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The Best Damn Ab Exercises of all Time

Put away your Ab roller, send back you’re Ab lounger, and for God’s sake stop doing hours and hour of endless crunches. If you are really serious about rocking out your Abs and having the most effective Ab workout possible take a look at these three killer Ab exercises and make sure that they become a part of your regular workout routine.

1. Bicycle Crunch -

It might sound like a crunch, but it’s not. It’s more like a crunch on steroids. Research out of the University of San Diego analyzed various abdominal exercise measuring how much each caused the rectus abdominis (your abs) to fire during execution, and guess what……the Bicycle Crunch was top dog.

To perform this exercise: Begin by Lying flat on the floor raising your legs up and bending your knees so that the bottom part of your legs are parallel with the ground (kind of looks like you’re sitting in a chair except your lying down). Place your hands behind your head like you would during a traditional crunch. Begin the exercise by brining your right elbow towards your left knee slightly crunching your knee to meet your right elbow over your abs. Slowly lower yourself down not letting your shoulders touch the ground, then alternating your movement, brining your left elbow towards your right knee as your right knee crunches in to your abs. This counts as one rep.

Check out this video for a great demonstration

* To increase the difficulty of this exercise try performing it on an aerobics half moon ball or exercise step.

2. Hanging Knee Lift/Hanging Leg Lift

The second best Ab exercise is actually a tie between two very similar exercises: The Hanging Knee Lift (using the Captain’s Chair) and it’s more advanced cousin the Hanging Leg Lift (using a pull-up bar). The knee lift is a bit easier to do if you’re just starting out, but both are guaranteed to rock your Abs.

Hanging Knee Lift – To perform the hanging knee lift you’re going to need the assistance of the “Captain’s Chair” which looks like a chair with a back and armrests but no seat. Prop yourself up onto the chair resting your forearms on the padded armrest. With your legs hanging freely, raise your legs slowly and deliberately until your knees touch your chest. Hold that position and then slowly return to a hanging position. A variation of this exercise is to start with your thighs just above perpendicular to the body and the lower legs are parallel to the body; raise the knees by curling the body and pulling up with the abs brining the knees as close as possible to the face. Hold that position and then lower back down to just perpendicular (this variation, primarily works the abs and reduces use of the hip flexors)


Hanging Leg Lift – My favorite of the two is an “ab”-solutly awesome exercise. The thing that makes this more difficult than using the Captain’s Chair is that it requires the uses of auxiliary muscles to stabilize you body during the exercise. To perform this exercise begin by hanging from a chin-up bar, slowly and deliberately curl your legs up until your knees are as close to your face as possible, hold and slowly bring your legs down until you are once again hanging from the bar.

To add resistance to either of these exercises I sometimes will hold a 6 or 10 pound medicine ball between my legs while doing the reps.

*A word of caution – when performing this exercise be sure NOT to swing your legs using momentum to bring them up to your chest.

3. Exercise Ball Crunch –

The third exercise that’s a must for any Killer Ab workout is the Exercise Ball Crunch. This exercise easily makes it into my top three because it not only strengthens your Ab muscles but forces you to build stabilizing muscles to keep your balance on the ball.

To perform the Exercise Ball Crunch sit down on an extra large exercise ball and slowly roll your butt forward letting the ball move until the small of your back is resting on it. Lean back on the ball until your back is just slightly hyper extended (head just slightly below butt level). Bend forward making sure to use your abs- concentrate on contracting your Abs (this is not a large movement as you should only be coming up a few inches), pause and then return to your starting position.

To add more stability to this exercise spread your legs apart further, to make the exercise harder and to strengthen your stabilizer muscles bring your feet closer together as you do the exercise.

Check out this video for an example of the exercise

*To add resistance to this exercise hold on to a medicine ball or some small hand weights while you perform this exercise.

The Truth About Ab Workouts:

If you take nothing else away from this article remember the following - No matter how hard you work your abs, you will never have a six pack until till you lose the fat.
Yes that’s right - sorry to burst your bubble, but until you lose the fat you’ll never be able to show off those fabulous abs that you’ve been working so hard to achieve.

For another great article on achieving six pack abs, check this out at Zen Habits

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