we talked about in this article and start moving toward your goal now.
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Many people mistakenly believe that developing shoulder muscles is not important. Well, obviously, it’s not true. So why is it important to work on the shoulder muscles and how to improve them is the topic of this article.
What Are Shoulder Muscles?
Shoulder muscles are basically the muscles that provide shoulder movement. These muscles are voluntary, meaning we control their work. The main functions of the shoulder muscles are the following:
Holding the shoulder joint and its bones in place
Allowing your shoulder joint to rotate
Providing the ability to move your arms forward, up, and down
Shoulder joint protection
As you can see, these muscles are extremely important for performing basic things such as lifting objects or holding something. In addition to that, these muscles are rather important for certain sports that require lots of jerky movements in the shoulder area. For example, dancers, basketball players, tennis players, swimmers, and others. All in all, shoulder muscles do a lot of work, which is why we have to develop them.
Why Do I Need to Work on My Shoulder Muscles?
We have already partly answered this question above, but we’ll give you a more detailed answer just to make things clear. First of all, strong shoulder muscles are a must for many athletes, dancers, and fitness enthusiasts who actively involve arms and shoulders in their activities. The thing is, these muscles are rather fragile, and jerky movements can lead to an injury. At the same time, if one works on these muscles regularly, they significantly lower the risks of possible injuries. But what about people who are not professional dancers or athletes? Well, even if you are not a pro athlete, you still need to go to the gym at least a few times a week to maintain your health, and simple workouts can also cause an injury if you have weak shoulder muscles. So as you might have already understood that working on the shoulder muscles is a must for everyone.
Exercises for Improving Shoulder Muscles
So what workouts can you do to improve your shoulders? Well, why don’t you consider the following ones:
Push-ups
Barbell overhead press
One-hand push-ups
Half-kneeling landmine press
Dumbbell shrugs
Arnold press
Sideways dumbbells
Push press
Barbell press
Wide-grip seated row
Final Thoughts
Stronger muscles minimize the risks of having severe injuries while working out or even doing your regular chores. So no matter if you are a pro athlete or dancer or just a regular person, you should consider working on your shoulder muscles.
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While working on their arms, many people concentrate on the biceps and completely forget about the workouts for the triceps. Of course, working on your triceps is super important since you have to develop these muscles in order to have strong and relief arms. So how to train your triceps and grow beautiful muscles? This is the question we’ll try to answer in this article.
Is It Difficult to Develop Triceps?
Many people believe that growing triceps is extremely challenging, but luckily, it’s not true. The thing is anatomically triceps are rather easy to train and eventually grow. At the same time, these muscles easily get sore after training and therefore impact your entire arm workout routine since you aren’t able to do certain exercises. In general, working on triceps is not as difficult as many people think, yet it still requires some time and effort.
How Long Does It Take To Grow Triceps?
The amount of time it takes to develop triceps depends on what you are striving for as well as what you start with. For example, if you are skinny and you just want to make your arms more fit, a few months will be enough. In case you want to grow really pronounced muscles, you might need from 6 to 12 months. At the same time, if you have some extra pounds, working on your triceps can take longer since you also have to lose weight. As you can see, every situation is different, so it’s hard to give you the precise amount of time you’ll need to grow your triceps.
How Often Should I Exercise?
To grow any muscle group as well as be healthy and fit, you need to work out at least three times a week. Of course, you need to understand that even if you try to develop triceps, you still have to work on other muscle groups, so all the muscles in your body are harmoniously developed. In general, most trainers recommend doing 4-6 exercises for triceps during your workouts. Each exercise has to be done in 2-3 sets, while the set has to have 10-15 repetitions. In addition to that, you have to keep in mind that you should start with simple workouts and gradually move towards more advanced ones to see the results of your training sessions.
Exercises for Triceps
Of course, many of you are interested in the best workouts for developing triceps muscles. Well, first of all, you can head to our video sessions and rain with our experienced coaches. Secondly, you can check out the following workouts:
Close-grip bench press
Tricep dips
Lying triceps extension
Isolated triceps extension
Cable rope tricep pushdown
JM press
Diamond push-ups
Underhand cable pushdowns
One-arm overhead extension
Dumbbell tricep extensions
Bench dip
Dumbbell floor press
Push-up
One arm kettlebell floor press
45-degree incline dumbbell chest press
Wrapping Up
Gorgeous triceps is a dream come true for any fitness enthusiast and professional athlete, so no wonder why these exercises are so popular. Head to our videos section and explore triceps workouts from our instructors.
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After the abdominal muscles are prepared, the obliques are the next step. The obliques are several groups of abdominal muscles on either side of the main body. The external obliques are at the top and the internal obliques are at the bottom. Training them with functional exercises includes flexion, twisting, and other rotational movements. In order to properly exercise the lateral muscles, however, it is important to remember that most oblique exercises also involve the other abdominal muscles, especially the medial transverse muscles. Therefore, you need to engage certain areas of the abdominal abs in a conscious manner.
Lateral twists
The basic exercise for the abdominal obliques is the lying lateral twist. Begin with lying on your side with your arm bent at the elbow to support your head. Extend the elbow toward the leg slowly, performing a purposeful contraction of the abdominal obliques.
Prone lateral push-ups
This exercise is fine for developing the neuromuscular links between the abs and the brain. Lying on the back, pull your left elbow in a slow tempo towards the opposite knee. Perform 12-15 reps on each side, and try to achieve a special burning feeling.
Lateral push-ups on a fitness ball
The advantage of this exercise is that you achieve a wide range of motion by bending your body slowly and controlling each movement over the ball. As you lift, feel your side abdominals twist and stretch as you descend. Place your arms behind your neck and do not move them apart.
Cross contacts
Make sure that your legs are straightened up while you are lying on your back. Place your hands on the back of your head and lift your head and shoulder blades slightly. Then do a twisting motion, extending your legs with the opposite arm straight. Perform the same movement for the other side. Repeat at least 20 times.
Lift your hips
Make sure you are lying straight on one side. Your feet should be lying on top of each other and your free arm fixed at the waist. You need to lift your torso so that your body line is completely straight at peak amplitude. At the apex, pause briefly to emphasize the work of the obliques. As you lower your torso, your thighs are only gently touching the ground and the muscles are not fully relaxed.
Developed obliques provide the framework for your abs and make them look amazing, so if you really want to have a great abdomen, you should work both your abs and obliques.
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