Blog | Training Why You Should Never Skip Trunk Training

Author / John

3 - 5 minutes read

How proper trunk training improves performance and prevents injury.

Trunk training is one of the most important, and most ignored, elements of athletic preparation. Much like building an aerobic base, it doesn’t feel urgent, flashy, or Instagram-worthy. There’s no leaderboard for it. No one’s impressed by it. And that’s exactly why it gets skipped.

But if you’re consistently ignoring trunk training, you’re building strength on a weak foundation, and eventually, that bill comes due.

For athletes who want to lift heavy without breaking.

At Power Athlete, trunk training is placed early in the session for a reason. If it’s left until the end, fatigue, time pressure, or ego gets in the way. When that happens, athletes miss out on one of the biggest performance enhancers available.

The trunk is the transmission between your upper and lower body. If it can’t transfer force efficiently, no amount of squatting, pulling, or pressing will save you. Worse, you’ll start leaking force and compensating everywhere else.

Where athletes get into trouble is how they approach trunk training. Endless sit-ups, back extensions, and high-rep flexion work, especially under fatigue, are a fast track to low-back issues. We’ve seen this play out for decades in military and sport settings.

The trunk’s primary job is not to move; it’s to resist movement. Stabilization comes first. That means anti-extension, anti-rotation, and transverse plane control, not mindlessly folding yourself in half for reps.

Smart trunk training incorporates rotation, bracing, and controlled movement under load. These patterns reflect real athletic demands: sprinting, cutting, carrying, and lifting heavy weight in unstable environments.

When the trunk can maintain position while force is applied, everything downstream improves. Barbell lifts feel cleaner. Movement becomes more coordinated. Energy leaks disappear. This is where strength becomes usable.

Trunk prep isn’t just something you “get through” before the workout starts. It’s a skill set that should carry into every lift and every rep that follows. If you can maintain trunk integrity during warm-ups, you’re more likely to hold it when the weights get heavy and fatigue sets in. Over time, this reduces injury risk and extends your training lifespan, something every serious athlete should care about.

Skipping trunk training doesn’t make you hardcore. It makes you short-sighted. Strong athletes aren’t just powerful, they’re prepared. And preparation starts at the trunk.

Want a training program that takes trunk strength seriously? Check out our training programs.

John

John Welbourn is CEO of Power Athlete and host of Power Athlete Radio. He is a 9 year starter and veteran of the NFL. John was drafted with the 97th pick in 1999 NFL Draft and went on to be a starter for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999-2003, appearing in 3 NFC Championship games, and for starter for the Kansas City Chiefs from 2004-2007. In 2008, he played with the New England Patriots until an injury ended his season early with him retiring in 2009. Over the course of his career, John has started over 100 games and has 10 play-off appearances. He was a four year lettermen while playing football at the University of California at Berkeley. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Rhetoric in 1998. John has worked with the MLB, NFL, NHL, Olympic athletes and Military. He travels the world lecturing on performance and nutrition and records his podcast, Power Athlete Radio, every week with over 800 episodes spanning 13 years. You can catch up with John as his personal blog, Talk To Me Johnnie, on social media @johnwelbourn or at Power Athlete Radio.