9 Best Dumbbell Ab Exercises for Core Workouts

Ab training has been a confusing and conflicting topic for a lot of fitness fanatics for years. Some never train them for fear of a blocky waist, some train them day by day to attempt to get them as cut as possible, and a few train them for 2 weeks at the top of a leg workout only to ignore them for the subsequent three months.

No matter where you currently fall on this ab training continuum, it’s essential to understand how best to coach them. By developing that knowledge, you possibly can make informed decisions and take away any doubt about the best way to maximize your ab workouts.

This text will cover the 9 best dumbbell ab exercises to construct an outlined midsection based on the functions and anatomy of the abdominal musculature, and offer you tools of the best way to incorporate them into your training.

Abdominal Muscles Anatomy & Functions

The muscles making up the midsection that will be seen from the front are generally known as the anterolateral abdominal wall. That is made up of 5 muscles, starting from deep-lying to superficial. The deep-lying musculature, just like the transverse abdominis and pyramidalis, have functional roles, holding organs in place, increasing intra-abdominal pressure, and stopping hernias.

In this text, we are going to concentrate on the anterior core muscles that concentrically and eccentrically contract during ab exercises: the inner obliques, external obliques and rectus abdominis. The external obliques and rectus abdominis just so occur to be the muscles giving the mid-section an outlined, well-developed and aesthetic look.

The Internal Obliques

The inner obliques are the center later of the lateral abdominal wall, sitting superficially to the transverse abdominis and beneath the external obliques. It’s a broad and thin muscular sheet, with fibers that run diagonally up the abdomen. 

Origins and insertions:

The inner obliques have multiple origins and insertion sites. The anterior fibers originate from the iliopectineal arch, found on the lower section on the surface of the pelvis. The fibers angle downwards towards the midline on the front of the body, linking up with the transverse abdominis before inserting into the pubic crest and pecten pubis on the front of the pelvis. The lateral fibers come from the highest of the iliac crest, the uppermost a part of the pelvic structure.  These fibers run towards the front of the body, forming the rectus sheath, and inserting into the linea alba running down the middle of the abdomen. The fibers angle horizontally and barely upwards from the origin to the insertion points. Finally, the posterior fibers originate from the posterior iliac crest and thoracolumbar fascia. Their fibers angle diagonally up the torso and fasten to the lower three ribs.

Briefly, the inner obliques originate from various parts of the pelvis, attaching closer to the midline of the abdomen. The fibers angle barely down – within the case of the anterior fibers – or upwards within the case of the lateral and posterior fibers.

Function:

Like most muscles, the function of the inner obliques is set by their origins, insertions, and fiber direction. After they are contracted bilaterally, at the identical time, the trunk is flexed. In the event you contract one by one, the trunk flexes laterally and rotates ipsilaterally (i.e. towards the identical side). Crunching your torse to the left means the inner obliques on the left-hand side are contracting.

The External Obliques

These are the most important and most superficial muscle of the lateral abdomen. Sitting on top of the inner obliques and transverse abdominis, the external obliques offer you an outlined and chiseled look to your midsection, framing your abs. 

Origins and insertions:

The external obliques originate from the surface surfaces of ribs 5-12. The attachments get step by step wider on the rib cage as you go from rib 5-12, starting just outside nipple width at rib 5 and ending across the back of the torso at rib 12. The fibers run diagonally from the origin to its insertions – the linea alba, pubic tubercle, and anterior iliac crest. As mentioned before, the linea alba runs down the center of the abdomen, while the pubic tubercle and anterior iliac crest are situated across the pelvis. In essence, the muscle runs diagonally down from the ribs to varied points closer to the midline, perpendicular to the inner obliques. 

Functions:

Although the fibers run across not alongside the inner obliques, the external obliques perform essentially the identical functions. Their unilateral contraction causes lateral trunk flexion and rotation towards the side contraction, while bilateral contraction causes trunk flexion.

The Rectus Abdominis

That is the muscle that spring to mind when anyone mentioned ab training. The rectus abdominis is accountable for the customarily wanted 6 pack abs, sitting as essentially the most superficial anterior abdominal muscle. The segments that make up the 6 – and even 8 blocks in some cases – are brought on by tendinous intersections. Unfortunately, no amount of ab training will change how a lot of these sections you may have, whether it’s 4 pack abs vs. 6 pack vs. 8 pack, but well-developed muscles could make these intersections deeper, creating more visible and deep-set abs. 

Origins and insertions:

Originating from the pubic symphysis and crest on the pelvis, the rectus abdominis runs vertically up the abdomen inserting xiphoid processes and costal cartilages of ribs 5-7.

Function:

The first function of the rectus abdominis is trunk flexion. Nonetheless, it also acts to stop lordosis and anterior pelvic tilt. While the rectus abdominis is one muscle, it has multiple sections – sometimes called the lower and upper parts of the abs. The upper abs are more energetic during trunk flexion, and the lower abs work more on controlling the pelvis. Nonetheless, they don’t work independently, so each will probably be stimulated during either motion simply to various degrees.

What Makes for a Good Abdominal Exercise?

Like several other muscle, the rectus abdominis and internal and external obliques grow best when standard principles of hypertrophy are applied to training. It’s best to pick exercises that: 

1. Takes them through a full range of motion.
2. May be progressively overloaded.
3. Use each eccentric and concentric contractions. 

Exercises like planks and carries have their place in resistance training. These will be excellent overall exercises; nevertheless, they fail to fulfill these criteria, making them an inefficient solution to directly develop deep cut abs. Furthermore, if you happen to’re training program comprises heavy compounds like squats and deadlifts, the muscles of your midsection are heavily stressed isometrically anyway. This is very the case if you happen to incorporate unilateral standing exercises. The exercises below are focussed on maximizing hypertrophy, so isometrics won’t be included.

9 Best Dumbbell Exercises for Abs

With the above parameters in mind, below are the perfect ab exercises with dumbbells.

To maintain things nice and neat, we’re categorizing these weighted ab exercises by:

• The Obliques
• The Lower Abs (Rectus Abdominis)
• The Upper Abs (Rectus Abdominis)

The Obliques:

Despite them being two different muscles, the inner and external obliques work in synergy to supply trunk flexion, lateral trunk flexion and trunk rotation. The exercises below will goal each the inner and external obliques concurrently.

1. Dumbbell Side Bends

Unless specifically targeted, it’s rare for trainees to perform trunk lateral flexion within the gym. Side bends force you to stretch the obliques underload, a fantastic driver of muscle hypertrophy. This stretch is comparatively unusual, with the obliques generally used to stabilize the trunk, in exercises like lunges, and not using a full range of motion. Lateral flexion can also be an element of day by day life, used when picking up the shopping, so strengthening these muscles in various ranges can only profit your functional mobility.

Find out how to:

1. To perform dumbbell side bends, you will probably be in a standing position along with your feet shoulder-width apart and a dumbbell in a single hand.
2. Hold the dumbbell on the surface of your thigh with a neutral grip, thumb pointing forwards and palm facing your leg.
3. Maintaining a straight arm, lower the load down the surface of your leg by bending to the side.
4. Keeping your chest facing forward, go down as little as possible safely. When you’ve reached your secure range of motion, return to the highest by contracting your obliques.

This exercise will train the obliques on the other side of the dumbbell. It might probably enable you to develop a greater reference to the exercise if you happen to use the non-dumbbell holding hand to attempt to feel your obliques on the working side.

One thing to pay attention to is that this exercise doesn’t fully shorten the obliques. If you need to take them through a full range, pair this with an exercise like decline Russian twists (below) or perhaps a cable side bend specializing in shortening the muscle.

2. Decline Dumbbell Russian Twists 

Russian twists, named due to their use as a conditioning tool within the Russian army, are commonplace in gyms globally. Their original version is performed by having your legs hover within the air and the upper and lower body in a V-shape, twisting to the touch a weight down on both sides. Nonetheless, their form is tough to standardize and quickly becomes a hip-flexor test and neglects the goal of the movement, rotation. Adding a decline bench to secure your legs helps you to concentrate on the obliques with added stability. These also can help you train the obliques through a full range. As you twist to the suitable, shortening the right-hand side, the left obliques get a fuller stretch and going the opposite way does the identical for the opposite side. One final profit is that these train the rectus abdominis isometrically, especially the lower section, to carry the decline position. This implies they generally is a one-stop shop for an ab session if you happen to’re short on time or simply need to add a little bit of volume to the entire midsection.

Find out how to:

1. Sit on a decline bench, so the back of your knees are supported by the leg holders.
2. Lower the upper body, bending on the hips and maintain a slight posterior pelvic tilt (i.e. don’t let your lower back arch).
3. Lean the upper body back until you’re feeling your lower abs contract to support you.
4. Hold a dumbbell in two hands away out of your body and twist to the suitable so far as possible safely, maintaining the pelvic tilt.
5. Twist back to the middle before doing the identical on the left-hand side. Attempt to avoid moving too quickly and concentrate on working the obliques and abs.

3. Side Plank Touch Downs with Dumbbell

Unlike regular side planks, this variation lengthens and shortens the obliques through lateral flexion. Also they are very easily accessible – not requiring heavyweight, which side-bends can, or a decline bench. This makes them a wonderful option for a busy gym or home training.

Find out how to:

1. Get right into a side plank position – one elbow on the bottom, chest facing the wall and the surface of your foot on the identical side on the ground.
2. Hold a dumbbell on the surface of the hip that’s pointing to the ceiling. You can even hold the dumbbell up overhead along with your arm prolonged as seen within the video.
3. Lower the within hip to the bottom and return to the starting position.
4. Be sure you retain your hips square and chest pointing to the wall in the course of the whole movement.

It’s best to aim to maintain your head, body, legs and feet in a single straight line. In the event you find the range of motion too short, you possibly can elevate your feet on a bumper plate.

The Lower Abs (Rectus Abdominis):

The lower abs will be hard to coach and connect with for a lot of, feeling the movements of their lower back or hip flexors. The dumbbell exercises below should give you stability and tricks to take advantage of your lower ab without falling into common traps.

4. Hanging Leg Raises with Dumbbell

Some of the common – and commonly butchered – ab exercises is the hanging leg raises. Done appropriately, these force you to lift your legs by tilting your pelvis and crunching your abs. In the event you’re strong enough to perform these properly, they will be a fantastic addition to your lower ab training.

Find out how to:

1. Grip a pull-up bar just wider than your shoulders, using an overhand grip and dumbbell tucked between your feet.
2. Because the name suggests, the goal is to lift your legs. Nonetheless, the way you go about this is important.
3. From a dead hang, tuck your pelvis under and roll your hips forward, raising your legs up in front of you to about sternum height.
4. You might go as much as shoulder height, but remember to keep the dumbbells secure.
5. Throughout the movement, take into consideration bringing the underside and top of your abs towards each other. As you get towards the highest, exhale and barely crunch your abs keeping your hips rolled forward.
6. As your legs raise, it is important to not let your bum swing backwards, lengthening the abs as you are trying to shorten them.
7. Slowly lower your legs back to the starting position.

This exercise often turns into swinging, momentum, and hip flexors. In the event you can’t perform this with straight legs, you possibly can shorten the range of motion and make it easier by keeping your knees bent.

5. Roman Chair Leg Lowers with Dumbbell

Much similar to the hanging leg raises, this exercise focuses on the lower abs by controlling the pelvic tilt, working to stop lordosis and produce the ribs and pelvis towards one another. Using the roman chair supports the lower back, providing you with a surface to push into, adding stability. This makes the exercise easier to manage and permits you to concentrate on contracting the abs without worrying about swinging backwards and forwards.

Find out how to:

1. Face out of the roman chair along with your back against the pad and dumbbell between your feet.
2. Let your legs dangle straight down. Push your lower back into the pad and tuck your hips under as you bring your legs up.
3. Proceed to roll the pelvis under as your legs get higher and contract the abs as hard as possible.
4. Once your legs are only above parallel to the bottom, lower them down.
5. You possibly can bring your legs higher – if you happen to’re in a position to accomplish that – while crunching your abs to make this goal the upper more.

Just like the hanging leg raises these will be made easier by bending your knees to scale back the length of the moment arm. 

6. Incline Dumbbell Reverse Crunch on a Bench

The ultimate lower ab movement is analogous to the above but easier to perform. This makes them a solid option for a second ab exercise if you might already be fatigued or if you happen to’re struggling to perform lower ab exercises efficiently. A second profit is the bench means there may be a definitive start and stop point, making them easy to trace, standardize and ultimately progress.

Find out how to:

1. Set an everyday bench to a 45-60-degree incline – the upper the incline, the harder the movement.
2. Lie back along with your head right at the highest of the bench and grab the bench behind your head with each hands.
3. Your feet needs to be on the ground touching one another with bent knees and a dumbbell in-between.
4. Bring your knees to your chest and push your lower back into the bench, tucking your pelvis and contracting your abs.
5. Bring your knees into your chest along with your bum off the seat and curling your bum under.
6. Crunch forward barely at the highest.
7. Slowly lower yourself back to the starting position by unfurling your abs and tapping your feet on the ground before going again.

The Upper Abs (Rectus Abdominis):

The upper abs are generally related to the trunk flexion and crunching motion people perform. This is often what people consider when someone mentions ab training to them. The exercises below are variations to enable you to get essentially the most out of upper ab training, improving on some common exercises.

7. Decline Dumbbell Sit-Ups

Despite this being within the upper ab section, this exercise attacks the entire rectus abdominis. This makes them one other great movement to get essentially the most bang-for-your-buck along with your ab training. Moreover, they’re easy to progress and track, with a transparent start and endpoint. Finally, unless you’re flailing around, these provide stability and allow you to really concentrate on the abs.

Find out how to:

1. Sit on a decline bench along with your legs secured – the steeper the decline, the harder the movement.
2. Hold a dumbbell just in front of your face or chest – the further the dumbbell is out of your abs, the more difficult the exercise becomes.
3. Start the movement by crunching your abs and pushing your lower back into the pad as you sit up.
4. Proceed to contract the abs and tuck the pelvis under, keeping the pressure off the hip flexors and on the abs.
5. Sit up until you are about 90 degrees from the ground, abs contracted, and pelvis tucked.
6. Slowly return to the start line, reversing the movement.

8. Swiss Ball Dumbbell Crunch

Swiss balls have gotten loads of attention. Some herald their added instability as a fantastic solution to increase exercise difficulty and core activation, while others dismiss them as a way of decreasing weight used and deflecting attention from goal muscles. On this case, the swiss ball is used due to its shape and malleability and never instability. By crunching on the ball and never the ground, you permit your lower back to arch and ribs and pelvis to separate, increasing the stretch on the abs. As previously mentioned, stretching under load is a fantastic solution to elicit hypertrophy, making this a really viable option.

Find out how to:

1. Lie along with your back on the ball, along with your head off one side and glutes off the opposite. Arrange a stable base by having your feet flat on the ground.
2. Hold a dumbbell in front of your face or simply excessive of your head. Just like the decline sit-up, the further the dumbbell is from the abs, the harder the movement becomes.
3. Within the starting position, it is best to let your back arch with the curve of the ball.
4. Crunch your abs, bringing your ribs and pelvis towards one another and push your lower back into the ball.
5. Exhale as you contract. Return to the origin, letting your ribs and pelvis separate to get a full stretch.

9. Bosu Ball Dumbbell Crunch

Very like the swiss ball, Bosu-balls have come under fire for among the weird and whacky exercises people perform on them. Despite their perceived advantages and downfalls, they make a fantastic addition to ab training. The ball side acts like a swiss ball, allowing you to stretch the abs further than you possibly can on the ground. One additional advantage of the Bosu-ball is the flat back. This helps you to arrange in a single spot without fear of the ball rolling away or changing position in your back. This variation mixes the soundness and range of motion of standard and swiss ball crunches, making them a wonderful weapon within the arsenal.

These are performed almost identically to the swiss ball crunch.

Find out how to:

1. Lie on the ball half of the Bosu-ball, holding a dumbbell in front of your face or simply behind your head.
2. Start along with your abs stretched and crunch by bringing the pelvis and ribs towards one another, exhaling as you contract.

Abs Workout with Dumbbells – Programming Guidance

Just like several other muscle, abs must be trained with adequate volume and frequency, and with considered exercise selection and progressive overload. 

The midsection has been separated to assist understand the functions and which dumbbell exercises goal each area best. Nonetheless, the obliques and upper and lower abs have huge crossover, and it’s almost unattainable to coach one part without one other. For instance, you may perform a dangling leg raise for the lower abs, but co-contraction of the obliques also causes trunk flexion, and the upper and lower abs can’t be isolated from each other. This implies you don’t should perform an exercise targeting each section of each session. You might train abs twice per week – one session using an oblique and lower ab exercise and the opposite using an upper and lower ab exercise – and get adequate volume in all places. That is emphasized by their contribution to compound movements.

In the event you aim for 4-6 sets per week per section, spread across 2-3 sessions, you’ll likely be getting adequate volume, and you possibly can at all times add more if it’s required. Finally, due to the problem isolating the abs, with the lower back and hip flexors keen to spoil the fun, lower rep ranges (4-8) are sometimes impractical. Aiming for 10-15 reps in your first set may also help prevent the reps from falling too far in subsequent sets.

You can even implement cool workout ideas like circuits, EMOM, AMRAP, and Tabata to your ab workouts with dumbbells.

Sample Dumbbell Ab Workout #1:

1. Dumbbell Side Bend x 10 reps both sides
2. Decline Dumbbell Russian Twist x 20 reps total
3. Hanging Leg Raise with Dumbbell x 5-10 reps

Repeat for 2-3 rounds. Rest as needed between exercises and rounds.

Sample Dumbbell Ab Workout #2:

1. Decline Dumbbell Sit-Ups: 3 sets x 10-15 reps
2. Side Plank Touch Downs with Dumbbell: 3 sets x 10 reps both sides
3. Roman Chair Leg Lowers: 2 sets x 8-12 reps
4. Incline Reverse Crunch on Bench: 2 sets x 10-12 reps

You might switch between these two workouts for a month or so then switch things up once it becomes easy. It’s best to also aim to progressive overload by adding reps (to the high end of the rep scheme) after which adding weight by utilizing a heavier dumbbell. 

Final Thoughts on Dumbbell Ab Workouts:

Well-developed abs could make the midsection look defined with deeper cuts. Nonetheless, this relies in your body fat levels. No matter your abs development, in case your body fat levels are too high, your abs won’t show. So, train your abs hard with and without weighted ab exercises, but remember you’ll must work in your food regimen to make sure they will be shown off. Because the old saying goes, “Abs are developed within the gym and revealed within the kitchen.”