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Torso Exercises
Why strengthen the torso? The torso is your link between the upper body and the lower body. You can't transfer the strength of your lower body, the most powerful muscles in your body, to an oar in your hands with a weak torso. Examples of ineffective power application caused by a weak torso are when the body collapses as the oar comes to the body, or if you shoot your slide because the back can't handle the power generated from the legs.
Torso or core muscles are located between the hips and chest. These muscles include the rectus abdominus, obliques (internal/external), transverse abdominus, quadratus lomborum, spinal erectors and the multifidus muscles. For the purpose of this discussion we will refer to these muscles as the torso.
How do you strengthen the torso? Crunches are predominantly a flexion/extension exercise which means the torso moves forward and backwards and targets only one aspect of torso strength. You also need strength in the muscles of the torso that move laterally (side to side), rotate/twist and stabilize.
Torso training can be performed 4-5x per week. You can do flexion/extension on Day 1, rotation on Day 2, lateral on Day 3 and stabilization on Day 4. Then repeat. Another way to do it is to pair up two of the movements each day.
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