What does core training mean to you? To some people it means sit-ups, side dips, and crunches. To some, it’s planks. Even though those are useful conditioning exercises to build baseline fatigue resistance and baseline strength, focusing only at this level shouldn’t be our stopping point. I’d argue for a different approach, at least some of the time, because high-level athletic function demands more than pure strength from the core. Proper core training means developing an ability to: 1) generate and sense stability 2) sense your general position and posture 3) control your movement to a finer level 4) do all of these things simultaneously, across multiple positions Particularly with heavy lifting tasks or running, there are massive stability needs at our hips, pelvis, and spine. Lack that stability and things get sloppy, which is nothing but an energy suck and injury risk. Don’t confuse stability with a complete lockdown either. Your nervous system is smart, so it will happily do things like locking your lumbar spine into extension with a forward pelvic tilt to achieve a false core stability. Young runners often get away with this. Older runners might start to notice it hurting their low back. Either way, it’s a lazy, passive form of stability instead of the dynamic stability your muscles should provide to keep your overall movement reigned in. Take a peek at each of these videos and you’ll notice that I take a second to explore the extremes of what my spine movement will allow before deciding on the middle ground as the position for training. Because I don’t want to run in a hyperextended spine position, I’m not usually going to train there. Once you find your stable position, maintain control of it while you move other areas of the body. You might want trunk stability while the hips move. Maybe hip stability while the trunk moves. It’s all core training.