If you’re after six-pack abs, you’re in the right place. The core workouts below have been hand-picked by top trainers to help you build muscle and forge a rippled midsection with enough definition to grate a block of cheese. But that’s not all these exercises can do for you. A strong core is the driving force behind almost every athletic movement, regardless of activity or sport. And it’s one of your best defenses against injury and back pain.
What they won’t do, however, is burn fat. “The research is so incredibly clear that abdominal exercises don't reduce fat at all,” says Luke Carlson, founder and CEO of Discover Strength. And we mention that only to save you time. Even the world’s sharpest abs can’t cut through a spare tire.
Regardless, whether you’re obsessed with getting abs by summer or couldn’t care less about what goes on under your shirt, let alone your body-fat percentage, the core workouts below deserve a spot in every guy’s workout rotation.
Back Extension
People often use the words “abs” and “core” interchangeably, but there’s more to your core than the six-pack muscles you can (or will soon be able to) see in the mirror. Your core wraps all the way around your midsection, and includes the lower back muscles. "This group is called the lumbar extensors,” says Carlson, “and the one that's most prominent is the erector spinae.” These are the larger muscles that run along your spine, and the best way to train them in a commercial gym, according to Carlson, is with a lumbar extension on a Roman chair—the exercise that most gym-goers simply call a “back extension.” “Every gym on earth has a Roman chair back extension, and it's an awesome exercise,” Carlson says. "It’s more favorable than back extension machines, because those don't have what's called pelvic restraint, and so they're just glute exercises, really. Even though they're designed for the lower back, they just don't do a great job.”
How to do it:
- Set up on the Roman chair with your hips resting against the pad and your feet flat on the platform—toes together and heels out wide. (“By positioning your feet that way, you take the glutes out of the equation, and you really focus on the lower back,” Carlson says.)
2. Carlson recommends holding a weight plate against your chest for added resistance—anything up to 25 pounds. But if you’re new to the exercise, start with just your body weight.
3. Begin with your chest up and lower back flexed. Your body should form a straight line from your feet to your head. This is your starting position.Slowly lower your upper body until your torso goes just past parallel with the floor. Pause for a count, and then engage your lower back to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.
Trainer tip:
“You want the pad that your pelvis is resting on to be adjusted high enough so it's above your hip joint—almost digging into your abdomen as you do that exercise,” Carlson says. “That’s going to take the glutes out of the equation and focus more on lumbar extension, which is what you want.”
Pallof Press
Next up, you’re going to want to hit your obliques, which are basically the sides of your core. There are a lot of oblique exercises out there, like side bends, that will help grow these muscles, but some exercises come with additional functional benefits that you won’t want to miss. “I like to throw in an anti-rotational exercise, like the Paloff press, which helps your body stabilize against rotational forces,” says Matthew Accetta, MS, ACSM-CEP, CSCS*D, CSPS, exercise physiologist on the Sports Rehabilitation and Performance Team at HSS. “That gives you more spinal protection, engages your obliques, and really helps you better stabilize against any sort of rotational forces, especially if you play sports like golf or tennis.” The Pallof press is a simple but highly effective anti-rotational exercise, and because you can do it with either a cable or a band, you can do it in pretty much any gym, and even take it with you on the road. “For me, when it comes to setup, I don't have a preference whether you use a band or cable machine,” Accetta says. “It just depends on what you have access to.”
How to do it:
- Set the pulley of a cable station to slightly lower than shoulder height and attach a D handle to the end.
- Stand about three feet away from the pulley, and then pivot 90 degrees so that the station is beside you. Now grab the handle with both hands and extend your arms out in front of you. Your arms and the cable should form a right angle. This is your starting position.
- Keeping the handle perfectly centered with your body’s midline, slowly draw it in towards your chest, while bracing your core to resist the rotational pull of the cable.
- Once you’ve pulled the handle all the way towards you, pause for a count, and then slowly reverse the movement to return to the starting position. That’s one rep. After you’ve completed your set, repeat on the other side.
Trainer tip:
You can perform the Pallof press from either a standing or kneeling position. While it’s partly a matter of preference, it’s also a way to tailor the exercise to better prepare your body for a specific sport or activity. “In terms of sports performance, there are all sorts of situations that are going to require you to be braced and stable in different positions,” Acetta says. “So this is something where you can play around with different variations and positions.”
Torso Rotation Machine
“Since we did an anti-rotational movement, we’d now want to incorporate a rotational exercise, which is going to help with the creation and control of rotation, as well as power development,” Accetta says. Rotational exercises come in all shapes and sizes—and if you’re training for a specific sport, like golf, you’ll want to pick one with a similar movement pattern, such as a standing cable chop—but for for the average person looking to increase their power while also adding some lean mass and definition to their obliques, the torso rotation machine is an effective and accessible option. “It’s a great way to train both the internal and external obliques, and almost every gym has one,” says Carlson. Just look for the machine that looks kind of like a lateral raise, but with a pad for your knees. “‘Torso rotation’ and ‘rotary torso’ would be the two most common names that almost all manufacturers use,” Carlson says.
How to do it:
- Grab the machine’s handles, and then carefully sit down on the seat or set your knees on the rotating pad—depending on the design of the machine. (Despite the name, most torso rotation machines will actually hold your torso in a static position while your lower body does the rotating from a seated or kneeling position.) This is your starting position.
- Brace your core and rotate your lower body to the side, working against the resistance of the machine.
- Pause for a count at the end point of your rotation, and then slowly rotate in the other direction to reverse the movement to the starting position. That’s one rep.
- These machines work one side at a time. Once you’ve completed a set in one direction, use the lever on the machine to set the seat or pad to the opposite direction, which will allow you to work the other side.
Trainer tip:
“Your goal is to twist as far as possible without pulling with your arms,” Carlson says. “A lot of times, people will pull with their arms to get a few more degrees of range of motion.” Instead, let your midsection do all the work. Those extra few degrees won’t benefit your core—or your arms, for that matter. “This is not an upper-body exercise,” Carlson says.
Abdominal Crunch Machine
Finally, it’s time to take aim at those six-pack muscles. “Of course, this is the rectus abdominis,” Carlson says— “the muscle that everyone thinks about when they think about the core.” This massive, sheath-like muscle extends from just below the chest, all the way down to the lower pelvis, and there’s really only one way to target it head-on: abdominal flexion. In other words, anything that looks like a crunch. “Basically, almost any ab machine at the gym,” Carlson says. Of course, you could just do a classic crunch (and if you do, Carlson recommends keeping your legs far apart and knees bent “to take the hip flexors out of the equation and have more abdominal recruitment.”) However, a machine gives you the ability to add load, which is ultimately what’s going to allow you to progress. "Crunches are fine if you're on a deserted island and you have no other option, but progressive overload and being able to get to failure is so important,” he says. “I would use a machine 10 times out of 10.”
How to do it:
- Sit down in an abdominal crunch machine with your elbows resting on the pads and hands grasping the handles. This is your starting position.
- Brace your abs, and then slowly crunch your torso down towards your knees.
- When you reach the peak of the contraction, pause for a count, and then slowly reverse the movement to return to the starting position, maintaining tension in your abs throughout. That’s one rep.
Trainer tip:
To keep the focus squarely on your abs, Carlson suggests avoiding squeezing the handles tightly with your hands, and focusing on driving your elbows down into the pads instead. “Rather than squeezing the handles with your hands, try to have your hands open and light, and have the pressure come from the elbows,” he says.