The Importance of Core Strength | Top 14 Exercises (Beginner to Advanced)

What is core strength?

What is the difference between a strong core vs. a weak core?

As important as it is, there is still a lot of confusion about what "core strength" is.

Many people associate:

• core with abs
• strength with muscle.

Therefore, core strength must mean 6-pack (abs muscles). I understand the confusion and to be fair, this isn't entirely wrong. It just doesn’t paint a complete picture.

Your core certainly includes your abs (rectus abdominis), but there's much more than that. Your core includes muscles like obliques, transverse abdominis, erector spinae, hip flexors, and more. I won't go into detail here. What's important is that you realize that your core includes more than just your “abs”.

Your core isn't a single muscle but a network of muscles. And, the strength of this network of muscles will affect how well you function in daily life.

The more core strength you have, the better and easier your life becomes.

Why Core Strength Matters

From the moment you get out of bed in the morning to the moment you get back into bed at night, you use your core thousands of times. Your core is used when you get into your car, push a shopping cart, sit into a chair, or come to stand. Your core is used in all of your movements.

So, can you see why having a strong core makes your life easier?

Core strength helps you move properly and helps you avoid injury as well. In fact, one of the most common injuries is lower back pain which is usually caused by having a weak or underdeveloped core. It can also be caused by strain, overexertion, or unsafe execution of basic movements such as squatting, lunging, twisting, hinging, pushing, pressing, and pulling.

It's so common that 75% of us will have suffered, to various degrees, lower back pain that hinders our daily movements.

Here are some shocking statistics on back pain.

A strong core protects, stabilizes, and regulates the movement of your spine. Without going into too much detail, your spine, in combination with your brain, makes up your central nervous system which controls everything you do.

Having a strong core reduces stress to your spine. Pretty important, right?

How Core Strength Makes Life Easier

I've already mentioned above that your core is a network of muscles.

Well, your body as a whole is also an interconnected network of muscles. And, it should be to no surprise that at the center of this network of muscles is… your core.

When your core functions optimally, it transfers energy from your lower body to your upper body (and vice versa). The stronger your core, the more efficient it'll be at making that transfer (less wasted energy). The more efficient it is at making that transfer, the less your muscles need to operate in isolation (work alone). And, the less your muscles need to operate in isolation, the more effective your movements are; i.e. you will use less energy to achieve the same result.

Core Strengthening Exercises for Women (and Men)

Let’s not beat the topic to death. You get the point that core strength is very important.

It’s also important to know that doing thousands of crunches isn't an effective way to strengthen your core.

But, if not crunches, what exercises should you be doing if you want to build core strength?

As a rule of thumb, the best exercises to strengthen your core are ones that use the entire body. Full-body exercises, whether using just bodyweight or external resistance (weights, resistance bands, etc.), require the engagement of your core muscles.

This engagement is the foundation of building core strength.

And, with that said, here are the 14 best core strengthening exercises, listed from beginner to advanced. We demonstrate the exercises on the Evolution, but you can use your bodyweight or any form of resistance.