When I first started working out, I joined a gym. It was awesome – open 24hrs with security, awesome facilities, and two personal trainers (a married couple, in their late 50s – I know, I was mad too) who owned and operated it. The gentleman was the one who showed me around his facility. First to the cardio center, then to the “core” area.

I didn’t even know what a “core” was, and I told him such. I had this awkward look on my face like, “This might be a stupid question, but.. what is a core?” He grabbed my hand and said, “There are no stupid questions in my house!” As he went on to say that the core is the entire batch of muscles that controls our midsections, I promptly told him, “Oh, I don’t have any abs. I mean, come on – I have to grab the top of the car in order to lift myself out of it.”

He laughed so hard at me, I felt like getting mad, LOL.

“We all have abs, Erika. Sure, we might have different levels of strength, but we all have them.”

I felt like telling him a giant “Whatever,” but I didn’t. Instead, I just listened as he offered up tons of exercises and tips for me to try to help “get some abs.” Here is one of those exercises. Hopefully, they’ll help you as much as they’ve helped me.

There you have it – a nice, challenging, simple method for working out your core. You don’t have to do a thousand of ‘em, you don’t have to do a hundred, either. Going from zero to 20 is challenging enough. Try whatever you can, and when they start feeling too easy, let natural progression tell you to try doing more. Be happy, be healthy, be good!