Core Strength And Heavy Lifting
"The external obliques affect the spine, ribs and pelvis. They do several things:
flex the trunk forward
support and contain the abdominal contents
function during breathing, particularly exhale
rotate the ribs and pelvis in opposite directions from one another
tilt the pelvis
laterally flex the spine.
For some of these actions, the external obliques work with other abdominal muscles. This is especially true of the rotation and lateral flexion motions.
The Internal Oblique Muscles - Strong Effect on Posture: The internal obliques are a pair of ab muscles, residing on each side of the torso. They are the next deepest, after the transversus. Just like the transversus, they affect body posture tremendously, only slightly less, because of their more superficial position. The internal obliques are involved in, among other things, rotation and lateral flexion of the spine.
External Obliques: The external obliques are another pair of ab muscles that are located on either side of the torso. The external obliques are more superficial than the transversus and the internal obliques. Consequently the external obliques have less effect (but certainly not none) on body posture. Like the internal obliques, the external obliques are involved in, among other things, rotation and lateral flexion of the spine.
Supports abdominal wall, assists forced expiration, aids raising intraabdominaol pressure and, with muscles of opposite side, abducts and rotates trunk.
Internal & External Obliques
Location: Located along both sides of the torso, the obliques consist of two muscles. The external obliques are the outermost abdominal muscles and form a "V" shape from the ribs down to the pubic bone. The internal obliques lie directly underneath the external obliques, forming an inverted "V" that runs basically the opposite direction.
Function: Both the internal and external obliques are responsible for trunk rotation and lateral flexion of the torso. Torso rotation occurs when one internal oblique and the opposing external oblique contract. Lateral trunk flexion, or bending to one side, occurs when both the internal and external oblique on one side contract simultaneously."
Validating my position as to the ease with which external obliques can be hypertrophied, taken directly from Ironman:
Ab-session: Midsection Madness For a More Complete Physique
by John Hansen
"External Obliques
These are the muscles that cover the ribs. They???re located on each side of the abdominal wall and, when fully developed, add dimension and muscularity to the overall six-pack. Robby Robinson and Shawn Ray have outstanding external obliques. Although developing your upper external obliques will go a long way toward improving the overall look of your midsection, you must always be careful not to overdevelop the lower obliques that tie into your waistline. Building them will make your waist bigger and ruin the V-taper that all bodybuilders covet.
Many of the exercises for the upper and lower abs also affect the external obliques. In particular, I really feel them working when I???m doing incline situps, kneeling cable crunches and incline knee raises; however, there are a few exercises that target the external obliques directly.
Alternate crunches. These directly hit the external obliques due to the angle of the movement. Lie on the floor with your legs draped over a bench to stabilize your upper body. Place one hand over the area of the muscle that you???re going to work and the other hand behind your head, and bring that elbow up in the direction of the opposite knee. If you???re raising your right elbow to your left knee, you should feel the contraction in the upper-right obliques.
Complete all the repetitions for one side before moving on to the other. Come up slowly and hold the contracted position for a second or two before going back down. Although you???re raising your elbow toward the opposite knee, your upper body should not actually come off the ground except for a small area of your shoulder and upper back. Most of the effectiveness of the exercise comes from twisting your torso in just the right way to target the upper obliques.
Aim for 20 to 25 reps per side for maximum oblique development. Because this is a crunch exercise, there???s no need to be concerned about developing the obliques around your waist, since that part of your body is stabilized on the floor. Shoot for two to three sets of 25 reps.
Twisting hanging knee raises. To hit the obliques from another angle, try this exercise. Hang from a chinning bar as you would for standard hanging knee raises, but twist your knees to one side in order to contract your obliques. Bring your knees back to the starting position and then bring them up to the other side for the next rep to work the opposite side.
Perform these very slowly to feel the contraction in the correct area. It???s easy to get caught up in the tempo of the exercise and begin swinging your body in order to complete each rep, but that will take away from the movement???s effectiveness. Better to go slowly and feel each rep in order to fully develop your upper obliques. Two to three sets of 15 to 20 reps for each side will build thick Shawn Ray???style obliques to showcase those abs."
This is what I wish to add:
Consider how worked your upper body felt after your last heavy squat session. From the waist up you are the lifting platform. To keep from collapsing under the bar you must set your back and isometrically tension your entire upper body. In Weightlifting, the lifter takes a deep breath and holds (valsalva manuever) it until the lift is completed. Consider that the majority of Weightlifting training movements and both competition lifts end with the bar overhead, it is easy to see why the breath is held. The lifter has to turn his upper body into a high pressure lifting cylinder just like an airshock on a Lincoln. If you have several hundred pounds overhead it's not a good idea to exhale until you are ready to drop the weight.
Isometric training yields the most strength of any single type of resistence training. However, it is effective within only a few degrees of the joint angle. Wall sits with knees bent at 90 deg. are very effective at generating tremendous strength, but only within a limited range of motion of a couple of degrees either way.
Insofar as Weightlifting is concerned, Weightlifters begin most of ther lifts with a Romainian deadlift and finish most of their lifts with the bar overhead. At the begining of the lift they simultaneously valsalva and set their back, (essentially the upper body is in a state of isometric tension during the execution of the lift). Breath is held until the lifter is ready to drop the bar. In the course of training hundreds of lifts are executed and thousands of lbs. lifted. Repeated isometric tensioning in addition to proper ab training allows our Weightlifters to successfully compete at the highest levels. Most recently Casey Burgener won the USA Weightlifting National Championship at a bodyweight of 250 lbs. Casey snatched 173 kilos and clean and jerked 210 kilos. Obviously his core is quite strong. In the course of his training progression his core strength has kept pace with his totals.
As is apparent, proper training of Weightlifters involves considerable attention to core strength. Extensive abdominal training is needed simply to maintain a reasonable balance between abdominal strength and highly developed back strength. My anecdotal evidence would be the hundreds of Weightlifters, and hundreds of athletes that I have trained, who have done full range squats with over 400 lb and at no time has it been necessary for any of them to train obliques with anything heavier than bodyweight.
In my world the training hierarchy is:
1. Flexibility
2. Core strength
3. Joint integrity
4. Base strength training/cardiopulmonary - dependant on sport being prepared for.
Ubercoach
