Forget crunches — a personal trainer recommends these 5 standing ab exercises to strengthen your core

A strong core is essential for any fitness pursuit. If you want to run a faster 5K, deadlift hundreds of pounds, or finally achieve a headstand in yoga class, your abs need to be trained and conditioned for the job.

Rolling out a yoga mat for some crunches can be a good ab workout, but we spend much more of our days upright and walking around. That’s why it’s important to train your core while standing and in all planes of motion.

Needing a switch from my usual mat work, I decided to grab my adjustable dumbbells and try certified personal trainer Kaitlin Heaney’s five exercise standing ab routine. It was quick and easy to follow yet challenging, and I was surprised at just how hard my core had to work.

How to do Kaitlin Heaney’s 5 standing ab exercises

You’ll need a single moderately-heavy dumbbell for this workout. Heaney switches between a 15-pound and an 8-pound dumbbell, but I found my 12-pound dumbbell to be appropriate for each move. If you’ve just started to work out regularly, you may want to use a lighter weight.

As a reminder, the right weight for you will feel challenging by the final few reps, but never impossible. If you have to compromise your form, you're lifting too heavy.

Heaney doesn’t title the exercises, but I’ll name them on my own:

• Reverse woodchop with alternating knee lift
• Static lunge with dumbbell pass
• 1 leg balance with alternating dumbbell circles
• Static sumo squat with alternating lateral bends
• Dumbbell marches

She suggests aiming for 10-15 reps of each exercise, for 2-4 sets total. I chose the upper end of those ranges, and finished the workout in about 20 minutes. Here's what Iearned:

I immediately felt my core working

I’ve done my fair share of crunches and sit ups, and they usually don’t start fatiguing my abdominal muscles until I’ve done a handful of reps.

What surprised me about Heaney’s exercises is that I felt my abs “turn on” immediately. As soon as I started my first round of reverse woodchops, my deep core muscles (like the transverse abdominis and internal obliques) activated to stabilize the rest of my body. This continued throughout the routine, and got even more intense with the 1 leg balance – my obliques really had to kick into high gear to keep me from falling over.

Crunches and sit ups are great for working the more surface-level abdominal muscles, like your rectus abdomins (or “six-pack”). If you want to target deeper core muscles, these exercises will do the trick.

My obliques were sore the next day

There were some oblique-heavy movements in this routine, like the reverse woodchop and the sumo squat with lateral bends. Like I mentioned, the one-leg exercises also put my obliques to the test due to some troublesome bunions that throw off my balance.

Not surprisingly, this resulted in some soreness in the days following my workout. It wasn’t severe and didn’t keep me from doing anything, but it was enough to notice. I’ll always mention that soreness doesn’t indicate a “good” or “effective” workout, it just means you’ve challenged the muscle in a new way. That was definitely the case for me.

If your bicycles and side planks have been getting boring, these exercises could bring some interesting variety to your oblique work.

Some of the twisting motions aggravated my lower back

I’ve dealt with lower back pain since my teen years, so I always have to be mindful of certain movements. Strengthening your core is essential if you’ve got lower back issues, but sometimes exercises need to be modified slightly to avoid aggravating the area.

Twisting movements can tweak my back just enough to cause a dull ache, and unfortunately that happened on the last set of reverse woodchops. I was still able to finish the set, but the next day I decided to skip the deadlifts I had planned. When I do this workout in the future, I’ll probably drop my dumbbell weight and reduce my range of motion on that exercise.

Standing ab workouts are a great option for anyone, but especially for those that struggle with lower back injuries and issues. Just move slowly and deliberately, and concentrate on proper form.

Breathing and pace were important factors

Speaking of “moving slowly,” I noticed that pace made a really big difference in this workout.

During the first set, I really took my time with each exercise so I could get used to the movements. My pacing sped up once I felt more confident. I realized in doing so that I relied more on momentum from my upper and lower body to perform each movement, and my core muscles took somewhat of a rest (I’m sure this probably contributed to my lower back pain in the fourth set).

By the third set I slowed things down again, and made sure to connect my breath to the movement. Intentionally exhaling and properly engaging my core before beginning the exercise allowed these muscles to kick back in again.

It can be tempting to move through a workout quickly, especially if you’ve got limited time. Slow things down a bit for this standing ab workout so you can reap the full benefits. I’d even recommend going a little slower than Heaney does.

More from Tom's Guide

• Forget Russian twists — 5 standing ab exercises that sculpt your core muscles using one kettlebell
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