Whether you’re looking for your fastest mile ever, itching to cook your friends on the court in pickup or pickleball, or cooking through a sprint workout on the track like an Olympian, you need a rock-solid abs.
“If you have a straight stick, and you throw its end on the ground, it’ll bounce back up; but if there’s bend in the stick, it might bounce in any direction,” says Team USA’s ah Lyles, a favorite to win gold in the 100m at the Paris Olympics. "It’s the same thing when you’re running. If you don’t have a tight midline—a stable, well-structured core—when you make contact with the ground, you’re not using all the power you’re producing.”
Few athletes know more about building power and speed than Lyles. To create the explosive stride that's led him to eight track and field world championship and Olympic medals—including double gold in the 100 and 200 meters at the 2023 world champs—the 27-year-old sprinter spends four days per week in the weight room, doing workouts that focus on building power: Exercises like cleans, hex bar deadlifts, front squats, back squats, and power throws.
To make sure he’s converting his power into speed with each step, Lyles also sweats through a core workout in just about every session, building that springy, power-saving stiffness in his middle that lets him unleash the power he builds through his barbell work and track sessions.
As part of his partnership with CELSIUS energy drinks, Lyles spoke with Men’s Journal to share one of the core routines he uses to help build gold medal abs. There are also some easier alternatives for each exercise for non-Olympians who need to scale down.
Try this workout at the end of your next strength training session, or as a workout on its own. For each move in this six-exercise routine, rest 1 to 2 minutes between sets.
1. GHD Machine Hollow Hold
Hollow hold
Westend61/ Getty Images
Why It's Effective
You may have done hollow holds before on the floor, but Lyles’ version adds an extra challenge: Instead of on the ground, this move is performed on the glute-ham developer bench. A staple in CrossFit gyms, this machine can be used for butt and leg development, as the name suggests, but is also popular for intense, full-range situps and other core moves.
How to Do It
- Get into the GHD with your feet in the foot pad area, your legs straight and your butt sitting off the GHD’s large pad, to start.
- Sit up so your body forms a 90-degree angle. Reach your arms straight up overhead (you can also gentle hold the back of your head).
- Maintaining a flat back, slowly lean back to open your hip angle. Lean back as far as you can—as close to horizontal as possible—hold your body steady by bracing your core.
- Once you’ve found the depth you can hold, maintain the hollow position for 30 seconds.
- Perform 4 x 30-second holds.
Easier Variation: Hollow Body Hold
Hollow Body Hold
Justin Steele
The closer your torso is to perpendicular, the easier the move will be. And if you don’t have access to a GHD machine, you can perform hollow holds on the floor.
How to Do It
- Lie on your back with your arms and legs fully extended, squeezing everything tight, to start.
- Press your lower back into the ground and slightly lift your legs and upper back off the floor.
- If you're a beginner, hold this position. If you're more advanced, rock forward and back—holding the shape of a banana.
2. Toes to Bar
Midpoint of Toes to Bar
James Michelfelder
Why It's Effective
Toes to bar does more than just build a six-pack: Studies have shown this type of move is one of the most effective for strengthening the obliques, even when done without twisting. Lyles does the full toes to bar variation.
How to Do It
- Hang from a pullup bar with straight arms set slightly wider than shoulder-width. Draw your shoulder blades back and down, to start.
- Keeping your feet together and legs straight, engage your core to hinge your hips, raising your legs until your toes touch the bar.
- Control your descent back to the starting position. That's 1 rep.
- Perform 4 x 7-10 reps.
Easier Variation: Hanging Knee Raise
- Hang from a pullup bar with straight arms set slightly wider than shoulder-width. Draw your shoulder blades back and down, to start.
- Bend your knees and bring your thighs up until they’re parallel with the floor.
- As you advance, move on to a straight-leg raise, where your legs are extended straight from hips.
3. V-Up
V-up, an advanced sit-up
Why It's Effective
For someone as strong as Lyles, this advanced sit-up might seem easy. To keep it challenging, he says, he’s uncompromising on form: “It has to be that V shape in the middle, and you have to be touching your toes,” he says, in order to get the full benefit.
How to Do It
- Lie on your back with your legs straight and arms overhead.
- Without bending your elbows or knees, contract your abdominal muscles, fold your body up by lifting your legs off the floor and stretch your arms toward your toes. Keep your back straight. As you rise, your body will form a “V” shape, and will then close like a venus fly trap.
- Pause, then return to the starting position. Do four sets of 20 repetitions.
Easier Variation: Deconstructed V-Up
If you’re flailing and throwing your torso up and down, split the move in two: Perform the upper body portion of the V-up, doing a situp with a straight back. Then do the lower body portion, raising your legs from the ground while your upper body is flat on the ground.
4. Star Plank
A slightly different side plank
sergio_kumer/ Getty Images
Why It's Effective
This move, Lyles says, is probably the most important in his core routine because it engages the core and the glutes at the same time. Running requires front and posterior muscles to work together in balance, and this trains just that.
To help fire up your glutes in this move, try getting into the side plank in a different way: Instead of lifting your hips off the floor laterally, do so from a position where your knees are slightly bent, and your feet are a little closer to your waist than they will be in the full side plank position. As you raise your body up, squeeze your butt to press your hips forward and take the bend out of your knees. As you do this, your feet will slide a bit on the ground into position.
How to Do It
- Get into a classic side plank position: Lie on your left side with your forearm on the floor directly under your left shoulder, with your legs and feet stacked. Have a slight bend in your knees.
- Prop yourself up on your elbow, and squeeze your glutes to straighten your legs as you assume the forearm side plank position so that your body forms a straight line from ear to ankles. To make this harder, perform the move with your left arm straight beneath you, balanced on your hand instead of your forearm.
- Straighten your top arm so that your torso forms a “T” shape.
- Without letting this rigid body line slacken and without bending your knee, raise your top leg (right) up away from your bottom leg. Your arms and legs will form an “X” or star shape.
- Hold this position for 15 seconds, then repeat on the other side. Perform 4 x 15-seconds holds.
Easier Variation: Side Plank
Too hard? Skip the star shape. Stop at step 3, and perform the four 15-second holds on each side.
5. Forearm Plank
Forearm plank
Beth Bischoff
Why It's Effective
Don’t just hang out in a plank, Lyles says. Engage your core by drawing your belly button towards your spine. Feel your lats in your back firing. Squeeze your glutes. And grip the floor with your fingers. This, he says, will turn this “easy” move into a challenge.
How to Do It
- Assume a classic pushup position, but on your forearms: Prop yourself up so that your elbows are directly beneath your shoulders, palms facing down. Form a straight line from your head to heels.
- Engage your core, glutes, legs, and lats, and hold this rigid body line for one minute. Repeat for four total holds of one minute each.
Easier Variation: Plank From Knees
You can also perform planks on your knees. Instead of a rigid line from head to heels, maintain a rigid body line from head to knees.
6. Glute Kickback Machine
Glute Kickback
Getty Images
te: This image depicts cable glute kickback, which is an alternative if you don't have access to a glute kickback machine.
Why It's Effective
“A lot of people think that this machine is about how far you can throw the weight up using your hamstring, but they’re missing the point,” Lyles says. “Your core should be more turned on than your hamstrings.”
Lyles says to concentrate on doing this move with purpose. “Go at a slower pace, and push the weight up and down with the same intent and same speed. You should feel every muscle working,” he says.
How to Do It
- Stand in the machine with your forearms resting on the pad, your hands on the handles, and one foot behind you against the plate. You should be bent forward at the hips. This is the starting position.
- Brace your core, and feel it engage as you press the weight back by using your glutes, not your hamstrings. Push back slowly.
- Return to the start, maintaining this same pace. Do four rounds of 6 reps on each side.
