How To Strengthen Core Muscles With Pike Exercises Video

Advanced sit-ups strengthen your lower core. Try these exercises and stretches for your workout routine in this fitness video.

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Strengthens stomach muscles
Slow, even motions
Relax your shoulders
Come down one vertebrae at a time

About this Author

Amy McCauley has been a certified personal fitness trainer since 1995. She specializes in pilates, combat cardio, core conditioning and overall strength training. She works with clients ranging in age from 16 - 69. She has worked at Gold's Gym in Wilmington, NC since 2006. She loves her job because it gives her the opportunity to change peoples' lives in a positive way.

AMY MCCAULEY: Hi, here's how to do a pike exercise. The exercise strengthens the center of your stomach, the rectus abdominals from your ribcage down to your pelvis. So we're going to relax all the way down. Arms are going to float up over your head. Shoulders are down the spine. Neck is long. To modify this, you're going to grab onto your legs, tuck the chin just a little bit, reach up, engage the core. Think about a nice strong V-pose. Relax the shoulders, try not to choke the neck, and then you're coming down slowly one vertebra at a time coming down to the mat. A full version of a pike is take the arms over the head. You want to avoid the shoulders coming up towards the ears, let them slide down your back. Take a nice deep breath in, lift, locking your core and exhale as you lower. Think about slow, fluid motion. Exhale up, inhale lower. If you want to make this more challenging, when you come down, don't let your feet touch the mat or your arms. You're just going to keep repeating up and down, nice and slow. Reach and lift, repeating exercise to fatigue as many as you comfortably can. This is a more advanced move, so if you've just began, try to just grabbing on to those thighs. Lifting up and lowering. So things to avoid: You want to avoid jerking the body, kind of snapping the body up and down. We want to avoid looking like this. We don't want it fast. We want it very slow and controlled. Try to breathe out and breathe in, nice and easy motion all the way up and all the way down. And that is how you do your pike.

How to Strengthen Core Muscles with Pike Exercises Video

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