Sit ups do not build a footballer's core

Ask most players what core training is and you will get sit ups, crunches, and some version of a plank held until it becomes a test of patience.

None of those match what your trunk does in a football match, which is why players who do them for years still get bumped off the ball.

What your trunk actually does

Three jobs, and none of them is bending forwards repeatedly.

It stops you folding. Someone leans into you at pace. Your trunk's job is to stay rigid so your legs can keep doing what they were doing. That is resisting movement rather than creating it.

It transmits force. A shot starts at the floor. Force goes up through your leg, across your hip, through your trunk, into your standing side and out through the striking leg. A soft middle is a leak in that chain. You generated the power and lost it before it reached the ball.

It keeps your pelvis under control while you sprint. At speed your legs are producing enormous force in alternating directions. If your pelvis tips and rolls with every stride, your hamstrings are working at a length they did not sign up for, and that is one of the quieter reasons they tear.

Notice that every one of those is about staying still under load.

What to train instead

The category is anti movement. You are resisting something rather than producing something.

Anti extension. Stopping your lower back arching. Dead bugs, slow and controlled, with your lower back flat against the floor. Ab wheel rollouts once those are easy. Front planks belong here, but thirty good seconds is the dose, not four minutes.

Anti rotation. Stopping your body twisting. Pallof presses with a band, hold for a few seconds at full extension. This is the one most directly connected to holding someone off.

Anti lateral flexion. Stopping your body bending sideways. Suitcase carries, which is simply walking with a heavy weight in one hand and refusing to lean. Side planks. This is the shoulder to shoulder duel.

Rotational power, separately. Once the anti rotation work is solid, medicine ball throws against a wall, rotating hard through the hips. This is the shooting and passing half.

The order matters

Learn to stop movement before you try to create it. A player who cannot hold a Pallof press without their ribs flaring will not generate a good rotational throw either, they will just move badly faster.

Where it goes in a session

At the end, after the heavy work, in the same slot as calves and any specific work you need. Ten minutes.

Not at the start. A pre fatigued trunk makes every lift after it worse and less safe, and the whole point of this tissue is that it holds firm while the big movements happen.

What sit ups are actually doing

They train your abdominals to shorten repeatedly against very little resistance.

That is not a useless thing, it is just not a football thing. There is no moment in a match that resembles it. Meanwhile the trunk is being asked to stay rigid under load hundreds of times per game, and that pattern is never practised.

There is also the practical point that a few hundred repetitions of spinal flexion, done daily, is not something most backs enjoy long term.

The connection to everything else

Trunk work is not a separate project. It is the thing that makes the rest of the hierarchy transfer.

It is also part of why landing well is possible. You cannot control a knee if the pelvis above it is uncontrolled, which is why trunk work and deceleration work tend to improve together.

A ten minute version

Twice a week, at the end of a session:

That is it. No repetitions counted into the hundreds, nothing done to failure, and every one of them matches something that happens in a match.

If it feels too easy, add weight rather than repetitions. A plank held for four minutes is a test of boredom tolerance. A plank that is hard for thirty seconds is training.