The core

After all, the actions required to contract and brace your core muscles, helping to create stiffness and stability in your midsection, aren't exactly intuitive.

What's more, the resistance band trick can be a useful tool for any person, regardless of fitness level, says Froelich. "This is amazing for beginners — even if you're not doing any movement of your body — to just feel that core brace, to get those stabilizer muscles working," she explains. "Those secondary movers will take over more work that they're not used to doing, so that can cause strain and injury," says Froelich. Keeping a resistance band pulled tight under your back, however, can help you ensure all the proper muscle groups are working to complete the exercise. In other words, practicing this trick regularly — even without doing dead bugs or leg raises — will teach you exactly what it feels like for your core to be engaged. "If you're not engaging your core, then that natural curve of your spine is back. "If you don't have that engagement, those core muscles don't work, and there are actually other muscles that make up for it," says Froelich. When you're performing leg raises, for example, without activating your core (the prime mover for the exercise — aka the muscle group most responsible for the movement), other muscle groups, such as your hips, will pick up the slack to carry out the move, she explains. Created by Katie Clare, D.C., a certified chiropractic sports practitioner in Minnesota, this core engagement trick involves lying face-up with a resistance band — which is attached to a kettlebell handle at your side — pulled tightly under your lower back.