If it’s good enough for Bruce Lee, it’s got to be good enough for me.
While I always fit core exercises into my workout plans, I don’t think I ever took them as seriously as other muscle groups.
Not that I didn’t want a strong core. It’s probably the most important muscle group to max out. A progression from 10 leg lifts to 20 leg lifts just isn’t that motivating.
But my focus on calisthenics changes that attitude. Especially when I ran across the iconic photo of Bruce Lee doing the Dragon Flag.
I finally had a specific skill to work toward.
Most progressions you’ll find fall along a similar path:
Leg lifts > Negative Variations > Full Rom Dragon Flag
In my first attempts at the Dragon Flag progressions, I realized I was pretty far behind the skill. My core was weak. My glutes weren’t active. I didn’t have the proprioception to know if my body was straight, which means it probably wasn’t. Even the pulling muscles in my upper back were straining.
So I I just kind of generalized my path to be “all core exercises contribute to developing my Dragon Flag” and so my exercises included things like:
Leg lifts (hanging or lying down)
Ab wheel
Hollow body hold
And then every once in a while I would go back to the various Dragon Flag progressions to see where I was at. One day, I felt good and strong in the progression I was testing, so after that I switched over to direct work on the skill using this video: