Are you overwhelmed by the vast array of core exercises available? With so much information—and misinformation—about core training, it can be hard to know where to start. In this blog, we’ll clarify the essentials of effective core exercises, especially those you can do at home. We’ll focus on what truly matters for enhancing performance and preventing injury.
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Concepts of Core Training
Breathing is crucial for stabilizing the core. When we breathe properly, we are in a safe state and can stabilize effectively. Specifically, we need to focus on diaphragmatic breathing. Here’s what that looks like: your tongue lightly touches the roof of your mouth and your top teeth. Your teeth are slightly apart, and you breathe in through your nose. Think about breathing up rather than straight back, allowing your abdomen to expand 360°—front, sides, and back—creating intra-abdominal pressure. As you exhale, your abdominals contract.
This breathing pattern is often overlooked. Many people hold planks for two to three minutes without proper breathing or do sit-ups and crunches while holding their breath. But breathing is the key.
Let’s dive a little deeper. When you inhale, your diaphragm flattens, creating intra-abdominal pressure. The transverse abdominis, which acts like a weight belt, lengthens. At the same time, your pelvic floor relaxes. When you exhale, your pelvic floor lifts, the transverse abdominis contracts, and the diaphragm returns to its resting shape. This sequence involves the pelvic diaphragm and respiratory diaphragm working in harmony, along with muscles like the psoas, multifidus (which surrounds the spine), and deep hip stabilizers.
4 Core Strengthening Exercises You Can Do at Home
Now, let’s go through some exercises to understand how all of this fits together.
1. Breathing with Punch
Lie on your back with your knees at a 90° angle. Connect your rib cage and spine to the floor. Start with a deep breath in, expanding your abdomen. Then, grab a light weight. As you exhale, punch upward, engaging your serratus anterior. This connects nicely with the diaphragm, creating tension and integrating the core with the upper body.
2. Side Sit
Align your elbow with your knee, and sit your hips back on the floor. Keep your rib cage over your pelvis. Exhale as you come up to full hip extension; inhale as you lower back down. Modify as needed for your hip mobility, but aim to keep your body parallel with a wall in the final position. The key is maintaining that stacked position throughout the exercise.
3. Plank with Hands
Position your hands slightly in front of you in a hollow position, finding the stack of your rib cage over your pelvis. Keep your feet together and your pelvis slightly tucked. Use your breath as the guide: inhale fully to expand, and exhale to contract your core.
4. Step-by-Step Hollow
Lie on your back and exhale to flatten your spine against the ground. Inhale slightly, then exhale as you pull one leg towards you. Inhale again, then exhale to drive the other leg up. Engage your core by thinking of pulling your heels towards you. Next, inhale and exhale as you reach both arms overhead, maintaining tension through your fingertips. While in this position, take small inhales and forceful exhales to keep tension and prevent your back from arching. As you progress, you can advance to reaching with one arm, then the other, and finally into a full hollow position when you can maintain tension throughout.
Key Takeaway
In all these exercises, focus on keeping your rib cage aligned over your pelvis. This alignment ensures effective communication between your respiratory and pelvic diaphragms. Breathing is the foundation of every movement pattern, and by focusing on quality, slow, intentional movements, you can build the sequence, coordination, and timing of these muscles working together.
Once you understand these concepts, you can progress to more advanced core strengthening exercises at home, developing greater tension and training for more powerful movements. A strong foundation allows you to train rotational power, strengthen the abdominal wall, and create full-body tension with the core as the central point.
Share Your Experience
Give these core exercises a try, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear your comments and experiences. If this was helpful, please give it a like, share it, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, the Movement Paradigm, for weekly tips on mindset, nutrition, and movement. Our goal is to help you live your best life, heal, transform, and, more importantly, thrive.
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