INTEGRATION CORE EXERCISES ELICIT GREATER
MUSCLE ACTIVATION THAN ISOLATION EXERCISES
JINGER S. GOTTSCHALL,1 JACKIE MILLS,2 AND
1
Department of Kinesiology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; and 2Les Mills International,
Auckland City, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
Gottschall, JS, Mills, J, and Hastings, B. Integration core
exercises elicit greater muscle activation than isolation exer-
cises. J Strength Cond Res 27(3): 590–596, 2013—The
American College of Sports Medicine and the United States
Department of Health and Human Services advocate core
training as a means to improve stability, reduce injury, and
maintain mobility. There are countless exercises that target
the primary core trunk muscles (abdominal and lumbar) with
the aim of providing these benefits. However, it is unknown as
to which exercises elicit the greatest activation thereby maxi-
mizing functional gains and peak performance. Thus, our pur-
pose was to determine whether integration core exercises that
require activation of the distal trunk muscles (deltoid and
gluteal) elicit greater activation of primary trunk muscles in
comparison with isolation core exercises that only require ac-
tivation of the proximal trunk muscles. Twenty participants, 10
men and 10 women, completed 16 randomly assigned exer-
cises (e.g., crunch, upper body extension, and hover varia-
tions). We measured muscle activity with surface
electromyography of the anterior deltoid, rectus abdominus,
external abdominal oblique, lumbar erector spinae, thoracic
erector spinae, and gluteus maximus. Our results indicate that
the activation of the abdominal and lumbar muscles was the
greatest during the exercises that required deltoid and gluteal
recruitment. In conclusion, when completing the core strength
guidelines, an integrated routine that incorporates the activa-
tion of distal trunk musculature would be optimal in terms of
maximizing strength, improving endurance, enhancing stability,
reducing injury, and maintaining mobility.
KEY WORDS abdominal, back, strength, electromyography
Address correspondence to Dr. Jinger S. Gottschall, jinger@psu.edu.
27(3)/590–596
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
Ó 2013 National Strength and Conditioning Association
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BRYCE HASTINGS2
INTRODUCTION
T
he American College of Sports Medicine (2) and
the United States Department of Health and
Human Services (15) recommend that healthy
adults, under 65 years of age, complete a strength
training routine that includes core exercises twice a week.
They specifically advocate core training as a means to
improve stability and maintain mobility. There are countless
exercises that target the primary core trunk muscles (abdom-
inal and lumbar) with the aim of providing these benefits.
However, it is unknown as to which exercises elicit the
greatest activation thereby enhancing functional gains and
peak performance.
Core exercises are also commonly implemented within
both sport and rehabilitation objectives to maximize
strength, improve endurance, and reduce injury. Therefore,
multiple past studies have focused on specific techniques to
optimize trunk muscle activation (4,6,7,11,12,14). These
studies are similar in that they all use surface electromyog-
raphy (EMG) to evaluate muscle activity of the core. But the
focus of each article differs with respect to the exercise
type, position, support, plane, loads, and equipment.
Monfort-Panego et al. (12) completed a literature synthesis
and concluded that there were 5 critical criteria when select-
ing optimal core-strengthening exercises; hip flexion, upper
body assistance, lower body orientation, surface angle, and
abdominal bracing. The majority of the reviewed studies
focus on isolation core exercises that target the primary
muscle of the anterior trunk, the rectus abdominus (RA).
We assume that isolation exercises would elicit the greatest
activity of this primary core muscle. However, no study has
provided a clear demonstration that isolation exercises are
superior to integration exercises that also target the distal
muscles of the core, such as the deltoid and gluteal groups.
In short, despite the extensive previous research, one
question that still remains is “Do isolation or integration
exercises elicit the greatest activation thereby optimizing
functional and performance gains (1)?” We define integration
core exercises as movements that require activation of the
distal trunk muscles (deltoid and gluteal) and activation of
the proximal trunk muscles (abdominal and lumbar) in com-
parison with isolation core exercises that only require acti-
vation of the proximal trunk muscles. Understanding the

Figure 1. Isolation_crunch. The participants started in the supine
position with their distal fingers at temples, scapula medially rotated,
knees flexed, and plantar surface of their feet flat on the ground. We
instructed them to lift their shoulder blades off the surface of the floor
and lower them back to the floor at the cadence of the metronome.
Figure 2. Integration_hover with lateral arm reach. Each participant
began the exercise in a prone position with the shoulders superior to the
elbows, forearms flat with the surface of the floor, shoulders and hips at
an even height from the floor, and feet wider than the hips. They were
instructed to move a single hand laterally from the start position across
the floor until the elbow was extended and return to the start position at
the cadence of the metronome.
Figure 3. Integration with balance_mountain climber plank. The
participants were instructed to start with their shoulders, elbows, and
wrists aligned from superior to inferior with their feet hip width apart. We
provided the cue of flexing the knee to the opposite elbow at the
cadence of the metronome and maintaining a flat upper body while
twisting the lower body.
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Figure 4. Isolation_oblique crunch. The participants started in the
supine position with their distal fingers at temples, scapula medially
rotated, knees flexed, and plantar surface of their feet flat on the ground.
They were instructed to lift a single shoulder blade off the surface of the
floor twisting toward the opposite knee, sliding the top of the hand
across the lateral thigh and lower the shoulder blade back to the floor at
the cadence of the metronome.
Figure 5. Integration_side hover. Each participant began the exercise in
a side position with the shoulders superior to the supporting elbow,
supporting forearm flat with the surface of the floor, and feet stacked. We
then instructed them to hold the non-supporting hand superiorly above
the shoulder for 20 seconds.
difference between these 2 core-training strategies will enable
personal trainers, sport coaches, and medical providers to
suggest the optimal type of exercises during a strengthening
routine. Thus, our purpose was to evaluate the muscle activity
of distal and proximal muscles during a series of both isolation
and integration exercises. We hypothesized that isolation
exercises would elicit greater activity of the primary abdom-
inal and lumbar muscles compared with integrated exercises.
METHODS
Experimental Approach to the Problem
To demonstrate which type of exercise, isolation or integra-
tion, elicits the greatest activation, we measured surface muscle
activity of 6 core muscles, both proximal and distal during
a randomized sequence of isolation and integration exercises.
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 Intregration Greater Than Isolation

Figure 6. Isolation_extension. The participants were instructed to start in
the prone position with arms above their head with chin toward the chest.
Next, matching the cadence of the metronome they lifted and lowered their
chest off the surface by contracting their erector spinae and gluteal muscles.
Figure 7. Integration Pointer with resistance bands. The participants
started in a quadrupedal stance with both hands and knees flat on the
surface. We then instructed them to contract their gluteal and deltoid
muscles to lift a single leg and opposite arm to the height of their
shoulders at the cadence of the metronome.

Subjects
Twenty, healthy college students, 10 men and 10 women,
completed the protocol (age 22.47 6 3.00 years, height 1.70
6 1.00 m, mass 68.50 6 14.83 kg, mean 6 SD). The Penn-
sylvania State University human participants Institutional
Board approved the research and appropriate consent was
obtained pursuant to law.
In order to be included in the study, potential participants
were required to be currently meeting the American College
of Sports Medicine weekly guidelines for physical activity of
150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardiorespiratory exercise,
2–3 days of major muscle group resistance exercise, and 1–2
days of flexibility exercises (2). After screening, testing was
completed within an 8-week period during the fall academic
semester. All the tests started
between 9 AM and 11 AM, and
the participants were instructed
to eat breakfast and hydrate ad-
equately before attending the
single session.
Falls, VT, USA) with an interelectrode distance of 2 cm in
the direction of the muscle fibers, over 6 muscles of the
trunk. Before electrode placement, we prepared the skin
and performed a series of measurements to locate the muscle
centers of the anterior deltoid (AD, 4 cm inferior to the
clavicle), RA (2 cm lateral from the umbilicus), external
abdominal oblique (EO, directly superior from the anterior
superior iliac spine, halfway between the iliac crest and the
ribs at a medially oblique angle), lumbar erector spinae (LE,
2 cm lateral from the lumbar-3 vertebra), thoracic erector
spinae (TE, 2 cm lateral from the thoracic-12 vertebra), and
gluteus maximus (GM, half the distance between the greater
trochanter and the sacral vertebra at a laterally oblique

Procedures
We measured EMG signals
using a wired amplifier system
(Bortec Octopus AMT-8, Cal-
gary, AB, Canada) with a band-
pass filter setting of 5–500 Hz
and collected the data at 1,000
Hz using EVaRT software. The
preamplifiers achieve a com-
mon mode rejection ratio of
115 dB at 60 Hz and the input
impedance was ,10 kV with
our gel electrodes. We placed
1-cm 3 1.5-cm bipolar, silver- Figure 8. Mean 6 SD normalized surface electromyography amplitudes for the isolation crunch exercise for all
silver chloride, surface electro- the 20 participants.
des (Vermed, A10041, Bellows
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exercise dynamically at a ca-

dence of 15 flexion and exten-
sion cycles per minute set to
a metronome with the excep-
tion of the hover and balance
tasks, which were performed
statically.
The participants were intro-
duced to an exercise with an
investigator performing the
movements and then practiced
each exercise with verbal cuing
from the investigator before
recording. The exercises were
performed in random order
and we will report 7 exercises
that exemplify the differences
between isolation and integra-
Figure 9. Mean 6 SD normalized surface electromyography amplitudes for the integration hover with hand reach tion exercises.
exercise for all the 20 participants. The asterisk indicates a significant difference (p , 0.05) between the isolation
exercise and the integration exercise for that particular muscle. Statistical Analyses
For the determination of mean
activity, we created linear enve-
angle). We verified that the position of the electrodes was lopes from the EMG signals by high pass filtering the data at
functionally correct and that cross talk between the muscles 20 Hz, full wave rectifying, then low pass filtering at 5 Hz and
was negligible with a series of flexion and extension exercises calculated the mean EMG amplitude for 15 seconds of activity
suggested by Cram and Kasman (5) and Winter et al. (16). data. To compare isolation and integration exercises between
Each participant completed a standing trial, a treadmill participants, we normalized the activity of each muscle during
level walking trial at 1.25 m/s, and a series of core exercises a core exercise to the activity during level walking. Next, we
(Figures 1–7). A complete data set was comprised of the completed a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA)
successful completion of 16 randomly assigned isolation to determine if there was a difference in muscle activity
and integration exercises. The participants performed each across the multiple conditions. Finally, if there were significant
differences within our ANOVA
results, we performed Newman-
Keuls post-hoc tests to investi-
gate the significant differences
between exercises for each mus-
cle. Significance was defined as
p # 0.05.

RESULTS
Overall, our results demon-
strated that the activation of
the abdominal and lumbar
muscles was greatest during the
integration exercises that re-
quired activation of deltoid and
gluteal muscles. One straightfor-
ward example of this is the
comparison between a traditional
isolation exercise of a crunch
and an integration exercise of
Figure 10. Mean 6 SD normalized surface electromyography amplitudes for the integration with balance
mountain climber plank exercise for all the 20 participants. The star indicates a significant difference (p , 0.05) the hover with hand reach.
between the integration exercise and the integration with balance exercise for that particular muscle. During the isolation and in-
tegration exercises of a crunch

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 Intregration Greater Than Isolation

and knee flexion to the con-

tralateral elbow. This addition
of a higher center of mass and
the tripod stance resulted in
a significantly greater activity
for all the muscles. In detail,
RA and AD activity were
.7% greater (p , 0.05) than
the forearm hover while the
EO and GM activity were
11% and 70% greater respec-
tively (both values, p , 0.05).
This example illustrates the
beneficial consequences of
adding various levels of diffi-
culty to continually provide
unique challenges for each
individual. This is also an il-
lustration about how core
Figure 11. Mean 6 SD normalized surface electromyography amplitudes for the isolation oblique crunch exercise
for all the 20 participants. exercises can be completed
with numerous options to
provide an optimal core-train-
and hover, respectively, the rectus abdominus is the primary ing session for all ability levels (Figure 10).
active muscle. However, during the hover with hand reach For the oblique crunch and side hover exercises, the rectus
exercise, both the rectus abdominus and EO activity was 27% abdominus and external obliques were the primary active
greater than during a traditional crunch (both values, p , muscles. Although, the average normalized value of the
0.05). To add, AD and LE activities were over 2 times greater rectus abdominus was less than the forearm hover exercises
during the integration exercise (both values, p , 0.01) (Figures from above, the external oblique activity was 25% greater
8 and 9). (p , 0.05). When comparing the isolation and integration
Moreover, we incorporated a balance component to the exercises, the largest difference in muscle activity was for the
integration exercises with the mountain climber plank. TE and LE, which were 3 and 2 times greater (both values, p
The participants completed a plank with alternating hip , 0.01), respectively, during the side hover. This extreme dif-
ference is an illustration of how
the integration exercises may be
a superior choice for a training
regimen as they target a wider
range of muscles for a more
comprehensive strengthening
effect (Figures 11–12).
For the upper body extension
exercises, we compared an iso-
lation double arm extension and
an integration horse stance
pointer with resistance tubes.
The primary muscles for both
exercises were the erector spinae
and the overall average activity
during the integration task was
38% greater (p , 0.01) during the
integration task. Because of the
contralateral limb movements of
the integration exercise, the EOs
Figure 12. Mean 6 SD normalized surface electromyography amplitudes for the integration side hover exercise
for all the 20 participants. The asterisk indicates a significant difference (p , 0.05) between the isolation exercise were 3 times greater than for the
and the integration exercise for that particular muscle. isolation exercise (p , 0.01).
This result provides additional
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in terms of maximizing strength,

improving endurance, enhancing
stability, reducing injury, and
maintaining mobility when com-
pleting the core-strengthening
guidelines. The current results
illustrate that these integration
exercises elicited the overall
greatest muscles activity while
challenging coordination and
balance.
During hover and pointer
exercises, the muscles of the
shoulder and hip provided body
weight support and position
steadiness. To add, abdominal
and lumbar muscle activity was
greatest when balance was chal-
lenged, by adding complex
Figure 13. Mean 6 SD normalized surface electromyography amplitudes for the isolation extension exercise for
all the 20 participants.
movements to these traditional
core exercises. For example, RA
and LE activity increased from
a forearm hover position with
both hips extended, to a cross
over mountain climber with
alternating hip and knee flexion
to the opposite limb. Similarly,
we reached the same conclu-
sion for the posterior core exer-
cises. Both thoracic and lumbar
activities were greatest during
the integration pointer exercise
compared with a double arm
extension. The integration exer-
cises challenge postural stability
and balance resulting in the acti-
vation of the distal musculature.
But this additional activation at
the shoulder and hip does not
come at the expense of the
primary abdominal and back
musculature activation. In fact,
Figure 14. Mean 6 SD normalized surface electromyography amplitudes for the integration pointer exercise with
resistance tubing for all the 20 participants. The asterisk indicates a significant difference (p , 0.05) between the
the rectus abdominus and LE
isolation exercise and the integration exercise for that particular muscle. were generally 20% greater dur-
ing integration exercises com-
pared with the isolation exercises.
evidence that complex movements stimulate the targeted Arokoski et al. (3) also compared abdominal and erector
muscles groups and other primary groups (Figures 13–14). spinae activity during exercises with and without a balance
component. For example, the participants completed
DISCUSSION a bridge exercise with both feet on the ground and with
To sum, we reject our hypothesis that isolation exercises one leg lifted. The average electromyographic amplitude
would elicit greater activity of the primary abdominal and was also at least 20% greater in the rectus abdominus, long-
lumbar muscles compared to integrated exercises. Based on issimus thoracis, and multifidus muscles with 1 leg lifted and
muscle activity, integration exercises that require activation was 200% greater in the external oblique muscles. These are
of the distal trunk musculature would potentially be optimal examples of how exercises can be modified to increase the

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 Intregration Greater Than Isolation
intensity for individuals with varying levels of experience and
strength. Thus a personal trainer or rehabilitation specialist
could begin the program with simple isolation exercises as
the client or patient gains strength and progress to more
integrated, complex variations.
One of the most compelling reasons to complete a core-
strengthening program as an aging adult, recreational
athlete, or sports professional is to reduce the chance of
injury. Leeton et al. (10) reported that injured collegiate ath-
letes had significantly less strength in the core musculature,
especially the hip abductors. Similarly, Hewitt and
colleagues (8,9,13) conducted multiple studies with a focus
on the connection between neuromuscular trunk training
and knee injury. They concluded that for collegiate athletes
non-contact knee injuries were less frequent in the group of
participants that completed preseason core exercises. These
previous studies emphasize the importance of completing
a core-strengthening program, and our current results aid
in refining the physical activity recommendations by dem-
onstrating the enhanced muscle activity during integration
exercises.
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
In summary, a comprehensive, core-strengthening program
would incorporate a unique combination of both isolation
and integration exercises. Isolation exercises are simple,
single joint movements, which target proximal trunk muscles
and are easy to complete. Integration exercises are complex,
multijoint movements that elicit greater proximal trunk
muscles activity and distal trunk muscles activity. Because
of the nature of the exercises, integration exercises elicit
activity from a broader range of muscle groups while
challenging the sensory systems for balance simultaneously.
In short, we suggest that personal trainers, sport coaches,
and medical providers incorporate integration exercises into
their prescription of core-strengthening exercises. This is
particularly critical as many clients, athletes, and patients are
searching to minimize the time of training by completing
a quality, efficient regimen. Thus, when completing the core
strength guidelines, a routine that incorporates integration
exercises with the activation of distal trunk musculature
would be optimal in terms of maximizing strength, improv-
ing endurance, enhancing stability, reducing injury, and
maintaining mobility.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Zach Clark and Riley Sheehan for
assistance with data collection and processing. In addition,
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596 Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
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they thank Dan Cohen and Susan Trainor for directing the
CXWORX by Les Mills program and Corey Baird for
providing the instructional video.
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