Healthy Food Chart

When I spoke in my last post about improving your workouts
by incorporating some frontal and transverse plane movements into your exercise
routines most people understood the frontal plane moves, but some readers were
confused about the transverse plane.

The transverse plane basically involves all rotational or
twisting movements. A lot of people immediately think of chops or oblique
twists for your abs as transverse plane movements, but there are hundreds of
others (some not so easy to distinguish).

I think you’ll be happy to hear that almost all transverse
plane exercises work your core to a very high degree. The reason is that your
core must tighten and stay tight throughout many of the 1-leg exercises that
resist rotation, and thus, work in the transverse plane (in addition to the
sagittal plane).

An example of this would be a 1-legged Romanian Deadlift.
Another example of a transverse/sagittal plane movement that really works your
obliques hard, but technically isn’t an abs exercise is  a 1-Arm Row. The reason is that your
obliques and core must maintain their stability and strength to resist rotation
and protect your spine.

So, as you can see whenever you begin to incorporate more
non-traditional 1-arm or 1-leg movements you will more effectively target your
core muscles, which must keep you stable throughout the set. So the next time
your looking to get more out of your workout program and work your abs without
all the twisting try incorporating some exercises where you’re resisting rotation!

Stephen
Cabral, CSCS, CPT, NS is the owner of Stephen Cabral Studio weight loss
& personal training in Boston, MA, and also offers online fitness coaching.

It was a whirlwind start to finish but it turned out to be a very productive Wednesday. Will had a great day at the daycare at Mike’s work and I had a great day at home!

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