3 Exercises To Build Your Abs (And 3 To Avoid)

Even though I haven’t trained abs in a long time, I did spend years building them up and tried all kinds of exercises:

-Crunches
-Decline situps
-Abs machines
-Hanging leg raises
-Cable crunches

And the list goes on…

But before I give you my top recommendations, let me share this one rule to think about when it comes to abs training:

The whole purpose of the rectus abdominus (aka the front part of the core that gives the 6 pack look when lean enough) is to flex the spine and move the ribcage toward the pelvis.

So having that in mind, it’s important to choose exercises that make that function smooth and easy to focus on so you can build the abs.

With that said, here are my top 3 ab exercise recommendations:

1. Hanging knee raises — The gym has a good station for this where you put your elbows up and bring your knees up to your chest as much as possible. It can also be done hanging from a bar, or, as a last resort, can even be modified to do on the floor. Eventually you want to get to the point where you can raise a straight leg to the bar and slowly lower legs down.