If you want to strengthen your core, doing hundreds of crunches won't help. In fact, you should stop doing crunches because they aren't good for your back. If you want a strong core, you've got to focus on core stability and being able to activate all your core muscles properly throughout your day-to-day and during exercise. Core stability and strengthening exercises typically aren't the moves that will leave you shaking and dripping sweat, but they're essential to keep you functioning at your best.
To achieve stability and core strength, you should do a combination of anterior, posterior, lateral, and rotational core stability exercises. Anterior exercises work your deep core muscles like the transversus abdominis, which helps stabilize your lumbar spine (the lower back) and pelvis. An example of this would be a plank. These moves are necessary because they teach you how to avoid excessive arching of your lumbar spine.
Posterior core stability does the opposite of anterior exercises and teaches you how to avoid excessive rounding of the lumbar spine. Deadlifts and Bird Dog are two great ways to strengthen your posterior core. Lateral exercises like a side plank keep you from having too much lateral flexion and tipping over. The last movements you should include in your workouts are rotary exercises like chops. These rotational exercises help you resist having too much rotation of the lumbar spine.
Focusing on these four core groups will ensure that you're working all of your core, improve your core strength, and help you move more efficiently. Ahead, you'll find a list of core exercises I recommend you add to your workouts for a strong core. You don't need to do all of these moves in a single workout. Instead, try to include one exercise from each category into your workouts and you'll be good to go!
I'm a NASM-certified trainer, and one of my favorite moves for core stability and strength is the bear hold. It looks easy, but it's challenging to hold your body up without losing proper form. This exercise targets your transversus abdominis muscles (your deep core muscles that stabilize your spine and pelvis) and your internal obliques (your obliques help with side flexion and rotation). This move is great for lower-ab strength and will help stabilize your lumbar spine (the lower part of your back), pelvis, and hips.
This is an anterior core stability exercise that will help prevent excessive arching of the lumbar spine. Adding the knee drop to the plank will force you to stabilize your core more.
This is an anterior core stability exercise that will help prevent excessive arching of the lumbar spine.
This is a lateral core stability exercise that helps you resist lateral flexion. This move will keep you from tipping over.
This is a more advanced anterior core stability exercise that will help prevent excessive arching of the lumbar spine.
This is an anterior core stability exercise that will help prevent excessive arching of the lumbar spine.
This is a posterior core exercise that will keep you from rounding your spine too much.
This is a lateral core stability exercise that helps you resist lateral flexion. This move will keep you from tipping over.
This is a lateral core stability exercise that helps you resist lateral flexion. This move will keep you from tipping over.
This is an anterior core stability exercise that will help prevent excessive arching of the lumbar spine.
This is an advanced rotational core exercise that will help you resist too much rotation of your lumbar spine.