Dr. Andy Galpin

By now we know the difference between core and abs, but more specifically, these are often described as things like isolation exercises versus functional, or versus dynamic, or in the literature you're going to see these sometimes called integrated exercises.

So the isolated or the ab specific exercises are your planks, your back extensions, your side bends.

Colloquially, if you just think about this as exercises I'm doing primarily to target my abs, that is the optimal target.

The other side, the dynamic, the movement, the integrated exercises are ones that activate, utilize, strengthen, enhance my abs, but they're also doing something else and larger.

These are deadlifts, overhead presses, lunges, carries, pushes, and things like that.

A lot of research.

These are fantastic for your abs.

Where people will disagree, and earlier in the episode, I gave the perspective of like the powerlifting or weightlifting or strongman.

They tend to default to saying, hey, I'm doing these big dynamic movements.

I'm doing carries and walks and stuff like that.

My core is going nuts.

The research supports that.

These are very, very good at activating your core.

Where the problem lies is therefore I don't need to do any of these core isolation exercises.

And the research would actually suggest that's probably incorrect.

The other Pilates type of equation, and no offense to all my Pilates girls and guys out there, but they have a little bit of the opposite approach, which is to say, if I want to get my core done, I need to do a bunch of different core isolation exercises.

One of the things that we know here is

If you were to look at the research and you look at the reviews and the meta-analyses, we need a lot more work in this area.

It's actually, there's not a lot here.

There's enough, but we need a lot more.