Dr. Andy Galpin

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.

In general, based upon the evidence we have right now though, you will typically see that free weights and suspension type of exercises will activate core musculature more so than isolated exercises.

That said, you will also see

those free weights and suspension exercises alone do not sufficiently cover the core musculature.

Really easy then to say the obvious answer most likely is to do a combination of those big free weight movements

probably some suspension exercises, and then certainly some independent isolation exercises.

Suspension exercises, if you're not familiar, think about things like being in a pushup position and then instead of having your feet on the ground, you have your feet in the loops of a TRX band or have them on a stability ball or some other place that puts your feet up in a different position.

What we need to think about is, okay,

I probably need to think about all of these and most of my programs, but I can spend more or less time on one side of that equation, depending on the goal, which I'll get into directly.

One of the things you'll also see some evidence for in the research is that after you've gotten reasonably trained, the isolated exercises don't necessarily work as well as they used to.

So early in your training journey,

whether it's been a long time, you've taken some time off or you've never exercised and you're just starting, you might be fine simply doing the isolation exercises.

But after you've reached a certain level of fitness, strength, activation ability, it's probably going to behoove you to move on past that.

Now, whether or not you still continue to do some isolation exercises, that's fine.

But if you only stick to those,

Again, the current research would indicate that you're leaving potential gains in performance and aesthetics on the table by only staying with the isolated exercises.

And just while we're here, examples of isolates and exercises, again, these would be your classic core exercises, your planks, your back extensions, your side bends, these things.

These are isolating the ab or core muscles and either not using other larger muscles and appendices or using them very minimally.