Gone are the days of chasing rock hard abs — now, feeling strong overall is the ideal fitness mission to embark on, and improving your core strength is important for more than the bragging rights or aesthetics.
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strong core makes it a little easier to move through our days. “Training and strengthening your core is so important. Our core provides stability for our body, which leads to improved posture, decreased risk of injury and improved balance and stability. It’s also a huge staple for preventing back pain, and it benefits our exercise performance,” explains Tatiana Lampa, NASM, personal trainer and owner of Training with T.
Most of your usual tasks — like lugging groceries, reaching something on the top shelf, tying our shoes and doing housework or gardening — involves our core, so the stronger those muscles are, the better you’ll be able to move through the day. On the flip side, a weaker core can end up causing you issues that you might just brush off as an ordinary part of life, such as pain in the neck, shoulders, or back, poor posture or balance and getting hurt more often than seems normal.
When you consider the fact that our core encompasses muscles around the midsection, as well as the back, spine and pelvic floor region, it makes perfect sense that this central chunk plays such a crucial role in how our entire body feels and functions.
Most of us don't love ab exercises, but don't try to rush through your core workout to be free of it quicker. Slow is always best when it comes to core exercises, so keep these tips in mind when doing your crunches, planks, and more:
- Perform each move slowly, with control. This allows you to focus on the correct form, ensures you get the max benefits from all your hard work and makes you less likely to tweak something.
- Breathe through each movement. "This activates your core, lengthens the spine and helps you grow an overall awareness of core strength (much like what you strive for during yoga or Pilates),” says Gail Barranda Rivas, personal trainer, fitness instructor, and functional strength coach in New York City. Inhale deeply and exhale through your mouth by gently blowing air out.
Our fitness experts in the Good Housekeeping Institute Wellness Lab teamed up with top trainers and professional athletes to bring you the best ab exercises to add to your fitness routine. Whether you're looking for ab workouts at home or ab workouts at the gym, these ab workout moves have options for everybody and any workout venue.
Try this format for a great routine at home (and remember that it's important to consult with your physician before you start any new exercise regimen):
10-minute ab exercise routine
- Pick three moves from the exercises listed below.
- Perform the movement for 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off.
- Repeat four times through for each movement to complete one full set.
- Rest for one minute in between sets before switching to the next movement.
1
Tabletop Crunch and Reach
How to: Lay flat on your back and bend both knees at a 90-degree angle above you. Perform a crunch, reaching your arms past your knees and towards your ankles. As you lower out of the crunch, simultaneously extend your arms over your head and straighten your legs out away from you at an angle. Return to your starting position by bringing your legs back to 90 degrees and crunching at the same time.
Expert tips: Personal trainer Taylor Wittick brings a twist to the traditional crunch by lifting the legs to a tabletop position and adding an overhead extension. You can level up this move by holding a light dumbbell with both hands throughout the movement.
2
Crunch Heel Touches
How to: Laying flat on your back, place your hands behind your head. Bend your knees and bring them up into a 90-degree angle, then lift into a crunch. Try to touch your heels to the ground while maintaining a 90 degree position in your legs and holding the static crunch. Then, lift your legs back to the tabletop position as you breathe out. Consider adding ankle weights to make this move more challenging once you establish the proper form.
Expert tips: Wittick says that most reverse crunches involve rocking your legs up into your chest, but this movement stops before the rocking motion to focus on engaging your lower abdominals. She says to make sure you do not arch your back; only lower your legs as far as your core can hold.
3
Crunch and Reach
How to: Start by laying on your back with your arms extended overhead and knees bent so your feet are flat on the floor. Use your arms as a lever to bring them up as you crunch your core, lifting your head while raising your shoulder blades off the floor. At the top of the crunch, reach your arms in between your knees for a pulse further, then slowly lower back down and arms go back overhead.
Expert tips: Be sure to keep your neck long and avoid collapsing as you lift your head up. This is important for proper core engagement and keeping tension out of the neck and upper body.
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4
Bicycle Crunch
How to: Lie flat on the floor with legs straight in front of you and your lower back pressed into the floor. Place your hands behind your head and lift your shoulder blades off the ground. Pull your right knee into your chest while bringing your left elbow to meet the right knee. Switch sides and do the same motion on the opposite side with the right elbow touching the left knee. During the movement, the straight leg should be hovering a few inches above the ground.
Expert tips: Fhitting Room's Pierre Armand swears by this move, which is simplistic in concept but when performed, correctly lights up all the abdominals. Be sure not to squash your neck during the movement; think about keeping the neck long and lifted throughout the exercise, almost like you were holding an apple just below your chin.
5
Forearm Plank Walkouts
How to: Place forearms on the floor with elbows aligned below shoulders and arms parallel to your body at about shoulder width. Walk your right foot out a few inches and then your left foot out a few inches. While marching your feet out and in, focus on stabilizing your core and not letting your hips move.
Expert tips: Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott, personal trainers and co-founders of Tone It Up, love this variation of the plank that requires extra stability through the abdominals. They recommend pressing your toes into the floor and squeezing your glutes at the start of the movement. Continue engaging the glutes and abdominals throughout the entire motion.
6
One Leg Plank
How to: Get into plank position. Press your toes into the floor and squeeze your glutes. From here, lift your right foot up a few inches and hold for about 5–10 seconds. Lower the right foot down, and repeat with the left foot.
Expert tips: This plank variation can be done using your body weight, or for an added challenge try adding a resistance band on your thighs just above your knees. For an easier adaptation, assume forearm plank position before lifting your leg.
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7
Mountain Climbers
How to: Start in a plank position with your arms straight and wrists directly under your shoulders. Your body should be in one long plane, with toes pressed into the ground and glutes engaged. Alternate bringing either knee into your chest. For a greater challenge, cross right knee over to touch opposite left elbow, and same thing on the other side.
Expert tips: This move is guaranteed to let you feel the burn. Go slow and controlled, and Scott says to place gliders under your feet for an even harder challenge.
8
Starfish Crunch
How to: Begin laying on the ground with your arms and legs spread in a starfish shape. Using your core muscles, pull your body in tight and upright and hug your knees into a ball shape. Then, slowly lower back down and repeat.
Expert tips: Dawn is known for this variation of the v-up where you fully extend your arms and legs at the bottom to target every inch of your abdominals. For an added challenge, try to keep your feet off the ground in between reps.
9
Alternating Straight-Leg Jackknife
How to: Lie flat on the floor with your arms and legs extended. Take a deep breath and as you exhale, contract your abs and simultaneously raise your right leg up to the ceiling and your opposite left arm to touch your right foot. Lower back down slowly, and repeat on the other side so that your opposite hand touches the opposite foot.
Expert tips: By alternating this movement on either side, you engage a variety of core stabilizing muscles including the obliques. Beginners may not be able to get high off the ground and that's okay; as you progress, aim to lift your shoulder blades completely off the ground during the reach portion of this movement.
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10
Russian Twist
How to: Sit with your knees bent and chest lifted. Lower back until you have to engage your core while keeping your spine straight. You can hold a weight with both hands or just hold your hands together. Twist from side to side with control, moving your hands or the weight with you. Heels can be on the ground or lifted a few inches up in the air.
Expert tips: This classic ab move targets the obliques. The key to the Russian twist is to lower the back down to the point where you feel engagement in your core. You can do this without a weight, or grab a dumbbell or medicine ball for extra resistance.
11
Swiss Ball Plank
How to: Place your elbows on the Swiss ball and toes on the ground so you are holding a plank position. Carefully move the Swiss ball slightly forward and back, extending your plank and then bringing it back in. Try to keep your hips even and still, bracing through the core.
Expert tips: Olympian and Team USA track and field athlete Colleen Quigley says that the Swiss ball adds instability, so you have to constantly fight for your balance while on top of it. Quigley says don't let your hips drop and don't stick your butt in the air. Focus on a straight line from the heels to the top of your head.
12
Side Plank Variations
How to:
- Leg lifts: Start in a side plank position with your body in one long plane. Lift, then raise your top leg up and down about 10 times, touching your bottom foot and lifting again.
- Hip dips: Start in a side plank position with your body in one long plane. Dip your hips down a few inches, and then bring them back up nice and controlled.
Expert tips: Side planks are great for targeting the obliques, but they can be boring. Quigley uses these two variations to mix things up and help the time pass by.
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13
Santanas
How to: Start in a strong plank position with your hands stacked under your shoulders, glutes squeezed, and your belly button pulled into your spine. From there, shift your weight to one side and allow your body to rotate as your hips open. Your feet will move with the rotation. Once your body has shifted 90 degrees, and you are in a side plank position, shift your weight once again and return to the standard plank. Alternate sides with every rep.
Expert tips: Certified personal trainer Ally McKinney loves adding rotation to plank exercises in order to target every layer of the muscle in your core. Since this is an alternating movement, our fitness pros emphasize that it's important to not let your plank position suffer as you switch sides.
14
Hollow Hold
How to: Start by lying on your back on the ground. Knees should be bent with your feet off the ground. Arms should be extended toward the ceiling. Keeping your low back pressed into the ground, slowly begin to extend your legs as far as you can without your low back arching off the ground. If you can fully extend your legs and keep them hovering off the ground, then you can slowly start to drop your arms back into an overhead position. This movement is commonly held 20–30 seconds at a time in a beginner routine.
Expert tips: McKinney says that we need a hollow position for nearly every exercise movement out there. "By pressing and keep your low back pushed into the ground, we are getting more control in our hips and helping our body learn to stay in a neutral position, even when we are not thinking about it," she shares. Once your low back starts to come off the ground, you have found your hollow hold position.
15
Pilates 100
How to: Lie on your back with your knees bent in a 90-degree angle. Point your toes and squeeze your heels together, then extend your legs straight out on a diagonal so they are about a 65-degree angle from the floor. Lift your head, neck, and shoulders off the mat and extend your arms right by your sides. You'll want to hold this position throughout the entire exercise. Keep the neck lifted and chest open. Begin pumping your straight arms up and down by your sides, inhaling through the nose for 5 counts and then exhaling through the mouth for 5 counts for a total of 10 times (that's one set). You'll perform this for a total of 10 sets or 100 pumps through.
Expert tips: Once you have mastered the hollow body move, you're ready to take things up and notch and try the Pilates 100. This is a great addition to any workout routine and can be added on to ab specific workouts or after any cardio exercise. Beginners can keep their legs in a bent 90-degree angle position for the entire movement if extended legs is too challenging and progress as they get stronger in the exercise over time.
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Which is the most effective ab exercise?
All core exercises are effective when you execute them properly, and they're all beneficial because they work different muscles within your core. But if you're looking for one move to get maximum benefits from, those will be moves that target several abdominal muscles all at once — sort of like a total body workout, but for your core. Great ab exercises for that goal are planks (all variations), bicycle crunches and hollow hold.
How many days a week should a woman do ab exercises?
A little bit of ab workout each time you exercise is okay, and it's a great idea to finish your cardio or strength-training sessions with one or two ab moves to strengthen your core. But most experts recommend dedicating two to three days a week to an ab routine like the one above. Your core, like any muscle in the body, needs time to properly recover so listen to your body and take time to recover if you're feeling sore.
Why trust Good Housekeeping?
Stefani Sassos has been working in the fitness industry for the past 10 years, specializing in strength training. As a NASM-Certified personal trainer, she uses her expertise and exercise science knowledge to create informed fitness content for the Good Housekeeping Institute. From vigorously testing exercise equipment to curating workout plans for GH readers, Stefani is passionate about leading an active lifestyle and inspiring others to do the same.
As a senior editor for the Hearst Health Newsroom, Alyssa Jung has written research-backed health content for Prevention, Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day since 2017. She's a long-time (formerly competitive) runner with a deep love for hill workouts and lower body strength training.
Stefani Sassos, M.S., R.D.N., C.D.N., NASM-CPT
Nutrition Lab Director
Stefani (she/her) is a registered dietitian, a NASM-certified personal trainer and the director of the Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition Lab, where she handles all nutrition-related content, testing and evaluation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in nutritional sciences from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in clinical nutrition from NYU. She is also Good Housekeeping’s on-staff fitness and exercise expert. Stefani is dedicated to providing readers with evidence-based content to encourage informed food choices and healthy living. She is an avid CrossFitter and a passionate home cook who loves spending time with her big fit Greek family.
Alyssa Jung
Senior Editor, Fitness & Nutrition
Alyssa is a senior editor for the Hearst Health Newsroom, where she has written research-backed health content for Prevention, Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day since 2017. She has more than 13 years of reporting and editing experience and previously worked as research chief at Reader’s Digest, where she was responsible for the website's health vertical as well as editing health content for the print magazine. She has also written for Chowhound, HealthiNation.com, Huffington Post and more.
