Commentary:Airman takes on the gym: Core Stability

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Kelsey Waters
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Abs. Just hearing the name of that muscle group gives me the chills.

My abs, short for abdominals, are probably one of the weakest muscles on my body. But abs are important because they help my body's stability, amongst other things. So this week I decided to focus all of my attention on my abs, when I went to my weekly class.

This week I did the Core Stability class at the Northside Fitness Center. The class was 45 minutes of pure ab work. It was intense.

The class was set up into stations. I did one minute at a particular station before moving to the next exercise.

The stations varied in difficulty on my own personal scale, which ranges from, "okay this is a good work out", to "my muscles burn like the fire of 1,000 red, hot suns".

The exercises ranged from Russian twists with a dumbbell, to leg lifts and some other wonderfully-horrible exercise called the "window wiper".

I noticed a lot of the exercises involved staying away from the usual crunches and sit ups and focused more on using the whole body to exercise the abs.

A great example of this was planking with your legs suspended. There were two sets of ropes that hung about six inches off of the floor, and I had to place my feet in those while holding my body in a plank position, and either rocking back and forth or swinging your legs from side-to-side.

This exercise definitely clocked in at "burns like the fire of 1,000 suns". Planks are difficult for me when I'm just doing them normally -- let alone if I'm doing these "super-planks".

The class went through the cycle of exercises twice, before we did stretches that were more like semi-difficult yoga.

The class was wonderful!

I came into my office glowing with pride and the promise to myself of adding it to my regular workout routine.

The teacher was kind and extremely helpful. It was a wonderful experience and I can't wait to go back and experience the class again.