Advanced Core Exercises

Advanced Core Exercises

If you’re looking for some difficult and advanced core exercises, check out the ones below!

If these are too hard for you, we also have a blog post for Intermediate Core Exercises and Beginner Core Exercises.

Jack Knife

50 seconds

• On your back, put your legs up in the air, knees bent and your arms up
• While contracting your core, open up at the same time by pushing your legs out while moving your hands backwards
• Don’t let your feet touch the ground (if this is too difficult for you, you can let your feet touch briefly to make it easier)
• Try to avoid letting your shoulders shrug up towards your ears

4-Point Plank

50 seconds

• Get into plank position with your hands, knees and toes touching the ground
• Raise up onto your toes by lifting your knees off the ground
• Bend your elbows a bit and stay in this plank position
• The more the bend your elbows, the harder this will be
• Think of this position as pulling your toes towards your hands, this will get your core that much more engaged

Dolphin Kick

50 seconds

• Laying on your stomach, lift your thighs off the ground and then bring them back to the ground
• Remember to keep your core engaged especially when you lift your legs off the ground
• This might be challenging if you have a history of lower back problems, if that is the case, you can do this exercise with one leg at a time

Crunch w/ Twist

50 seconds

• Lay on your back with your hands by your sides
• You want to reach up on one side and try to touch the finger tips of the opposite hand
• Return to starting position and repeat with the other side
• Avoid rolling side to side, you want to make sure that when you reach up, your shoulder blade leaves the ground

High Plank w/ Hip Extension

50 seconds

• Get into a push up position with a neutral spine, core engaged
• While staying in that push up position, lift up one leg at a time to get your glutes working a bit more
• To make this more difficult, you can do a slight elbow bend

Side Plank w/ Hip Abduction

50 seconds (switch sides halfway)

• Get in a side plank position, with your elbow directly below your shoulder and your feet touching the ground
• Do some hip abductions by lifting up your top leg and bringing it back down
• To get your gluteus medius engaged, you can have your top leg slightly behind your bottom leg
• Switch to the other side halfway

Superman

50 seconds

• Get in position by laying flat on your stomach with your hands and legs out
• Lift your opposite arm to opposite leg and drive your elbow back towards your hip of the arm you’re lifting up

Exercises