That’s right, I actually grew an inch. The secret? It has everything to do with the core. 

Now, I didn't set out to grow and it wasn’t the result of any conscious effort. It was from months of excellent coaches teaching me functional exercises that all involved core. By strengthening and stabilizing my core and I actually decompressed my spine and built enough core strength to keep it in this new, lengthened, state. That's a pretty cool side effect of doing exercises that I thought would make me stronger and give me abs. 

Don't be like me- while getting stronger is a great goal, I really don’t want you to think about getting abs, abs are just vanity plates. While you can have great abs because you did a million crunches, if your core is weak it will cause stress on your spine. Properly developed abs are the result of much more important things: core stabilization, overall fat loss, and core strengthening. 

If you are committed to smart, functional training, maintain a healthy diet, and are seeing fat loss over your entire body, the abs will eventually come. They will also come along with alleviated back pain, less tight hips, better posture, and overall improved spinal health.

Here’s how: The core, also know as the lumbo pelvic hip complex (LPHC), is comprised of roughly 30 muscles that make up almost all of your body, minus your limbs, neck, and head. When these muscles are weak, they are also often responsible for chronic lower back pain, tight hips, and bad posture. Anytime you load weight onto your body, you are pulling on those core muscles (because the limbs that hold the weight are attached to the core). If the core isn’t strong and stable, it won’t properly support the load being placed on the body and that can result in back pain and injuries. By stabilizing and strengthen the core, you are training all those muscles to fire properly when the body has to lift something and be strong enough to support the load.

Stabilizing and strengthening can happen in tandem, especially if you already do core exercises regularly. But there is no sense strengthening a core that can’t properly engage so today I am going to share with you my favorite crunch-less core stabilizing exercises. 

A quick tip: How do you know if you are performing a core stabilization exercise? Stabilization exercises happen when the spine isn’t moving. 

How to put it all together: Incorporate 4-5 of these exercises into your routine at least 3 times a week. Try this for a month. If you were experiencing any chronic back pain, you should begin to feel some relief and you should feel stronger all around because your core is getting stronger!

The exercises are to be performed without any rest between. Once you can get through all of the basics two times without rest, progress to the additional variations.

Plank

• Place the hands underneath the shoulders and spread the fingers out and place your feet hip distance width apart

• Corkscrew the arms in the shoulder and pull your shoulder blades down and back

• Engage the core, squeeze the bum, hold and breath

• Your body should be in a straight line, with the ears lined up with the shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles, as though you are standing upright

Progressions: Side plank, plank with weight, plank ups

• Side plank can be performed with your feet staggered, one foot elevated, on your hands or on your forearms

• Planking with weight can be performed on your forearms or hands, place weight on upper back, between your shoulder blades

• Plank-ups are when you alternate between forearm and hand planks, and you squeeze the whole body, keeping the core engaged, and allow as little rotation as possible throughout the core

Dead Bugs

• Lie on your back in table top with your arms straight out above your shoulders, and your knees above the hips

• Kick your left foot away and reach your right arm back, bring your arm and leg back to the center, kick your right foot away and reach your left arm back

• Focus on pulling your navel in towards the ground and try to keep your knees from coming towards your stomach

Progressions: Mini-band dead bugs and stability ball dead bugs

• Use a light weight mini band around your feet and kick into the band. 

• Place a small stability ball between your thighs and arms, keep the ball in place while you kick and reach

• For all variations, make sure you don’t let the lower back

Hollow hold

• Lie on the ground and raise your legs into the air

• Lift your torso and shoulders off the ground and reach towards your feet, or for a bigger challenge, reach your arms back

• The higher your head and feet, the easier the exercise becomes

Progressions: Super person hold, hollow hold rolls 

• For super person holds, lie on your stomach with your arms reaching up along side your ears. Reach your arms out and up, and lift the chest off the ground. Kick the feet back and up and lift the legs and the hips off the ground. 

• To roll, from the hollow hold, engage your entire body and roll yourself onto your stomach in a super-person hold. Try not to allow the arms or legs to push off, rather use momentum from the shoulders to the hips

Bridges

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet hip distance apart

• Try to bring your heels in enough so you can touch them with your finger tips

• Squeeze your bum and core, and lift your hips towards the ceiling, hold here for a breath

• At the top of the bridge your shoulders, hips, and knees should make a straight line

• Don’t let your back arch, if your back arches, squeeze the bum harder

• If knees are falling inwards towards each other, use a light weight mini-band (as pictured) just above the knees to remind you to drive your knees outward

Progression: Single leg bridge, mini-band bridging

• Lift one leg and hold it so your knees are in line with each other, flex your foot that is in the air

• Lift your hips, using the grounded foot to drive you, and squeeze the glute of your grounded leg

• Place a light weight mini-band just above the knees, make sure you drive your knees outward , keeping the hips, knees, and feel on parallel tracks

Russian Twists

• Sit on the ground with your knees bent and your heels on the ground with your toes up

• Hold your hands together and tap them down next to your left hip and then tap them down next to your right hip

• Keep your spine from moving by keeping your gaze on your hands- watch your hands like you’re afraid you will lose them!

• Move from side to side quickly 

Progressions: Elevate feet, Russian twists with weight 

• Perform the same exercise, but elevate your feet. This challenges your balance and requires you to engage your core even more

• Hold a small weight such as a kettlebell in your hands and perform the twist with your feet down or up