Ultimate Sandbag Exercises Take Core Strength to Another Level

Ian Vaughn, DVRT Master (Creator of Real World Strength & Muscle and DVRT For Obstacle Course Racing)

Ever taken a workout from a trainer or a group instructor’s class and constantly bark out “keep your core tight!”. It reminds me of a scene in the movie “I Love You Man” where Andy Sandberg is yelling this to as his client while they toss a medicine ball back and forth.

This is funny because we often give cues where we end up having no idea what they really mean? There’s a fine line coaching someone that’s absorbs the feedback in positive manner versus a wanna be drill sergeant screaming something just to fill the void of empty “air space.”

This is why many seem to become obsessed with high reps, time and blaring loud music to avoid what really needs to be focused on. With DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises,  I can get you to not only to understand, but feel as well using your entire body to strengthen your core.

The core goes beyond the anterior front lining of the stomach. It ranges from the quads, all the way to the mid chest – so this means the hips and shoulders play a huge part on how to really utilize the core in very little time.

The core is far more detailed than just hitting your “abs”. See how these Ultimate Sandbag exercises do more than just make your abs sore!

You don’t need a entire hour killing yourself doing crunches “to feel the burn”. Feeling it is often a trap we all fall into when trying to pick the most effective exercises. Understanding how the body works and what our movement does to improve the way our bodies function is far more important.

If we base our training just on exercises that give that infamous “burn” and expect a dramatic increase in your athletic endeavors we are going to get REALLY frustrated with the results. As Dr. Stuart McGill, Professor of Spine Biomechanics has this to say on over training:

“Many of the athletes that I am asked to see work too hard at the wrong things. They brutalize their body with ill-chosen exercises, believing that doing them even harder will result in higher performance. The point here is that often this approach will result in injury, or in not achieving the performance that is possible. Squeezing a few more reps out of exercise set is rarely productive for performance. It is simply stupid to destroy the body. Always consider skill development, perfection of motion and motor patterns, and avoidance of technique-compromising fatigue”
– Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance, 5th Edition (pg. 171)

So to summarize, we’re more than just muscles. Working on our skills to build strength in a focused manner is of the essence. This is why our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises focused around our drags are way more powerful than many people think!

These DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises aren’t just about planking, or bracing, or moving a weight side to side. Rather, they can really define what real strength is by teaching our body to use the ground, brace correctly depending upon how where the Ultimate Sandbag is on the drag, and teach our core to be “quiet” while the extremities move.

Training the specific chains of the body not only make the body stronger, move better, but become more resilient because these types of Ultimate Sandbag exercises teach the body to be strong in the way it is designed to move. In this DVRT video tutorial, I breakdown these Ultimate Sandbag exercises into plank drag progressions on why and how to use your whole body as one piece best suited for your needs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzGZFdqv-U0&feature=youtu.be

Once you’ve applied these great Ultimate Sandbag exercises into your program you’ll feel a huge difference in how it supposed to be done. It isn’t just doing these types of movements that are important it is really grasping the why’s and how’s that give them real power!

If you’d like to see more great exercises like these, I have a new DVRT program for Real World Strength now available HERE.