Core conditioning

I have a lot of clients who come to me with the goal of strengthing their "core".  Thats great, but do you really know what the core is?  Abs yes, but thats not all the core is.  I see people relentlessly pursing a stronger core by doing crunch after crunch and never do a single deadlift.  The core involves all the muscles inbetween the the shoulders and hips, both front and back. Basically its the entire body minus the arms and legs.  If you train only the front of the core and never address the  back you end up with serious imballances  which often lead to lower back pain.   Deadlifts and kb swings are two excellent drills that work to strenghten the entire posterior chain.  A program without this movement pattern is not a program!