An interesting topic of debate in the strength and conditioning world is “core” training – particularly what I will refer to as “Core Endurance”.

When you think of training, you tend to think of working to create various adaptations: strength/stability, power/rate of force development, mobility, endurance, etc. Think of training lower-body: you train power with low reps of high-intent jumps, you train strength with big weights on squats, you train mobility with various seated hip rotations, and you train high-rep endurance with low-back extensions. You don’t think twice about this; it’s essentially well accepted at this point (and the same applies with upper-body: medicine balls, bench press, rows, etc., etc.).

Why is it then that when referring to training the “core” that strength coaches feel you don’t need to train it with endurance? We train strength/stability with carries, Pallof variations, plank variations, etc. We train power with medicine ball throws. We train mobility with a plethora of hip/T-spine/lumbar drills. But Heaven forbid you talk about doing some “Core Endurance” with sit-ups, Russian twists, leg lowers, etc. I don’t understand why we shouldn’t train Core Endurance…

In my mind “Endurance” can be synonymous with “Fatigue Resistance”. When you look at it through this lens, it should make sense why you absolutely should train “Core Endurance”. Having a high level of fatigue resistance in the musculature that makes up your core (hips flexors, abdominals, QL, etc.) can allow for you to train your larger exercises (squats, deadlifts, lunge variations) for longer and with more quality. In fact, I have been around A LOT of high-level athletes who have had lower-back issues. Every single one of them has alleviated their symptoms by completing Core Endurance routines 2-3 times per week. Those same athletes also had their lower-back symptoms return when they became inconsistent with the core routines.

Additionally, when we think of hypertrophy, we usually think of doing direct work on the muscle group(s) with higher reps and/or working to failure. If we want muscular growth in the hamstrings, we do leg curls. If we want growth in the biceps, we do DB curls. If we want growth in the abdominals we say you have to improve your diet. Why are the abs treated differently than any other muscle group in the buddy?

A final point to make is that you can usually get by with 5-10 minutes of “Core Endurance” exercises and make some pretty solid progress. Almost everyone has 5-10 free minutes in the day. Strength coaches act like it’s the biggest waste of time to “do abs”, but won’t think twice about allowing athletes to do Arm Farm multiple times a week (which, by the way, is also completely fine to do).

To summarize, my three biggest arguments for implementing “Core Endurance” exercises into your routine are as follows:

1. Think of Endurance as Fatigue Resistance – being able to prevent fatigue longer allows for more quality training
2. The best way to create hypertrophy in a given muscle group is to train it directly (and usually training it with higher reps and/or sets to failure or close to failure)
3. It doesn’t take that much time to implement Core Endurance exercises into your routine. Start with 5-10 minutes 2-3 times per week and go from there.

If you are looking for a place to start with Core Endurance routines, you can find some videos here below: