Four Exercises to Strengthen Your Core

Busy day at work and no time to make it to the gym or a fitness class? Not to worry! These exercises to strengthen your core can be done from the comfort of your home – they’re straightforward, quick, and highly effective.

 

C-Crunches

C-crunches are a different approach to your everyday crunch. To keep it simple, this exercise is broken into two steps that you’re going to put together to make one fluid movement.

Start by laying on your back, knees bent, with your feet flat on the floor and about hip distance apart.

Step one of this exercise is a regular crunch with your hands behind your neck. Step two is bringing your knees towards your chest.

When you put them together, your body forms a C shape. Hence the name!

 

Bicycles

Lay on your back with legs extended. Start by bringing your chest, neck and shoulders off the floor.

Keeping one leg extended, pull in one knee and aim your chest to the opposite knee while keeping your fingertips on your temples and elbows out to the side. This prevents pulling on your head and neck while also giving more of a true rotation through the spine.

Aiming your chest to the opposite knee forces your abdominals to twist, targeting your obliques and lower abs. Your obliques are located on the side of your abdominal muscles. It’s important to have strong obliques because they help support your lower back and improve posture.

 

Planks

Planks not only build core strength, but increase stability as well. When planking, it’s very important to make sure your body stays flat and in line.

Arching your back or sagging your hips are two common mistakes you want to make sure to avoid to prevent injury.

If you want to mix things up a bit, try adding a toe tap to each side!

 

Standing Side Crunches

Another oblique dominant exercise! There’s a variety of ways you can complete this exercise. Use a light to moderate weight for added difficulty or include a hip lift to the side.

In the hip lift to the side, your knee will touch your elbow which exaggerates the crunching movement and works the obliques harder.

Implement these four ab exercises into your core routine and increase your strength, balance, and abdominal tone!

 

 

Have questions about any of these exercises to strengthen your core? Or want someone to motivate you during workouts? Reach out to me!