Crowie's Core Workout
3-time Ironman World Champion Craig "Crowie" Alexander holds the current course record time in Kona. He's also the only triathlete to win The 70.3 World Championship and the Ironman World Championship in the same year.
These workouts help your stabilizing muscles grow, enhancing your effciency on the swim, bike, and run. They work muscles in your core that aren't normally covered in other abdominal workouts. Try some of them or all of them. From personal expirience, the first time or two is difficult to balance, but your body should quickly improve allowing your to feel progress!
The Workout:
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With your feet on an excercise ball ($9 academy.com), do a pushup, followed by a pike, then bring your knees inward. Fully extend your legs, then roll the ball left and right. This is one rep.
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Laying on your back with your heels on the ball, perform an upward plank with your pelvis and hold. An alternate form of this is to place one foot on the ball and lift the other into the air. Repeat with opposite foot.
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Explosive pushups to exhaustion. Do a pushup where your hands leave the ground.
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Laying on your back with the excercise ball placed between your feet, perform a "V-up" grabbing the ball with your hands and returning to a reverse plank position. Do another "V-up" placing the ball back between your legs.
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10 Box jumps.
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With your elbows placed on an excercise ball, tighten your core in a slanted-plank position. Drive each knee forward while keeping your core stabile. Switch legs each rep so that it is like a running motion.
