The 3 Hardest Core Exercises You'll Ever Try

The core is a term used to describe more than just your abdominal muscles. It's a collection of muscles which stabilize and move your spine, pelvis and shoulder blades. The following three exercises are some of the most advanced out there. They will not only help to strengthen your six-pack abs, but also a lot of other muscles at the same time. The first exercise on our list is the dragon flag. Apart from your core, you will also need strength in your lats, chest, traps, quads, forearms, triceps, biceps and brachialis. A dragon flag is typically performed lying face up on a bench or on the ground with your hands grabbing an object behind or above you for support. From there you raise your body upwards until it's almost vertical while your shoulder blades stay planted on the ground. From there you lower yourself down with not allowing any part of your body to touch the ground except for your upper back. The goal is to keep your body completely straight without arching your back or bending your legs. This is really important because if you arch your back you will load up your spine with unnecessary pressure while doing the whole movement with the strength of your upper body and the arms and not your core. If this exercise is too hard for you, you can decrease the lever by doing it with only one leg or doing it in an L position. The next exercise is the ring rollout. To do this movement you will not only need a solid amount of core strength but also a huge support from your chest, lats, serratus anterior, triceps and your forearms. As with the dragon flag it's really important to hold the body tension and not arching your back. Always aim for a posterior pelvic tilt and decrease the progression if you're not able to hold this position. To make this exercise easier you have a lot of options. All those options following the same principle. You decrease the lever. You can do that by executing the exercise on your knees, move the position of your feet forward or setting the rings up higher. We suggest to choose one of the last two options because if you do the rollout on your knees you will easier fall into an arched back position because of the bent legs. When it comes to the grip you should do it with a normal grip or with a false grip. It's a tiny bit easier to do it with a false grip because you will decrease the lever a little bit. Don't allow your wrists to do a passive extension under the pressure and always aim for a You can also do this movement without rings but with an ab wheel. It's very similar. Here you can use a wall to progress with this movement to higher levels. The third exercise are the hollow body windshield wipers. This exercise will not only train your rectus abdominis but also your obliques. Instead of just laying on your back and moving your straight legs from one side to the other, you also raise your shoulder blades up from the ground and hold yourself in this hollow body position. As with the two other exercises before you should avoid an arched back position so always take care that your lower back has contact with the ground. To stabilize your body you have to place your arms on the ground but the goal is to use as less arm support as possible. Always place your arms to the side in line with your hips. If you place them behind you it will be much easier because you don't have to raise your shoulder blades actively from the ground anymore. Now we have a small bonus for you. The backflip. The backflip is a great exercise for your core but the downside is that you first have to learn the technique which really takes a while. You first stretch your abs and then explosively contract them very tight to withstand the centrifugal forces. The smaller you tuck the faster you spin and the more force you have to work against. So you have a higher range of motion and a high intensity. We want you to tell us if you want us to make a backflip tutorial. Please comment below. Now you have another proof that there are not only sit-ups for training your abs. These exercises are much harder and might not be the best ones to start with as a beginner. But if you reach a plateau you might try them. If you want to build the strength to be able to do them you could use our workout programs which you can find on the Cali Move website. If you have further questions please leave a comment. Thanks Alex!