Progressing Core Workouts Part 2: Breathing

If you didn't read the first part of this series, you can go back and read that HERE.

Part two of this series will be on using breathing to progress your core exercises.

If you aren’t sure how much of a difference focused breathing can make, give this a try. Grab an ab wheel and roll out to full extension, now take a full breath. Now collect yourself off the ground.

 It doesn’t matter how great your body tension is when climbing if you can’t breathe while you’re maintaining that tension. While there will be times where you are under so much tension that you can't breath for a brief moment, the majority of your climbing won't be done under those conditions. Expanding your ability to breathe while under great tension will allow you to climb longer through tense positions before powering down. 

For those reasons, learning to breathe under tension can be a game changer for your climbing, and it’s one of our favorite ways to challenge core exercises.

To use this progression, you will move into the most difficult position of an exercise that you can hold under control, pause while maintaining a braced core, and cycle a full inhale and exhale while remaining rigid through your midsection, and then you will return to a resting position. An example of this would be doing a roll out on an ab wheel, pausing when you are completely extended, cycling a breath while keeping your midsection from sagging, then returning back to the start position before repeating.

In this video we return to the Pallof press to show an example of how to incorporate breathing into your core exercises.

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Progressing Core Workouts Part 3: Correct Effort

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Progressing Core Workouts Part 1: Using Correct Form