How to Actually Strengthen Your Core for Real Life Performance

The typical search for “core strengthening exercises” returns the same shortlist: crunches, sit-ups, side-bends.

Sir Mix-a-Lot summed it up best:

“You can do side-bends or sit-ups, but please don’t lose that butt.”

A great lyric. As exercise advice for your midsection, it’s wrong.

Your core gets stronger by stabilizing your torso while your arms and legs do work. The more you ask of that stabilization, the stronger it gets.

Crunches ask very little.

There are better ways. Three of them, demonstrated by video below, and a few stubborn myths to clear out first.

Three myths about core training

Myth 1: The core is a distinct body part

“Core” is a job description for a group of muscles. The list runs long: abdominals, obliques, deep spinal stabilizers, lats, glutes, hip flexors, and the scapular muscles that anchor the shoulder. They work together to hold the trunk steady while the limbs move.

To train those muscles, you have to train them in that job. That’s the through-line for everything that follows.

Myth 2: Crunches are the only way to build core strength

The trunk muscles’ actual job is stabilization. Lift a heavy object, serve a tennis ball, row a canoe: the abdominals and obliques brace the spine while the limbs do work. Holding position is the function. Flexion is incidental.

Crunches train one motion the trunk rarely needs to make, and they do it at low load. Past about thirty reps, crunches stop building strength altogether.

Stabilization under demand is what we want. The exercises later in this article show what that looks like.

Myth 3: Crunches give you six pack abs

Aesthetic goals sit outside our usual focus at GMB. Lean physique tends to show up as a byproduct of training movement well. If you want visible abs specifically, the diet does the heavy lifting. No volume of crunches will surface abs hidden under body fat.

Our nutrition article covers what’s worth focusing on if that matters to you.

Why do you want a strong core?

A few common answers:

• Washboard abs, and you’ve been told a strong core delivers them.
• Lower back pain, and someone said core work would help.
• Physical skills you’re learning, where you suspect your midsection is the weak link.

Each of these is a real goal. In each case, “more core work” misses the target.

For visible abs, the diet does most of the work.

For back pain, the repeated spinal flexion in crunches tends to aggravate the problem. Back-specific work plus overall motor control is the better path.

For physical skills, train the skills with attention to form. The midsection gets stronger as a byproduct of moving well under load.

What you actually want is a body that does its job. The core gets strong when you train movement with control under demand. That’s where the rest of this article goes.

If you landed here for a different problem

A lot of people search “core exercises” when the actual bottleneck is somewhere else.

• Shoulder mobility is the most common limit on upper-body work.
• Hip mobility and strength is the most common one on lower-body work.
• Back pain deserves direct attention. The core-strength angle is a detour.

If core stability under load is the actual issue, keep reading.

How we train the core for what it does

Three demands matter, in this order:

1. Stabilization through movement. The midsection holds the torso steady while the limbs travel. Most people skip this layer and reach for harder work. They shouldn’t.
2. Asymmetric load and rotation. Once stabilization is solid, the midsection gets stronger handling uneven loads, with one side working differently from the other and rotation added under tension.
3. Integration into flow. Core work that holds together through transitions: getting in and out of positions, changing directions, sustaining control through longer movement.

Three videos below show what each layer looks like.

The first comes from our Elements program and trains stabilization. The second is conditioning at the level of Integral Strength, where load and rotation come in. The third sits in Sequences territory and integrates everything into flow.

Foundational stabilization: Train the core through controlled movement

What you’ll see in this video is the layer most core workouts skip.

Quadruped and Bear-position work, performed slowly enough that the trunk has to do its actual job. Hands on the ground means you’re loaded asymmetrically through the shoulders. Knees hovering means the deep trunk muscles hold posture. Every limb shift is a stabilization demand the midsection has to absorb.

The exercises here are in the same basic family as our Elements program.

Six variations, working from quadruped to Bear locomotion to torso rotation patterns. Move slowly. The slower you go, the more the core has to work.

Quadruped Knee to Same Side Elbow

Start in a quadruped position with your knees slightly off the ground and your shoulders stacked over your hands. Bring your knee up to meet the same-side elbow without letting your back or hips shift. The challenge is in keeping the upper body still while the leg moves.

Quadruped Knee to Other Side Elbow

Same setup. This time bring the knee across to the opposite elbow. Adding rotation makes the stabilization demand harder. Shoulders and spine should stay quiet while the hip drives across.

Bear Knee to Same Side Elbow

From a downward dog position, step forward with opposite arm and leg. Between Bear steps, bring the knee up to the same-side elbow. Hips stay high. The whole movement happens with the spine holding position.

Bear Knee to Other Side Elbow

Same Bear pattern, opposite knee to elbow. Rotation comes in at the hip, with the torso staying long. Move slowly. The core works hardest in the transitions.

Quadruped on Elbows Torso Rotation

Quadruped on the forearms, knees lifted. Rotate to one side, extending the leg and lifting the opposite arm. Push through the supporting arm to keep your body in a straight line. Hold for five seconds, then switch.

A-Frame Torso Rotation Foot Across

Start in the A-frame (downward dog). Rotate, bringing one foot across and the opposite arm up. Press firmly into the supporting hand and foot. Move slowly enough that the rotation is controlled, not thrown.

Once these feel solid individually, combine them into a flow. Stacey shows this at the end of the video. Moving through the variations as a single connected sequence is how Bear-family work transfers into the rest of your training.

Crunches don’t get you that. This kind of work does.

Conditioning circuit: Adding load and dynamic rotation

Once the foundational work feels controlled, the next layer is asking the core to do more under speed and asymmetric load.

The three movements below come from a quick conditioning circuit Ryan put together. It works as a finisher at the end of a session, or as a standalone short workout.

Structure: thirty seconds per movement, five-second transitions, three rounds.

Snake Down

Start kneeling on one knee with the opposite leg extended out to the side. Lower yourself down along the side of that extended leg (not down the middle), push your hips up off the ground, and come back up into a squat. The whole movement runs along one side of the body, which keeps the load asymmetric and demanding on the rotational stabilizers.

As you get comfortable, raise the starting position. Start from a deeper squat, then from standing. The lower you go, the more the back, shoulders, and arms have to handle.

Leg Thread

Start in a floating tabletop: hands and knees, with the knees hovering an inch or two off the ground. Drop one heel to the floor, then pull the opposite leg through underneath your torso. Return to the start. Switch sides.

The progression: keep the heel up, so the leg threads through with no contact. Then add a small float at the end where the threading foot lifts off the floor before returning. Each step up adds rotational and stability demand.

Mountain Climber

The classic. Hands on the ground in a push-up position. Pull one knee toward your chest, return, switch sides. Move with rhythm.

Progressions: hop both feet between positions (a faster cardiovascular demand), or move to forearms (which loads the shoulders and front body harder). Whichever variation you use, the focus is on hip flexion under a stable trunk. The core’s job is to keep the spine quiet while the legs work.

Three rounds of these will get you breathing hard. The core gets stronger handling that demand under fatigue.

Integrated flow: Where core work goes when the basics hold

The third video shows what core training looks like once the foundation is solid.

Four movements that combine compression, rotation, and flow. Two of them come from the Recovery program.

This is work for time, not reps. Set a timer for 45 seconds to a minute per movement and work on quality positions.

Candlestick

Start on your back, knees pulled in. Tuck your chin so the back of your head doesn’t slam the floor. Push your hands into the ground for balance, then kick your feet up toward the ceiling.

Progressions stack:

• Use fingertips for balance, knees can bend.
• Hands flat on the floor, legs straighter.
• Arms by your sides, legs vertical.
• Arms overhead, head off the floor. Now you’re in a hollow body position at the bottom of every rep.

If the hollow body hold is new, our tutorial on it is the right place to start.

The candlestick trains compression strength: the ability to fold the body and hold position with the front-line muscles working together. Once you can rock forward and back in the open hollow body position, you have a serious foundation for harder skill work.

Yoko Ebi (Side Shrimp)

Yoko ebi is Japanese for “side shrimp.” The movement breaks down into three layers that build on each other.

Hip motion first. Lie on your back, fingertips on the floor for balance, feet lifted. Pull your hips up and over to one side, return to center, then to the other side. Head stays off the floor.

Shoulder motion second. Same setup, but this time use your arms to drive your shoulders up and across. Hips stay quiet, shoulders travel.

Put them together. Hips one direction, shoulders the other. Your body forms a slight C shape, then reverses. With practice, the movement strings together so you’re traveling sideways across the floor, hips and shoulders alternating.

This trains rotational core control under asymmetric load. The Cobra-style version at the start of the video is the easier on-ramp if the full pattern is too much at first.

Inchworm

Start in a push-up position, toes engaged on the ground. Push your tailbone up toward the ceiling. As you push up, slide your knees forward so your hips travel into a deeper hinge. Then reverse direction: pull your hips forward, arch your back, and lower your chest toward the floor into an upward-facing dog position.

Reset your hands and feet forward. Repeat.

Move slowly, with breath. The inchworm trains anterior-posterior control: the front and back of the body alternating who’s doing the work, with the core stabilizing the transition.

Forearm Leg Thread

This is the leg thread from the circuit, taken closer to the floor. Hands on the ground in floating tabletop, then forearms down. Push your tailbone under, lift your knees, and find a stable position with the trunk doing all the holding.

Progressions:

• Floating tabletop on forearms, finding the position.
• Drop one heel to the side, push the opposite hand up off the floor into a side-plank-like load.
• Pull the knee in, then extend the leg, then thread it through. Place it down, return to start.

This is the highest load of the three videos. You’re holding a low position on the forearms, supporting on one side, and moving the opposite leg through space. That’s exactly the demand the core was built for.

The reason these movements transfer well into the rest of your training is that they integrate into transitions. Core work that holds together while you’re moving in and out of positions is what shows up in everything else you do: grappling, climbing, picking up a kid off the floor, getting up off the ground without thinking about it.

How our programs build core strength through progression

The three videos above map directly to the three programs in our curriculum. Each one trains the core at a different level of demand.

Elements: Foundational Stabilization

Elements is where this starts. The Bear, Frogger, Crab, and Monkey are the same family of movements Stacey demonstrated above, organized into a progression that builds stabilization through controlled locomotion. There isn’t a crunch in the program. There’s also no shortcut around the slow, attention-heavy work that makes the core do its job.

Russ used Elements to rebuild after a back injury: