These are the superficial and thus visible muscles of the abdomen, and if you understand their function, this can help us design training more appropriately.
All 3 muscles flex the spine, which is why "crunch" exercises feature so heavily in ab training, along with anti-flexion exercises (e.g. planks, ab wheel rollouts). Along with flexion, the obliques in particular play a key role in trunk rotation and lateral flexion.
Flexion Exercises
Pick 1-2 of these exercises, and include them in your programme twice per week for best results.
- Free-Weight or Bodyweight Crunch
- Decline Crunch
- Hanging, Supine or Decline Leg Raise
- Reverse Crunch
- Ab Wheel Roll Outs
- Plank Variations
Rotation Exercises
Pick 1 of these exercises, and include them in your programme twice per week for best results.
- Machine Trunk Rotation
- Wood Chop / Cable Rotation Variations
- Russian Twists
- Palloff Press
Lateral Flexion Exercises
Pick 1 of these exercises, and include them in your programme twice per week for best results.
- Weighted Side Bends
- Lateral Flexion on Back Extension Machine
- Side Plank Variations
Programming Principles
Naturally, it's not enough to just know what exercises you should do. The next step is to ensure you are programming them appropriately, so here are some rough guidelines to get you started:
(1) Perform each exercise (or exercise type) twice per week.
(2) Perform 8-15 reps or hold isometrics for 30-60 seconds.
(3) Take each set close to failure, so that you could not do more than 1-2 reps with a gun to your head.
(4) Keep your reps controlled with slower tempos (e.g. 3021 for crunches), as it's easy to let other muscles take over on ab exercises.
(5) Start with 2-3 sets per exercise, and progress to 3-5 over the course of 6-12 weeks, depending on fatigue, recovery, and soreness.
Lose Body Fat
Unfortunately, your abs will never be visible if you are too fat for them to be seen. The vast majority of the time, people can't see their abs because they have not gotten lean enough. Along with this, we find that some people think they can train their way to different genetics, which is unfortunately not the case. If you don't have a "6-pack" or
"8-pack" structure due to anatomical variation in your rectus abdominis structure, you may be unable to ever see more than 4 of your abs, and that's just life...
