Beginner Core Exercises You Can Do At Home

Easy Core Exercises for Beginners

In this blog post, we share how to find your neutral spine (which is key for effective core contraction) as well as 6 core exercises for beginners. The reason why we want to work out the core is fourfold, first it helps with our overall strength, next it prevent injuries, third if you don’t have a strong core, it’s really hard to strengthen it in general and fourth, it’s really the foundation of all movements. 

How to Find your Neutral Spine

The easiest way to find your neutral spine is basically thinking somebody’s going to punch you in the stomach and you’re going to protect yourself by squeezing your belly tight.

Before that however, we want to make sure that we’re in a neutral spine. You want to have a little bit of space in your low back, but not too much space. So how I find the neutral is, I’ll do a pelvic tilt, kind of tilt my pelvis so that I’m flat my back and push it down into the ground. Then, we want to do the opposite of that. So arch up to create lots of space between my back and the floor and then try to find that middle ground of where it feels comfortable.

So once you’ve found the middle ground of where it feels comfortable, you’re going to think about somebody going to punch you in the stomach and tighten up your core. While you do that, make sure you’re not over squeezing so you can still breathe. You should be staying relatively relaxed through the rest of your body, but holding a bit of tension through your stomach.

So ideally as we do these exercises you’re going to try to think about keeping that tension through your stomach, as we start adding some arms and leg movements.

Heel Slide

45 seconds

• Get into a crook lying position (lying on your back, knees bent, feet flat on floor)
• One leg at a time, drag your heel along the floor, pushing down into the floor
• Slowly pull your leg back up into the crook lying position, then do the same with your other leg
• Make sure you’re maintaining that core contraction while doing this

Arms Overhead

45 seconds

• In the crook lying position with your core contracted, raise your arms 
• One arm at a time, slowly reach up and lower your arm over your head then return to the starting position and repeat with your other arm
• Watch out for your upper back arching, when your arms move up, your back will start to arch but make sure to keep your shoulder blades touching the ground to avoid this

Heel Slide & Arms Overhead

45 seconds

• In the crook lying position with your core contracted, raise your arms 
• With opposite arm and leg, reach up and lower your arm over your head while also dragging your heel along the floor
• Return back to starting position and repeat with your other opposite arm and leg

Arms Only

45 seconds

• Get in position with your hands and knees on the ground
• Contract your core and get into neutral spine position 
• Slowly lift one hand off the ground and push your arm out in front of you
• Return your hand to the ground and switch arms
• Make sure you’re not arching your back up or pushing your chin up, stay in neutral spine position!

Legs Only

45 seconds

• Get in position with your hands and knees on the ground
• Contract your core and get into neutral spine position 
• Slowly kick one leg out behind you, reaching behind you with your heel
• Return your leg to starting position and repeat with your other leg
• Make sure you’re not arching your back up or letting your hips sag!

Bird Dog

45 seconds

• Get in position with your hands and knees on the ground
• Contract your core and get into neutral spine position 
• With opposite arm and leg, reach one arm in front of you and at the same time, kick the opposite leg out behind you
• Return your arm and leg to starting position and repeat with your other opposite arm and leg

Check out the video below to follow along with the exercises in real time.

Exercises