Core Performance Rule of 24

Ashley Jones
Fitness Trainer
Crusaders - Super 12
Canterbury - NPC (New Zealand Domestic Competition)

To train the core you need to advance your training away from the purely cosmetic exercises that target rectus abdominis and delve deeper into the musculature that stabilizes the trunk. Sure you can finish with some of these movements but ensure that the majority of your core program focuses on the muscles that you can not see or stresses the ones you can from a three dimensional movement pattern.

Hence the rule of 24 for core, this can be done as a complete core workout once a week in conjunction with the other 5 rule of 24 programs or you could do a different part of rule of 24 core on each of your training days throughout the week.

To refresh your memory of the other programs, they are as follows:

Olympic
Snatch
Clean
Band Deadlift

Unilateral Lower Body
Bulgarian Single Leg Squat (Sprinters Squat)
Step Ups
Walking Lunge

Bilateral Lower Body
Band Box Squats
Front Squats
Kneeling Squats

Hamstring/Lower Back
Good Morning
Romanian Dead Lift
Glut Ham Raise

Horizontal Upper Body Push/Pull
Band Bench Press/Bentover Row
Incline Bench Press/Hammer Low Row
2 Board Bench Press/DB One Arm Row

Vertical Upper Body Push/Pull
Steel Log Push Press/Chins
Cambered Bar Shoulder Press/Hammer High Row
Trap Bar Shoulder Press/Lat Pulldown to Chest

I will often super set Unilateral Lower Body with Hamstring/Lower Back, although this is up to you, it makes for a more intense workout and also ensures that you can complete the cycle during the working week, thus keeping your weekends free. You could even combine the Olympic with the Bilateral Lower Body Squat workout as well if you had a death wish. The second exercise would be one that my former Olympic lifting coach, Luke Borreginne, gave me, squat clean + front squat combo, where you perform a squat clean return to standing then perform a front squat for the required number of reps. So that workout would become:

Olympic/ Bilateral Lower Body Squats
Power Snatch/Band Box Squats 8 x 3
Squat Clean + Front Squat Combo 6 x 4
Band Deadlift/Kneeling Squats 4 x 6

And the other workout would look like this:

Unilateral Lower Body/Hamstring-Lower Back
Bulgarian Single Leg Squat (Sprinters Squat)/Good Morning 8 x 3
Step Ups/Romanian Deadlift 6 x 4
Walking Lunge/Glute Ham Raise 4 x 6

As I am most interested in power and strength as my first priority in training and size as a secondary or by product of such training the sets and reps patterns would be as follows:

Exercise one in each grouping either 12 x 2 or 8 x 3

Exercise two either 8 x 3 or 6 x 4

Exercise three either 6 x 4 or 4 x 6

As you remember Rule of 24 programs can be as many as 8 different exercises if you were to use the entire sets/reps spectrum (24 x 1, 12 x 2, 8 x 3, 6 x 4, 4 x 6, 3 x 8, 2 x 12, 1 x 24). Since we are working core we want to challenge this crucial area from many different angles so I would suggest 5 or 6 exercises in your program.

A suggested list of program options might look like this:

Zercher Lift
Samson's Side Bend
Turkish Get Up
Side Barbell Dead Lift
Barbell Full Body Twist
Barbell Roll Out or Swiss Ball Roll Outs or Prone Bridge
Rainbows or Horizontal Russian Twists or Powa Ball
Hanging Leg Raises or Swiss Leg Raises or Swiss Ball Weighted Sit Ups

Some of these exercises lend themselves more to a higher rep pattern, whilst others are best performed using lower reps.

This is how I would program for Rule of 24 Core Performance, alternating on a weekly basis, or two workouts per week, or select one or two different movements and perform them after each of the other Rule of 24 workouts:

Also if you wanted to add a specific arms program into the mix, you could easily add it after the two upper body workouts each week. Each of the Rule of 24 programs can be completed working with a partner in less than 45 minutes of elapsed training time, so an additional 15 minutes or less of arms training would not be a problem. Similar to the Core Performance program I would have two different workouts and to borrow a term coined by Charles Poliquin, let us call them Arms Race 1 and 2.

The Weekly Plan

As with any program, regular intense workouts over time are necessary to get results so stay with this program for at least 6 weeks and preferably 12 weeks and I am sure you will notice significant gains in size, strength and power.

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