You’ve been training for a couple of years. You do your planks. You throw in some crunches or leg raises after leg day. Your abs are there — you can feel them working — but something still feels off. Maybe your lower back gets cranky under load. Maybe your squat breaks down when the weight gets heavy. Maybe you just have a nagging sense that your midsection is the weak link holding everything else back.
Here’s what’s probably happening: you’ve been training your core in one direction while ignoring the other three. And it’s not a minor gap — for most people, it’s most of their core training.
What Your Core Is Actually Supposed to Do
The abs flex the spine, yes. But the primary function of your core muscles isn’t to create movement — it’s to prevent it. Every time you squat, deadlift, press overhead, or even just carry groceries, your core’s main job is to hold your spine in a neutral position while force is being applied to your body from multiple directions. Stability, not mobility. Resistance, not motion.
This is why someone can have a visible six-pack and still crumple under a heavy barbell. Aesthetically defined abs and genuinely functional core stability are not the same thing. Crunches train your rectus abdominis to shorten. They do almost nothing to train your core to brace, resist rotation, or absorb lateral force — which are the demands that actually matter when you’re lifting something heavy or moving through space.
The Four Planes — And Where Most People Stop
Dr. Aaron Horschig of Squat University breaks core training into four categories based on the direction of force your body must resist: sagittal (flexion/extension), frontal (lateral), transverse (rotational), and anti-rotation. A complete core program touches all four. Almost nobody’s does.
Sagittal plane training is what most people default to — planks, deadbugs, hollow body holds. These train your core to resist the forward/backward forces that occur during squats and deadlifts, and they’re a solid foundation. The problem starts when this is all you do.
Frontal plane stability — your ability to resist side-to-side forces — is barely trained in most programs. Think about what happens when a powerlifter walks a loaded barbell out of the rack: every step shifts the load to one side, demanding lateral core stiffness. If those muscles aren’t trained, the spine compensates. The quadratus lumborum and the obliques handle frontal plane loads, and carrying double the weight in two hands places significantly less spinal compression than the same weight in one hand, because single-arm carries force your core to work against uneven forces. That’s the training stimulus most people never create.
Then there’s transverse and anti-rotation work — training your core to resist twisting. Anti-rotation exercises like the Pallof press can place up to four times the compressive force on the spine compared to equivalent flexion/extension loads, which is exactly why they’re so effective when built up properly. They expose the deep stabilizers that bilateral barbell work simply doesn’t reach.
The Two Exercises That Fill the Gap
If your program is missing frontal and transverse plane training, two exercises cover a lot of ground: the suitcase carry and the Pallof press.
The suitcase carry is exactly what it sounds like — you pick up a kettlebell or dumbbell in one hand and walk. What makes it effective isn’t the weight; it’s the asymmetry. Your spine is being pulled sideways with every step, and your job is to not let it. Start light (10–20 lbs), brace your core, squeeze the weight to your side, and walk without letting your torso tilt. The goal is to look like you’re carrying nothing — smooth, upright, no wobble. Start with 20–30 yards per side.
The Pallof press targets anti-rotation. Attach a band or cable to your side at chest height, stand perpendicular to the anchor, and hold both hands close to your sternum. Now press straight out in front of you and hold for five seconds. The band is constantly trying to rotate your torso toward the anchor point. Your job is to not let it move. Two to three sets of 10 reps per side, with that 5-second hold at extension, is enough to show you immediately where your weaknesses are. If your hips shift or your shoulders twist, you found a gap.
Both exercises can be done in multiple positions — standing, half-kneeling, tall-kneeling — and the kneeling variations remove the legs from the equation, making the core work harder to maintain position. Half-kneeling Pallof presses, in particular, expose any hip stability problems that are masking core instability at the standing level.
Where These Fit In Your Training
Neither exercise needs a dedicated day. Three to four sets of suitcase carries at the end of a leg or pull session takes about six minutes. Pallof press work fits naturally as a warm-up before squats or as accessory work after your main compound lift. The goal isn’t to exhaust yourself — it’s to train the stabilizers with enough challenge that they adapt over time.
Progress the same way you would any other lift: increase load, add reps, move to harder positions. When a standing Pallof press feels easy, drop to half-kneeling. When that’s easy, try adding a squat at the bottom of the press. Each variation makes the anti-rotation demand harder while requiring more total body coordination.
Over six to eight weeks of consistent work in these patterns, you’ll likely notice changes that show up in unexpected places — a more stable squat at depth, less lower back fatigue during high-rep deadlift sets, better balance under a barbell during overhead work. That’s the frontal and transverse core doing what it’s supposed to do.
Why This Video Is Worth Watching
Squat University’s breakdown of the core exercises most lifters are missing goes deeper into the progression logic — specifically how to sequence these movements for someone building from a back injury versus someone just filling programming gaps. Dr. Horschig demonstrates each exercise with coaching cues that are hard to get from text alone, particularly for the Pallof press variations and the breathing mechanics that make all of this work.
If you want to see the exact technique and the progression from basic to more loaded variations, the video below is a clean 10–15 minutes of actionable content:
Most people don’t need a completely different training program to fix their core — they need to add what’s missing to the one they already have. Two exercises, a few sets each week, and the gaps start to close.
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