Best Equipment for Multiple Core Training

A strong core helps with balance, stability, and generating power in almost every movement. It’s what keeps you upright, helps you lift heavier weights, improves athletic performance, and even reduces lower back pain.

However, to build a strong core, people often think about workouts like sit-ups, crunches, and planks. These moves have their place, but doing endless crunches on a yoga mat would barely scratch the surface of core development.

Your core isn’t just about your abs; it includes your obliques, lower back, transverse abdominis, and even the muscles around your hips. And floor-based exercises alone don’t provide enough variation, resistance, or support to engage all of these muscles effectively.

That’s why you need to invest in specialized equipment to do multiple core exercises engaging all required muscle groups. Let’s get into more details:

Essentials for Multiple Core Training

When looking for the best equipment for a well-rounded core workout, you need tools that allow for progression, resistance, and stability. Here are some of the best options:

1. Adjustable Ab Benches for Core Training

If there’s one piece of equipment that truly upgrades your core workouts, it’s an adjustable ab bench.

Unlike a flat surface, an ab bench lets you increase or decrease difficulty by adjusting the incline, giving you a full range of motion and allowing for targeted resistance training.

With an ab bench, you can do the following:

Incline Sit-Ups: These are more challenging than floor crunches, helping to build strength faster.
Russian Twists with Added Stability: Target obliques while keeping your lower back supported.
Weighted Decline Crunches: Allow for progressive overload by incorporating resistance.
Leg Raises & Reverse Crunches: Engage the lower abs without excessive strain on the spine.

2. Stability Balls for Deep Core Muscles

A stability ball might look simple, but it forces your deep core stabilizers to engage more than almost any other piece of equipment.

Exercises like ball rollouts, pikes, and plank variations on a stability ball are excellent for building strength in your transverse abdominis, the deep muscle responsible for core stability.

Pairing stability ball movements with an ab bench can give you both dynamic movement and static stability, making your workouts well-rounded and functional.

3. Medicine Balls for Power and Coordination

Since core training isn’t just about strength but also about power and coordination, medicine balls are a no-brainer for adding explosive movements into your routine.

You can do exercises like medicine ball slams, rotational throws, and wall tosses to work out your abs, along with your entire kinetic chain, including shoulders, hips, and legs.

An ab bench helps here, too. Instead of just doing basic seated twists, try seated Russian twists on an incline ab bench because this makes the movement harder and forces your obliques to engage more than they would on the floor.

4. Hanging Leg Raise Stations for Lower Abs

One of the hardest parts of the core to train is the lower abs.

Hanging leg raises or knee tucks are the best way to target your lower abs. They require strict control and core engagement, making them far more effective than lying leg raises.

If you don’t love hanging from a bar for reps, an ab bench can help.

In fact, by incorporating both hanging movements and ab bench-supported leg lifts, you ensure full engagement of the lower abs and hip flexors.