The Most Effective Ab Exercises for 6 Pack Abs

When you mention ab exercises and workouts, crunches, rollers, and twists comes to mind - all of which are abdominal-specific exercises that target your abs and obliques. While these are effective in helping you develop and strengthen your abs; they are not necessarily the most effective in helping you achieve six pack abs. Regardless how developed and strong your abs are, you won’t be able to see them if there’s a layer of fat covering them. As such, the most effective exercises and workouts are not ab specific exercises, but rather, exercises that target your entire body, stimulating a metabolic response, boosting metabolism, and leading to fat loss. For an effective ab development program, you need a combination of full body exercises along with some ab specific exercises to achieve optimal results. Your goal should be to not only target your abs, but to also create a better fat burning workout. Here’s a list some of the most effective ab exercises that can help you achieve six pack abs, even though some of them aren’t even ab specific!

Most Effective Ab Exercises
We'll start the list with the big 3 - squats, clean and press, and deadlifts. You might be surprised to learn that none of these target the ab muscles directly, but are some of the best compound exercises to help you build muscle and stimulate a metabolic response. This can lead to more effective fat loss. Keep in mind that your goal is not just to train your abs - great ab muscles will not show through a thick layer of belly fat - your goal is to build overall lean mass and reduce the amount of fat your carry.

1. Squats are one of the most basic compound exercises fordeveloping strength and mass in the legs. Because it involves a group of large muscles, it’s also one of the best compound exercises for stimulating a metabolic response for a better fat burning workout.
     Front squats – this squat requires exceptional stabilization strength from your abs due to the placement of the weight in front of your body.

2. Barbell clean and press--another great addition to any workout program. Multiple muscle groups are needed to perform this tough exercise, and it will help to develop strength and power.

3. Deadlift--one of the best power exercises that involves more muscles than almost any other exercise. The deadlift is a compound exercise that you should include in your training program.
When performing the deadlift exercise, always keep your back tight and straight, with your head up, looking forward - arching your back will place undesirable stress on your spinal column and lower back. When you maintain a straight back, the vertebrae are all in alignment with no unequal stress placed on any point of your spine, thus reducing the risk of injury.


4. Captain's chair (a.k.a, Roman chair) leg raises are another effective ab exercise that directly targets your abdominals and the obliques. It’s performed on a rack with padded arms for support, and allows your legs to hang free. There are also several variations that you can perform. When performing captain's chair leg raises, remember to avoid using momentum to swing your legs - use strict form.

5. Bicycles - no, not riding bicycles, but perform bicycle crunches from a bench. While it will not get rid of fat from your belly, it does directly target your abs and obliques, and does so very effectively.

6. Mountain climbers not only works your mid-section, they involve multiple muscle groups and will give you a fantastic cardio workout as well. It’s a really full-body exercise that also places great amount of stress on your abs.

7. High intensity interval rowing - performed on a rowing machine. You're probably saying to yourself "Isn’t that really a cardio exercise?" True! Rowing is a cardio exercise, but it’s included here because it’s one of the best cardio exercises. It not only gives you a great cardio workout, it also gives you a fantastic full body resistance workout as well. It uses almost every single muscle group in your body including your arms, shoulders, back, abs, glutes, legs, and calves. Perform rows with high intensity using intervals, and you're going to feel the burn.

8. Renegade dumbbell rows are another excellent ab exercise that comes highly recommend. This exercise is performed in a pushup position while holding 2 dumbbells. Start in a push-up position holding a dumbbell in each hand.
  a). Row one dumbbell up while keeping your body stabilized with the other arm.
  b). Bring the dumbbell back to the floor and perform the same movement with the other arm.
The stabilization required for this exercise puts great stress on your entire core--you will feel it in your abs.


9. Exercise ball crunches are another excellent way to hit the abs directly. What makes this crunch more effective than crunches on the floor is the level of stabilization that is required.

As you can see, this list includes exercises that do not directly target your abs such as squats, deadlifts, and rows; but these compound exercises will work your entire body, stimulate a metabolic response, and allow you to achieve a better fat burning workout. Also listed are several exercises that target your ab muscles directly - notice that the basic crunch is not on the list.