We’ve all heard it before. You’re in a fitness class or you’re working out with your trainer and you hear, “Engage your core.” But what does it really mean to engage your core? It’s not just about performing a crunch or developing six-pack abs. Proper core engagement is fundamental. Core stability helps with balance, body alignment, maintaining your center of mass, and helping to protect your low back. Engaging your core comes down to using those core muscles, but knowing which ones to use and how to use them is the tricky part. This post will review which muscles are your core muscles, what it means to engage your core, and will take you through step-by-step exactly how you can learn to engage your core properly.
TAKE ME STRAIGHT TO LEARNING TO USE MY CORE!
**This is not medical advice. Please consult your medical provider for more information.
Anatomy Lesson: Understanding Your Core
Your core is more than just your six-pack abs or the superficial abdominal muscles. Your core refers to your deeper abdominal muscles plus more, which all help stabilize the spine! This includes transverse abdominis (TrA), quadratus lumborum (QL), the internal and external obliques, multifidi, the pelvic floor, and the diaphragm! It is important to note that the rectus abdominis does also play a part in stabilizing the spine. However, so much emphasis is placed on this muscle and the deeper layers tend to be neglected. Hence, when we talk about training the core muscles, we typically refer to the deeper stabilizing structures. All of these work together to help stabilize the spine. We are going to focus on the transverse abdominis for the purposes of this post.
The transverse abdominis (TrA) is often a forgotten part of the core muscles. This muscle lies deep to the other abdominal muscles and has a distinctive role. It spans from the lower ribs to the pelvic bones. And its fibers run horizontally. It acts as a foundational inner back brace, supporting the body through daily tasks. It’s main job is to stabilize!
When it comes down to it, core strength isn’t about how many sit ups you can do or what your abdominal muscles look like aesthetically. Take a look at Olympic powerlifters. We can safely assume these are some of the strongest people in the world. Have you ever noticed how they don’t have chiseled six packs? They have an extremely strong deep core that stabilizes their spines so they can lift immense amounts of weight without injuring themselves. Core strength and stability is all about maintaining functional movement and preventing injury.
The Importance of Core Strength
Core strength is about building a foundation for yourself. Having a strong core helps to improve posture, improves your tolerance to spinal flexion and extension, and improves pelvic floor health. Whether its during Pilates, yoga, strength training, packing up your house, and grocery shopping, the deep core is at the heart of it all. Here are more things that core strength helps with:
- Protects Your Back: Your deep core muscles act as your inner back brace. They provide stability and protection to your low back. This is what helps you lift heavy objects without injuring yoursef.
- Injury Prevention: Speaking about injuring yourself, a strong core helps to reduce the risk of injury. The core is at the center of the body. If you can withstand forces here, it helps the rest of the body. Remember, in one way or another, everything is connected. The core is important from your feet all the way up to your jaw and neck posture.
- Improves Balance: You need a stable core for balance. If you have more stability at the center of your body, you are less likely to sway when balancing. If something knocks into you, you also have more ability to correct the force that pushed into you, keeping you upright instead of falling over.
- Stronger Lifts: Like lifting weights? A strong core can help with transfer of energy and greater energy efficiency, allowing you to lift heavier weights without compromising your safety.
- Helps With Certain Types of Incontinence: Your core is part of your pelvic floor. In certain types of incontinence, deep core strengthening is used to improve the symptoms associated with incontinence.
- Improves Athletic Performance: Regardless of whatever sport you play, core strength is at the center of athletic performance. Just as it helps with injury prevention and stronger lifts, it can also boost athletic performance as it enhances your ability to generate and transfer power throughout the body.
Deep Core Training Myths
Myth #1: Visible six-pack abs relates directly to a strong core.
Fact #1: A chiseled six-pack does not always mean you have a strong core. A six-pack mainly comes down to nutrition and body fat percentage. For both men and women, lower back fat percentages will allow the rectus abdominis muscle to show through the soft tissue layers. Everyone has this muscle, some might just be more defined than others.
Additional Fun Fact: I can hold a 10 minute plank! I won a challenge in PT school against the rest of my cohort. And I have never had a visible six-pack.
Myth #2: Doing crunches will strengthen my core.
Fact #2: Nope! Standard crunches mainly work your rectus abdominis. This is the muscle people refer to as the “six-pack.” It does not target your deeper core muscles. These deeper muscles are meant to help stabilize the spine. Learning to activate your deep core muscles during everyday activities and incorporating them into your gym workouts (which you should be doing) is really all you need.
Myth #3: “Abs” and “core” are synonymous.
Fact #3: This can get confusing. But no, they are not synonymous. Your abdominals, or abs, are only a portion of your core. In layman’s terms, the abs are most commonly referencing the rectus abdominis (the six-pack) and on occasion, the obliques. And this does not even target all of the abdominals! Your abdominals include rectus abdominis, the internal obliques, the external obliques, and the transverse abdominis.
On the other end, your core refers to the abdominal muscles that are layered deeper within the body along with some other muscles. All work in tandem to stabilize the spine. These muscles include all of the abdominal muscles including the transverse abdominis (TrA), quadratus lumborum (QL), multifidi, the pelvic floor, and the diaphragm.
Myth #4: To have a strong core, you must train it daily.
Just like any other muscle in your body, your core needs time to rest and recover. Your core is active the large majority of the time, you just may not be aware of it. Instead, there may be weaknesses in specific areas of your core. A physical therapist can help determine if your core needs specific training to help with any symptoms you may be experiencing.
Step-by-Step Core Activation
Follow the progression provided here to learn to properly engage your core.
It Starts With Breathing
Believe it or not, learning to breathe properly is the first step in learning to engage your core. Why? Because most people try to hold their breath and “bear down.” This is otherwise known as a valsalva maneuver. We want to avoid this because this is what leads to poor intraabdominal pressure (IAP) regulation. This can lead to a multitude of problems, including increasing blood pressure which can increase your risk for a stroke, hernias, and other issues. You always want to be able to maintain your normal breathing pattern when using your core.
The video above shows a proper breathing pattern known as diaphragmatic breathing. It is very common to want to breathe from the upper chest. In order to do this properly, place one hand on your chest and another on your belly. Make sure your ribs stay down and you anchor your spine into the ground.
Take a deep breath in from your nose. Try to fill your belly up with air by making the hand on your belly rise first before the hand on your chest. You want to fill the entirety of your belly before you start filling up from the upper chest. Your lungs are large organs and they can expand very well. By breathing deeply from your belly, you are expanding from the lower portion of your lungs before filling up the upper portions.
As you exhale through your nose, the hand on your chest should lower first (the opposite of how you started). You want to try to keep the air in the lower portion of your lungs as long as you can. Once the chest has fallen, continue to exhale as your belly falls too. This is how you breathe efficiently with your diaphragm.
Why Stomach Vacuuming is Not Recommended
I’m sure some have heard about sucking in the belly button towards the spine in order to activate your core. The reason I do not like to use this method is because this is the opposite of the movement we actually want. Remember that the TrA stabilizes the spine along with all other muscles around the abdominal cavity. This includes the diaphragm, pelvic floor, obliques, rectus abdominis, and paraspinal muscles. All of these muscle groups need to work eccentrically together for efficient stabilization. If one muscle is off, the entire chain is thrown off.
Eccentric activity of all of these muscles creates a stable base and the intrabdominal cavity has equal amounts of pressure in all directions. If you suck your belly button in towards the spine, there are uneven forces around the entirety of the abdominal cavity.
Imagine a soda can that hasn’t been opened yet. All of the carbonation is held inside and it is evenly pushing around all edges of the can. Now if you drop this can and a dent forms, this disrupts the balance of the forces pushing against the edges. The area of the dent will have a greater force into it. This is the same concept as to why hernias occur or when someone is dealing with diastasis recti. When creating a stable base through maintaining intrabdominal pressure (IAP), you want equal amounts of force spread in all directions. This is what creates a strong core.
How to Find (and Turn On) Your Deep Core Muscles
After you get your breathing pattern down, we are going to build on this. Start by lying on your back with your knees bent, just as you were with practicing your breathing. Then, use your fingers to find the front of your hip bones. Once you find them, bring your fingers in towards your belly button just slightly. From here, cough one time. Feel the contraction underneath your fingertips. This is your deep core muscles contracting. These are the muscles we want to train. Throughout this process, if you ever forget what you are supposed to be feeling for, go back to this step.
Exercises to Engage Your Core
Once you have found your deep core muscles as described above, now we need to work on engaging and strengthening them. Below you will find a few variations of exercises to work on your core.
Supine Abdominal March
Lie on your back with your knees bent. Take a deep breath in through your belly and activate your deep core.
While maintaining your core activation, lift one of your knees up to just above your hip. Then lower it back down. Lift the other leg to the same height and lower it down. Keep alternating like your are marching in place. The goal is to keep your core engaged and to not allow your ribs to flare or your lower back to arch off of the ground.
Perform 3 sets of 10 reps on each side.
Unsupported March
The next progression is to get both of your legs off of the ground for a short duration. As you did in the exercise above, you will be marching in place but in a different sequence.
Start on your back with your knees back and engage your core. Lift up one leg so your knee is above your hip. Keep that leg in the air, then lift the other leg up to the same position. Both legs should now be in the air in a 90/90 position.
Then lower the first leg you brought up, followed by the second leg. The tendency will be to arch the back as you lower your legs. Keep your core strong and your breathing regulated.
Perform 2-3 sets of 10 reps.
Triple Flexion
Start in the same position as before – on your back with your knees bent. Activate the TrA muscle and maintain your breathing. Once you are ready, lift your legs up so your hips and knees are at 90° angles.
Keep monitoring that your core is activated with your fingers while holding this position. If it is hard, start with holding your legs up for 5-10 seconds at a time with maintenance of your abdominal brace and gradually build up to 30-60 second holds for 2-3 sets.
Incorporating Core Work into Your Daily Routine
When you think about core strength and stability, it’s easy to envision intense workout routines and strength training sessions. However, the reality is that core engagement should easily be incorporated into our everyday activities. Whether you work a desk job or are moving about running errands, there are seamless ways to integrate engaging your core into your daily routine. Here are a few ideas:
- When going to the gym, incorporate core stabilization during one of your already scheduled lifting routines. Perform a single arm shoulder press while standing. Your body has to stabilize with weight only on one side of the body. You’ll incorporate core stability more by using one arm instead of both at the same time. Get creative and try different variations and a variety of work.
- When working around the house and coming home after running errands, every time you lift an object, work on engaging your core. It should normally be something that happens even when we don’t think about it, but it is easy to get into bad habits. This is often how people can hurt their back when lifting. Whether it is picking up groceries from the trunk or picking up something that fell on the ground, use that core and get yourself used to it. Then you won’t have to think about it consciously when it becomes habit.
- For those looking for more intensive core training, try Pilates or yoga. It doesn’t even have to be a formal class. There are plenty or resources on YouTube and social media. I’ve been going to Pilates classes for almost a year now. And I have to say… I LOVE IT. I even took some continuing education courses on Pilates for rehabilitation. If you’re interested in learning more about this or my experience, leave a comment down below!
Remember, integrating core exercises into your daily life isn’t always about making time for a workout. It’s about learning to integrate core stabilization and IAP management into your daily activities.
TL;DR
Core stability helps with balance, body alignment, maintaining your center of mass, and helping to protect your low back. Engaging your core comes down to using the correct core muscles. This post reviews which muscles are your core muscles, what it means to engage your core, and will take you through step-by-step exactly how you can learn to engage your core properly.
Tera Sandona is a licensed Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) and the founder of PT Complete. She helps high-achieving women break out of cycles of chronic pain, stress, and burnout through her Regulate and Rebuild Method, a sequenced approach that addresses the nervous system first and builds strength second. Her work focuses on helping women finally understand their bodies, rebuild strength, and create lasting resilience that fits real life.
