Ask most people how to train their core and they’ll tell you to do more crunches. That’s not wrong, it’s just incomplete. Your core does a lot more than flex your spine forward, and if crunches are the only tool in your toolbox, you’re missing most of what actually makes a core strong and useful. At Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby, we coach core training as four distinct jobs: bracing under load, rotating, resisting rotation, and side bending. Here’s how each one works and why you’re probably already doing more core training than you realize.
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Why Compound Lifts Already Train Your Core
If you deadlift or squat, you’re already training your core, even if you’ve never done a single crunch. Your core’s main job during a heavy compound lift isn’t to move, it’s to stabilize your spine. That takes serious intra-abdominal pressure, the kind you build by bracing hard before you pull or descend.
Think about it this way: every rep of a heavy deadlift or squat asks your core to hold your spine in a safe position while the rest of your body handles a heavy load. That’s a much harder job than curling your torso forward against gravity. It’s also why people who lift heavy compound movements consistently tend to have strong, functional cores without ever “training abs” directly.
This doesn’t mean crunches are useless, it means they’re one small piece of a much bigger picture. If your program already includes squats and deadlifts, you’ve got a core training base built in. The other three pieces below are what round it out.
Rotational Core Training: The Wood Chopper
Rotation is a core function most people barely touch, especially if they sit at a desk all day. A wood chopper trains your obliques and abs by letting your shoulders rotate freely off your hips, which hits your midsection in a completely different way than a crunch does.
Most days give you almost no reason to rotate through your torso. You sit facing forward, drive facing forward, and scroll facing forward. If you play a sport that involves rotation like golf or hockey, that gap matters even more, because your body needs to be ready for a movement pattern it basically never practices anywhere else.
A wood chopper closes that gap directly. It’s also one of the easiest ways to make your core training sport specific if you’re chasing more power in a golf swing or a slap shot. You’re training the exact motion the sport demands, not just a generic ab exercise.
Anti-Rotation Training: The Pallof Press
Anti-rotation is the flip side of rotation, and it might matter even more for everyday life. It’s what keeps your hips and shoulders locked in a stable position, like when someone bumps into you on the sidewalk and you don’t go stumbling sideways.
The Pallof press is the clearest example. You press a cable straight out in front of you while the cable itself is trying to twist you back toward the machine. Your job is to resist that rotation the entire time. It gets harder the further you press away from your center of mass, and easier the closer the cable stays to your body.
That stability doesn’t just protect you from a stray shoulder bump. It directly carries over to your deadlifts and squats, where keeping your hips and shoulders stacked and stable under load is exactly what protects your spine. Anti-rotation work is the quiet insurance policy behind every other lift you do.
Side Bending: The Missing Core Movement
Side bending is the core movement almost nobody trains, and it’s a big one if you deal with a tight lower back. A cable side bend trains your obliques and your lower back together in a plane of motion most programs skip entirely.
Most core exercises move you forward and back, or they train rotation and anti-rotation like the exercises above. Side bending is different. It trains the sides of your torso bending laterally, which is exactly what happens any time you bend down to grab something that isn’t directly in front of you, like picking a bag up off the floor beside your foot.
If your lower back tends to feel tight or cranky, this is often the missing piece. Training the side-bending pattern directly, rather than avoiding it, builds resilience in a movement you’re going to do constantly in real life whether your gym program accounts for it or not.
Building a Core Routine That Isn’t Just Crunches
A complete core routine covers four jobs: bracing under load during compound lifts, rotation, anti-rotation, and side bending. Crunches only touch one small slice of that picture, so leaning on them alone leaves most of your core untrained.
The good news is you don’t need a separate 45-minute ab day to cover all four. If your strength program already has squats and deadlifts, the bracing piece is handled. Add one rotational movement like a wood chopper, one anti-rotation movement like a Pallof press, and one side-bending movement like a cable side bend, and you’ve got a genuinely complete core routine in three extra exercises.
This is exactly the kind of programming decision that’s easy to overlook on your own and easy to fix with a coach watching your training week to week. It’s also the kind of detail our coaches build into every client’s program at Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby, whether they’re training in person or through our online coaching.
FAQ
Do squats and deadlifts count as core training?
Yes. Heavy compound lifts like squats and deadlifts require significant intra-abdominal pressure to stabilize your spine under load. That bracing demand trains your core directly, even though the exercise isn’t marketed as an ab movement.
What is a Pallof press and why does it help my core?
A Pallof press is an anti-rotation exercise where you press a cable straight out while resisting its pull to rotate you sideways. It builds core stability that carries over directly into keeping your spine safe during squats and deadlifts.
Are crunches a waste of time?
No, but they’re incomplete. Crunches train forward spinal flexion, which is only one of several core functions. A complete routine also needs rotation, anti-rotation, and side bending to cover how your core actually works day to day.
How often should I train my core each week?
If your strength program includes squats and deadlifts most weeks, you’re already covering the bracing component. Adding one rotation, one anti-rotation, and one side-bending exercise once or twice a week rounds out a complete core routine.
What’s a good core exercise for sports like golf or hockey?
A wood chopper is a strong choice because it trains rotation through the shoulders and hips, the same pattern used in a golf swing or a slap shot. It’s one of the easiest ways to make core training sport specific.
Ready to Start?
If you’ve been doing crunches and wondering why your core still feels weak in the gym or on the field, the fix usually isn’t more crunches, it’s a program that covers rotation, anti-rotation, and side bending too. That’s exactly the kind of detail Kraken Fitness coaches build into every program in North Burnaby, whether you train in the gym or online.
About the Author
Josko is the Founder & CEO of Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby and host of the Kraken Power Podcast. He’s spent years coaching everyday people through strength training, including how to build a core routine that actually holds up under real training loads.
Brandon is Co-Owner & COO of Kraken Fitness and co-host of the Kraken Power Podcast, bringing the kinesiology background behind Kraken’s coaching methodology.
Most people think that training your core means only doing crunches. I’m going to show you how to train your core properly. One of your core’s main functions is to stabilize your spine during heavy compound movements like a deadlift. So, when you’re doing compound movements like a deadlift or a squat, you’re indirectly training your core. Another great way to train your core is through rotation, which is something that is lacking in most people’s days if they’re very straight on throughout, especially if they’re working at a desk. So, an exercise like a wood chopper would allow you to freely rotate your shoulders off of your hips, which trains your obliques and your abs on the front side in a different way that a crunch would. And on top of that, if you’re playing any kind of sport that involves rotation, like golf, hockey, that’s going to require that motion. This is an easy way to get sports specific in your core training. Now, in contrast to rotational core exercises, you might want to do some anti-rotation as well, because this is going to be the basis of making sure that your hips and shoulders can be in a stable position. So, if you’re like walking down the street and someone bumps into you, you’re not just going to completely fall over. You have the stability in a bilateral stance like this, which is going to hold you in place. This is also going to translate into your other compound lifts like your deadlifts and your squats. So, a great example of an anti-rotation core exercise is a paloff press. So, as you can see, Josko is trying to press the cable straight out ahead of him, and the cable is trying to rotate him back towards the machine. So, as he does this exercise, he’s trying to resist that movement, and it gets harder as he presses away from his center of his mass as opposed to when it’s closer to him. Another type of movement that is often neglected in core training is side bending. So an exercise like a cable side bend is going to allow you to train your core as well as your lower back in this plane here. So this is going to translate to people who have really tight lower backs or anytime you’re going to bend over right not when the object’s not in front of you. Now the first way to train your core is not always the way that is traditionally thought of and it is doing heavy compound exercises like a deadlift. Now, the reason why this is training your core is because you have to have lots of intraabdominal pressure to maintain and stabilize your spine through a movement like a deadlift or a heavy squat. So, hope you learned there are other ways to do core training than just doing crunches. And these ways are going to be much more effective and help you in the long run. By the way, we do online coaching. It’s not what you think. It’s not a PDF. It’s not a little booklet. Your coach writes your program, does your nutrition, checks in with you on video every single week. And it’s the same system we use in the gym. Link below in the description if you want in.