Core Training for the Triathlon

"Biking and running both place a lot of demands on your core to stabilize you. And actually as you tire towards the end of the race, as people start to slump and do all those kinds of funny things, what that's indicating is that your core is becoming fatigued, your abdominals and your back. So it's important to do some core strengthening activities. You can do a variety of different core strengtheners just with crunches. Just a basic crunch; you want to make sure your hands are resting lightly on your head and you're not lifting your head. And another variation that you can do on this is to put your legs up, you pre-contract your iliopsoas of your lower back to further isolate the abs. Very applicable to triathlon is the crunch with a twist, get those external oblique muscles. With all your training, variety is the spice of life, so keep doing different things, changing it up as you go. We call these stream-liners to get a little bit of weight out and it isolates the upper portion of the abs and any of these can be done by holding a plate above the head to add additional resistance as well. And then you can do a reverse sit up. Hands go underneath, knees to chest. Don't use momentum. So that's a variety of abdominal exercises."