8-Week Challenge: Tight Core Daily

Welcome to Tight Core Daily (TCD)!

5 days a week for 8 weeks. You ready?

The goal of this program is to take you from complete beginner and 8-weeks later get you a stronger core, a core that supports your everyday activities while giving you the confidence you need to feel good about yourself.

To make this happen you’ll be working out 5 days a week, up to 20 min at a time. Don’t worry, you won’t get full in right away. Instead, we’ll take our time to make sure you securely integrate exercise in your life, your brain is actively wiring the habit, and hence decrease the risk that you’ll “fall off the wagon” a few weeks later.

After all what’s the value in having a really great workout, if that workout was 3 weeks and you haven’t exercised since?

Weak core no more!

While many people think of abs when they hear of the word “core,” the core muscles also include your low back area and the pelvic floor. This program focuses on abs but the low back and the pelvic floor are not neglected.

Some signs that your core is weak include:

• bad posture (like lordosis)
• peeing a little when you laugh, sneeze, or run (don’t be embarrassed! This is so common, esp. after having your first child or menopause)
• low back pain
• and inability to hold a plank for 30 seconds

We’ll be working on these in the next 8 weeks.

What to do now

We’re going to start really small and spend our first week understanding the basics behind habits. Then starting week 2 we’ll go ahead and aim for doing 5-min at a time, gradually taking it up from there to longer, and more difficult, workouts.

• Your next step right now is to download the official TCD planner and calendar (below).
• Then do your Fit Test to determine your baseline. Get on the floor in the classic regular plank position. For how many seconds can you hold the plank for? Make sure you’re not cheating by lifting your glutes up and keep the actual plank shape throughout. Remember this number as you’ll keep it as your baseline to compare to, 4 weeks, and then again 8 weeks later. You’ll find the plank exercise description in the Mini Habit page which brings me to the next bullet-point.
• Now visit the Daily Mini Habit section to craft how you’re gonna fit this new ab habit into your life.
• Once your recipe is done, follow the suggested workout schedule to keep it up with daily abs for the next 8 weeks.
• I’ve also given you access to the full Exercise Library – so that you can easily browse through the exercises, get new ideas, or swap one exercise for another that you may think is a better fit for your body.

Let’s see you get this up to 15 or 20 min a day!

Defining Expectations

I really want to see my abs. How long till I reach that level?Seeing your abs is part nutrition and part exercise, with the bigger part being nutrition. When you have a strong core, you have to then trim the fat in your midsection to reveal the ab definition hiding behind (yes, that’s weight loss I’m talking about.) To learn more about how getting visible abs works, and to calculate how long it’ll take for you specifically to get to your body fat percentage down to the “visible abs range,” please read this article.