Your core muscles involve not only your abdominal muscles, but also your lower back, pelvic floor, and hip muscles. Your core strength should be included in your weekly strength and conditioning program because your core muscles are used in almost every aspect of judo. Your core training is usually associated with sit-ups, sit-ups and planks, but to be more specific to judo, it should only include exercises that ‘rotate’ the trunk of the body. Every time you try to throw your opponent, you’re never performing a move like a crunch, you’re rotating your opponent. Therefore, your core training should include exercises that I like to call ‘rotational core’.
Core rotation exercises are important to judo, but so is upper body strength. So, if you can include your rotational core and upper body, you are in for a winner when it comes to training your core for Judo.
Exercises that include upper body and core rotation include:
Wood choppers:
Starting with the medicine ball on your right hip, drive the ball past your head in a ‘wood cutter’ motion.
Tips for chopping firewood:
– Keep your arms slightly bent throughout the movement
– This is a great exercise to warm up your arms and shoulders.
– I recommend using a 4-6kg ball.
Hanging Leg Raises:
– Hang from a pull-up bar
– You can have your hands facing outwards or towards you.
– Contract your abs and raise your straight legs as high as you can
– Download and repeat
– Inhale as you lower and exhale as you lift your knees
Hanging Leg Raise Tips:
– If you contract your abs before lifting your knees, it will help you not to sway.
– If you can’t hang from the bar, your gym may have a harness that allows you to rest on your elbows.
– You can also use a Roman chair to perform this exercise.
– If you have had shoulder injuries, I suggest you replace this exercise
Wire Twists:
– Grasp a handle with your arms outstretched
– Keep a slight bend in the elbows
– Using the core muscles rotate from right to left
– Once you reach your limit in terms of rotation, slowly return to the starting position
-Repeat
Cable Twisting Tips:
– Really try to use your core muscles instead of your arms
– Don’t use too much weight, as this can force you to use your arms instead of your core.
– You can also use a Theraband to perform this exercise
Rotations with bar:
– Place a barbell in one corner with a heavy dumbbell on top
– Hold the bar at the end
– With your arms slightly bent, turn your body to the left
– Be sure to rotate your feet and hips as well
– Contract your abs and twist to the opposite side
– Repeat for the desired number of repetitions
Bar Rotation Tips:
– Focus on using your abs, not your arms, when performing this exercise.
– This exercise is quite hard and due to the fact that a barbell already weighs 20 kilograms, you shouldn’t have to add much more weight.
Flexing twists:
– Adopt a push-up position
– Bring your shoulder blades together
– Get in touch with your abs as you slowly begin to raise one hand above your head
– Keep the balance
– Watch where your hand travels as you slowly reach the top of the movement.
– Return your hand to the starting position and repeat on the opposite side
Push-up Twist Tips:
– Go slow – this exercise is a slow and control exercise.
– For added difficulty, you can place your support hand on an unstable surface such as a hard drive or pillow
Remember that to train your core for judo, you must use “core rotation” movements in addition to a traditional leg raise or crunch.