People are motivated to exercise for a variety of reasons and more often, people have a myriad of goals that they are working towards at any given moment. Varying load placement is an excellent way of balancing competing goals, especially when attempting to keep gym sessions within reasonable time constraints. Changing where you place a weight allows you to selectively use some muscles over others and therefore give a little extra attention to the areas you most want to develop.
The core is almost certain to be on the priorities list for the training block regardless of other motivators, but figuring out how to maximize core training without losing focus on all else can be challenging. Changing where and how you hold a weight can place additional stress on some muscles or spare others from participating. These small adjustments can be faster than supersets and train the core muscles in a more realistic fashion.
This is because the load placement can pull the body out of balance and force the core to work harder to keep you upright. Think of carrying a heavy object like a bag or a suitcase with one hand and how it pulls you to one side. All the muscles on the other side have to work in order to maintain an erect posture. When carrying a toddler people often lean back to adjust for the weight of the child and when the child is set down many people reach for their backs, indicating the core is struggling to do its job. These are all real world examples of how our core actually works and how a strong, coordinated core can help you feel more comfortable in real life with the added benefit of creating an aesthetically pleasing midsection.
If you want to ensure you work your core without necessarily doing “ab exercises,” or give it extra attention without adding 10 more exercises; train as normal but do rows, presses, lunges, and deadlifts that work one limb at a time or hold the weight in a novel way. This method serves two purposes. First, it’s the more natural way of training the core, because you are training the core to do what it is meant to do: prevent outside forces from snapping your spine. The second reason is it saves time. Varying the load while you do a leg exercise to simultaneously work abs is more time efficient than providing a 60 min ab routine on top of 1hr long leg day, for example.
Varying load placement will not only lead to a stronger core, it can lead to better lifts, better performance, and aesthetic outcomes. The core not only moves the trunk, it connects the lower body to the upper body and keeps the spine stiff and safe when lifting loads. A core that looks, feels and functions amazingly is therefore best developed by having it do both: stabilize and move. The stronger the core the less energy leaks, so the greater the force production.
If the brain senses danger, because it knows the muscles are not strong or coordinated enough, it usually won’t let you exert yourself to your maximum potential in order to protect you from injury. The brain wants to keep you safe at all costs, so if the brain knows your muscles are going to keep your spine safe by preventing the vertebrae from slipping out of place, it’s going to allow your legs to do more. Whether that means more weight, more reps, more sets, or better form (coordination/efficiency), that extra bit will pay dividends and get you closer to whatever your ultimate goal. Better coordination and core stability mean you can lift more elsewhere which burns more fat and improves strength and muscle tone.
Being Effective and Practicing Will Help You Become More Efficient
In addition, different loading variations can also add volume to other areas such as the shoulders, biceps, forearms, hips and adductors (inner thigh). Meaning that for the person who wants to build better abs and sculpted shoulders, doing front rack dumbbell step ups can continue to focus on these goals while training legs.
The front rack position is also an excellent way to challenge the posterior chain, meaning the back side of the body, especially the lower back. By holding the weight in front of us and high, the lower back is “turned on” to prevent you from collapsing forward from the additional weight. As it is an isometric exercise in which the muscles work but no movement is produced, it has the additional advantage of being extremely safe. It allows you to more safely overload the muscle group than a Good-morning (think bowing with a bar across your back) which could be limited by skill, mobility, and fatigue. It is also more specific to what the lower back actually does most of the time: keep you upright, not bowing repeatedly, all day. In the meantime, if you, like many, program shoulders and squats on the same day, you can sneak in another set of shoulders without the added time commitment of another exercise.
It also makes the time spent working out more efficient. For athletes who must run, leap, and cut sideways, having strong hips and adductors is critical to prevent injury. Offset split squats and lunges are easier to overload (do progressively more work) the hips and adductors than clamshells. They are also more practical because the muscles are working as part of a system instead of in isolation. So if my goal was to strengthen the adductors, I could program in the following way:
Ipsilateral (same side) Loaded Split Squats 5×5
Pulling Lateral Lunges (pull yourself to the spot you step to) 4×8
Seated Hip Adductor Machine Holds (close your legs) 3x40sec holds
This program would work the legs but bias the adductors from the start. The same program done with a barbell on the back would not place the same amount of stress on the adductors and would therefore not strengthen them to the same degree. And an adductor specific program consisting of Copenhagen planks (Side plank off the top leg only), the adductor machine, and cable standing hip adduction would neglect the rest of the legs.
Holding a weight in just one hand will get your obliques as well as bias the hips or adductors depending on which side the weight is held. A weight held on the same side as the working leg will usually challenge your adductors more. Moving it towards the opposite hand of the working leg can engage more of your hips. You can single arm shoulder press or do a suitcase squat (DB squat weight held in one hand hanging on your side) to get them all.
Horizontal pushing and pulling movements such as single arm DB chest press or a single arm row will challenge the core rotationally. Whenever we walk or run the core is functioning to prevent rotation and keep our bodies facing forward. Any athlete, whether a tennis or soccer player, boxer or runner needs rotational strength to excel at their sport and prevent injury.
When you add in foot positioning such as a split stance or half kneeling, your body must now balance in a non symmetrical stance which means your hips and adductors are working overtime to prevent you from falling over while your core works rotationally. In short, changing the placement of the load will allow you to selectively recruit more muscles to complete the movement. This all translates to a stronger and more visible core, increased caloric expenditure (burn), improved coordination, and a better foundation for your other lifts which will feed back into this loop.
Weights held overhead can challenge shoulder/scapular stability and health and is incredibly challenging for the core. And if you want to take a break from all the core work and simply focus on legs, holding the weight down low can permit you to add volume on your legs without the accompanying lower back fatigue.
In short, It’s possible to get more out of your time, give the rest of the body the dedication it deserves, and simultaneously focus on core by varying your load placement, using one arm versus two, and switching up your foot positioning.