Viktoria Hogan is a personal trainer and online nutrition coach who runs Tori Training, an online solution to your health and fitness goals. She lives in the U.S., but is originally from Sweden. She played soccer up through college and has always had a passion for training and nutrition.
In the fitness world, ab and core exercises are commonly interchangeably used to refer to your stomach area. There is, however, a distinct difference between these two as well as different focus and importance of what you should be doing when “strengthening” your core or “doing abs.”
What “abs” qualify as
Your abs, or abdominals that it is short for, include only the actual ab muscles in the front and to the side of your stomach. These include your external obliques, rectus abdominis, internal oblique, and transversus abdominis. When you perform a sit-up, these are the muscles that you are working on.
What your core really is
Your core, on the other hand, includes many more muscles. Your core holds you up and allows you to perform any movement, without it you would not be able to keep your spine upright. It is also the lack of core strength that can cause poor posture or injuries/pain while moving. Muscles that are included in your core are your entire torso, all your ab muscles, but arguably also your glutes (yes, your butt), your lower back muscles, many deep muscles that connect to your spine (such as erector spinae muscles, among others), your diaphragm, and your pelvic floor.
Your core doesn’t only hold you up, but a strong core will also aid in balance, control movements, and help stabilize the lower back. A weak core causes many common issues in people, some examples being lower back pain, hernias, abdominal strains, and poor posture.
Exercises for your abs
Some common exercises for your abs are:
Russian twists: Seated with a weight in your hands that you’ll twist to the side of your torso and then over to the other side.
Crunches: Laying down on your back, lift your feet off the floor, and bend your knees at a 90-degree angle. From there, lift your head and shoulders off the floor to decrease the space between you and your knees.
Bicycles: Laying down like crunches, you are going to put your hands behind your head and then reach with your opposite elbow towards your opposite knee.
Other common exercises are sit-ups, flutter kicks, and leg raises. Anything that includes your abdominals and obliques qualifies as ab exercises.
Exercises for your core
Core exercises are more integrated with several muscle groups. Because your core entails muscles in your entire torso as well as your glutes (especially in standing positions), “core exercises” are a variety of movements. An exercise like “Pallof Presses” will use many more than just your abdominals. It is an anti-rotational exercise, meaning that you are working to try not to rotate your torso or legs while pressing a band or cable perpendicularly from you. To do so, you need to activate your glutes to anchor yourself and engage all your ab muscles, particularly your obliques on the side where the band is attached. However, you are using all muscle in your core for this while standing upright and resisting that band to pull you sideways. A few other good core exercises are:
Birddogs: In an all-fours position, keep your spine neutral as you extend one arm and your opposite leg. This is an anti-extension exercise where the focus is to brace your core so that you don’t arch your lower back.
Deadbugs: Sort of the reverse of the bird dog; for this exercise, you will lay on your back and lift your feet off the ground. Your knees should be at 90 degrees as you then extend one arm and your opposite leg out without arching your lower back.
Suitcase carry: Grabbing a weight in one hand (dumbbell or kettlebell), you will walk without letting the weight make you bend to one side or overcompensate. The weight should be heavy enough that it feels challenging but not so heavy that you cannot stay in an upright position.
A note on getting a “flat stomach.”
It is a common misunderstanding that doing a bunch of ab exercises like crunches will make your stomach flatter. The truth is that, although it will make your muscles stronger, it won't necessarily make you lose fat there. Gaining muscle mass and losing fat mass work differently because they are different types of tissues. The short explanation is that working your bicep will cause protein synthesis in the bicep (granted you are eating enough calories and protein for muscle building to happen), which means you can focus on your bicep to grow your bicep. However, losing fat mass is heavily dependent on eating fewer calories than you put in (eating at a deficit) and then you will lose fat in the reverse order of how you gained it. This is dependent on your genetics. For example, if you gain fat mass in your stomach first, it will be the last place you will lose it. This is due to our bodies thinking we need to save energy in case we don’t know when we will get our next meal, something that was integrated into our genetics hundreds of years ago. It means that even if you are doing 100 “abs” every day, you won’t lose weight unless you are eating at a deficit, and even then, you won’t specifically lose it around your midsection.
Conclusion
Although you can do exercises for your abs to strengthen them, it won’t necessarily help you strengthen your core per se. With the right nutrition, it could give you a six-pack, but having a six-pack doesn’t mean that you can support your spine properly. As mentioned before, your core helps you with balance, better posture, and your daily living in general, which is why I try to incorporate core exercises into all clients’ programs.
Viktoria Hogan, Personal Trainer and Online Nutrition Coach
Viktoria Hogan is a personal trainer and online nutrition coach who runs Tori Training, an online solution to your health and fitness goals. She lives in the U.S., but is originally from Sweden. She played soccer up through college and has always had a passion for training and nutrition. As a trainer since the beginning of 2020, she has trained a multitude of clients and gained several specialization certifications within her field. Her main mission is to improve people's quality of life.
