By: Chris Gates

Everybody wants to know the best exercises to build your abs, right?

Who doesn’t want a more tight, toned, and sculpted midsection?

I’ll tell you who… Nobody.

So, I’m assuming you’re here to learn about the exercises that will get you the biggest bang for your buck, and help you build up your abs.

You know, those exercises that have been proven to work.

Well, you’re in luck! In this article, I’m going to outline absolutely everything you need to know in order to train your abs, and get that 6-pack you’ve always wanted. We’ll cover:

• Need to know information about the anatomy of your abs, and how they work.
• The fundamental principles of building your abdominal muscles.
• The top three exercises for well-rounded ab training (plus one bonus exercise!).
• Common mistakes to avoid.
• And an example training program that you can get started with today!

There are so many different ways to train your abs, and so many programs and methods available online.

Let’s quiet all of the noise, get rid of all of the confusion, and align your training with your goals.

No gimmicks. No hacks.

Just the stuff that works.

If that sounds good to you, let’s dive in!

The Best Exercises to Build Your Abs: Anatomy

Before we break down the best exercises to build your abs, let’s outline all of the muscles that contribute to a strong core, and the 6-pack you want to have.

Because if you understand the muscles involved, and how they work, it’s going to make it really easy to figure out how to build those muscles.

In general, there are four main muscle groups that you should focus on to effectively train your abs.

1. External obliques: This muscle runs along the outside of your core, and primarily both flexes your abs and braces your core. It also assists with rotating your torso.
2. Internal obliques: This muscle also assists in rotating your torso, along with flexing laterally.
3. Transverse abdominis: This muscle is primarily responsible for core stability. It’s very active in bracing your core during most exercises.
4. Rectus abdominis: This is the muscle group that most people “see” as the 6-pack. It’s the most visual of all the ab muscles. The primary functions are to flex the abs into a crunched position, as well as rotate the torso.

Based on that information, the way you should train is pretty straightforward. You should choose exercises based on…

• Crunching.
• Rotating.
• Bracing.

So with that, let’s dive into how to actually BUILD your ab muscles.

The Best Exercises to Build Your Abs: How to Build Muscle

Now that you know how your abs work, we need to combine that with the principles that lead to muscle growth.

• First up is intensity. You need to be training legitimately hard — within 1-3 reps of failure — to effectively build muscle. Prioritize your form and technique, and really push yourself.
• Next up is your diet. To effectively and efficiently build muscle, you should make sure you’re in a slight calorie surplus while eating adequate protein. You have to give your body the resources it needs to actually adapt from training.
• Third is prioritizing your recovery. If you’re not getting enough sleep, giving yourself rest days to recover, limiting your stress levels, or planning deload weeks into your training program, you’ll struggle to see the dramatic progress you want.

If you can do those three things consistently, and combine it with the right training principles for building your abs, you’ll make tons of progress!

And the cool thing about training your abs is that it’s pretty simple.

Less is more.

You don’t have to do a million reps in a circuit every day of the week.

This is something a lot of people get wrong, and it’s why most people don’t have the midsection they want.

Training your abs isn’t any different than training your other muscle groups. You’ll want to focus on progressive overload, and load your abs with weight so that you’re giving the body a stimulus it needs to adapt to.

Doing super high reps isn’t “best.” There isn’t one “optimal” program.

You just need to train your abs hard, do enough volume, increase your performance over time, vary your rep ranges, and reap the benefits!

Exercise No. 1: Crunch

First up in the best exercises to build your abs is the crunch.

Many of your abdominal muscles are involved in flexing your spine — aka crunching. And the 6-pack (rectus abdominis) is the primary “cruncher,” if you will.

Doing variations of a crunch or sit up have been shown in sport science research to produce very high levels of ab activity. So starting with some type of crunch is a no brainer.

And the cool thing is, you can really pick whatever type of crunch you enjoy and/or whatever fits your current experience level the best.

If you’re a beginner, you can start with a standard bodyweight crunch, and eventually load it by holding a dumbbell or medicine ball.

The next step could be doing a rope pull down, like in the video above, where you’re able to load the abs with even more weight. Some gyms also have weighted crunch machines, which are a great option as well.

Adding weight to ab exercises has been found to lead to greater activation in the abs while exercising, so progressing to variations that include your bodyweight plus additional load is going to be ideal over time.

Make sure you’re doing this movement pattern, and try to add to your workload over time — whether it be via adding reps, sets, or weight.

Form and Technique:

• With whatever variation of the crunch you do, first think about crunching your body, or the weight, by flexing your spine and rounding your back.
• Keep your head in a fixed position throughout each rep. Avoid moving your head up and down as you crunch up and down.
• Crunch until you feel a strong contraction in your 6-pack.
• Then reverse the motion by allowing your back to straighten out to the starting position.

I prefer to do crunches in the 12-20 rep range. This allows you to get in a decent amount of volume, while at the same time not load the exercise so heavy that you risk injury.

If you’re a beginner, it may be best to focus on doing a total amount of reps first, as opposed to a specific amount of reps for each set. This could help you build up the strength and capacity to do more crunches over time (Ex: do 20 total crunches in as many sets as it takes.)

Exercise No. 2: Hanging Leg Raise

Up next in the best exercises to build your abs is the hanging leg raise.

Research has found the lower abs to be most active with this exercise. And when combined with the crunch (which targets the upper abs a bit more) you’re going to hit the entire 6-pack pretty effectively.

Now, the hanging leg raise is admittedly a pretty advanced exercise. You need a decent amount of core strength and stability to do this correctly.

So if you’re more of a beginner, or your abs aren’t strong enough to do this exercise, you can start with a lying leg raise on the floor. As you get strong at that movement, you can begin to experiment with hanging leg raises.

Form and Technique:

• Hang from a pull up bar with a grip that’s slightly wider than shoulder width. (You can use straps if your grip isn’t strong enough.)
• Start each rep by not only lifting your legs up, but by thinking about rolling your hips forward and up as well.
• Think about crunching your abs together, as opposed to just lifting up your legs.
• Once you feel your abs contract, reverse the motion and lower your hips and legs back down under control.
• If you find that your torso is swaying back and forth with a ton of momentum, you’re not controlling the exercise with your abs. Adjust your form and technique.

This exercise is best done with just your bodyweight, and it’s honestly pretty challenging. So plan to do it in the lower rep ranges (6-8, 8-12, etc.).

You can progressively overload over time by adding more reps to your total, and essentially trying to “beat your training log book” each week.

Exercise No. 3: Bicycle Crunch

The bicycle crunch is the third exercise in the best exercises to build your abs. And it’s another favorite of mine.

I love this one because of it’s ability to essentially train the entirety of your core muscles.

The 6-pack is going to be involved, as well as your obliques, because this exercise involves both crunching AND rotation.

Form and Technique:

• Lay on the floor with your legs slightly elevated, and bring your hands next to your head.
• Start by trying to bring your left elbow up and across your body by both crunching and twisting your abs.
• At the same time, bring your right knee up and in towards your left elbow.
• Then return back to the starting position, and repeat the same movements with your other limbs (right elbow to left knee).

This is another exercise that can be done in the higher rep ranges, and I’m actually a big fan of doing this exercise for time.

For example, you could do 3 sets of bicycle crunches for 30 seconds each. The goal is to do as many reps with quality form and technique as you can in the time allotted.

Then over time, you can try to add more quality reps to your total in the same time period, or extend the time period as you build up the capacity to do more.

Bonus Exercise: Compound Exercises

In addition to directly training your abdominal muscles, I think it’s really important to also have compound exercises as part of your overall training program if you want to maximize the development of your abs.

When you read about the anatomy of your abs earlier in this article, we talked about how your abs are involved in bracing your core.

Nothing will challenge your ability to brace, and keep your spine in a neutral position, more than compound exercises.

So throughout the week, while you focus on doing some of these direct ab exercises, make sure you’re also squatting, pressing, and rowing.

You can do the barbell squat, bench press, and deadlift if you’re more experienced. But if you’re a beginner or intermediate, you don’t have to be throwing hundreds of pounds on a barbell to get these benefits.

Dumbbells and machines work well, too.

Compound exercises will also help to strengthen your lower back, which a lot of people forget about when it comes to the core.

The Best Exercises to Build Your Abs: Common Mistakes to Avoid

Alright, now that you’ve got a lot of the RIGHT information, let’s also focus on some of the mistakes you need to avoid.

Because knowing the best exercises to build your abs is great. But there are a lot of bad habits you can develop with ab training.

And there are myths galore out there that could negatively impact your progress.

Mistake No. 1: Don’t Forget About Your Diet

While these exercises will help you build your abs, that’s just one piece to the puzzle.

More than any other muscle group in the human body, abs are both built and revealed in the kitchen. You need the right nutrition to build your abs, and we talked about that earlier.

But you also will almost certainly need to lose body fat at some point to SEE your abs. Here are some ballpark body fat ranges that are associated with a toned, visible 6-pack:

• Men: 8-12 percent body fat.
• Women: 14-20 percent body fat.

You can learn more about fat loss, and what’s required to shed fat and see your abs, in my article on how to know you’re in a calorie deficit.

Mistake No. 2: “Abs Make Your Waist Bigger”

There’s a common myth that’s been floating around the health and fitness scene for decades. People claim that the more you build your abs, the wider your midsection will get.

And that’s just completely untrue. It would be a huge mistake to avoid ab training because of this claim.

Quite simply, your skeleton determines how big your waistline is, along with how much body fat you’re carrying. Building bigger abs isn’t going to add inches to your waist.

Mistake No. 3: Poor Form & Technique

This kind of applies to any exercise, but especially with training your abs… Your abs need to be what controls the exercise. Not the supporting muscles and ligaments.

For example, on a hanging leg raise it’s really easy to let your hip flexors take over. And with a sit up or crunch it’s common to swing your arms, or pull on your head/neck to complete the reps.

If you do those things, you’re just taking tension away from your abs and placing it onto other muscle groups. That’s not going to help you build your abs.

The Best Exercises to Build Your Abs: How Often Should You Train?

You’re basically an expert at training your abs at this point. I’m pumped you’ve made it this far!

Now, let’s package all of this information together.

In terms of how much you should train your abs, the answer is going to be slightly different for everyone. Each person is going to have a different response to strength training, and specifically training the abs.

In general, I’ll say you probably don’t need to train your abs nearly as much as you think, or as you’ve been told.

If you want to maximize the muscle growth in your core, here are some general guidelines to follow:

• First up, most people see the most optimal progress by doing somewhere between 10-20 hard sets each week. This applies to any muscle group, and the abs are no different.
• Within those sets, you need to be legitimately challenging yourself. By that, I mean the intensity needs to be high. Push yourself to within a few reps of failure on each set.
• You can do those 10-20 sets in any format that you’d like. You can do them all in one session (maybe not the most ideal), or you can break them up into a few different workouts each week (probably most ideal).

If you’re new to training your abs, or it’s a weaker muscle group for you, start on the lower end of that range and try to build up your overall weekly capacity and workload over time.

Intermediate or advanced lifters can perhaps start with a bit more training volume. In fact, you’ll probably need a bit more to make progress.

From there, just focus on being consistent and try to see your training performance go up over time. If you’re doing that, you’re definitely building that 6-pack!

Example Training Program

OK, you couldn’t know more at this point.

You not only know how your abs are formed and how they function, but you also know the best exercises to build your abs, along with all of the fundamental principles involved in maximizing your progress.

So let’s talk about how to put all of this information together into a training program for you.

And really, I find ab training to be simple to program for my 1-on-1 online fitness coaching clients. We tend to sprinkle it in here and there throughout the week, so that’s exactly what we’ll do in this sample program.

Sample Workout Plan
Day 1: Upper Body. After your first upper body day of the week, let’s do 4 sets of bicycle crunches for 30 seconds each. Keep track of the amount of reps you do in each set, and then next week you can try and beat your performance (while maintaining proper form and technique).
Day 2: Lower Body. At the end of your first lower body workout for the week, let’s tack on 3 sets of crunches in the 12-15 rep range.
Day 3: Upper Body. No direct ab training today, but make sure you include some compound pressing exercises into this workout, like bench press or overhead press. When you do those exercises, be sure to practice bracing your core throughout each and every rep.
Day 4: Lower Body. To end the week, let’s tack on 3 sets of hanging leg raises to the end of your second lower body day. Do as many as you can with proper form and technique until you’re within 1-2 reps of failure for each set.

I Hope This Helps!

If you’ve made it this far, I want to say thanks for stopping over to my website 🙂

You just learned a TON of information, and I truly hope it helps you pursue your goals of building a bigger, stronger, more defined set of abs.

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out in the comments and ask. I’d be happy to provide more context or details.

And if you’re interested in getting personalized coaching to help you along your fitness journey, I’d love to help! We can create a plan that’s 100 percent tailored to YOU, to ensure you’re taking all of the necessary steps to see progress.

You can learn more about 1-on-1 online fitness coaching on my coaching page.

Talk to you soon!

~ Chris