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FACT CHECKED"How do I get a six-pack?" has to be one of the most popular questions in fitness history.
Everyone is always searching for that one exercise or shortcut that will finally get them the chiseled abs they desire. After all, abs play a huge role in aesthetics. Shirtless mirror selfies have revolved around muscles like the biceps, chest, and six-pack abs for as long as people have been lifting.
Unfortunately, there isn't a single exercise or magic trick that will do it. Getting a six-pack requires training them with multiple exercises while following a proper diet. But don’t worry, you don’t need to do 500 sit-ups a day to get there.
I've got tons of tips, tricks, and great exercises to help you with your pursuit of abs, whether you're hoping for a six, eight, ten, or even twelve-pack. Let's get into the best abdominis exercises!
Table of Contents:
At its most basic level, the rectus abdominis' primary job is trunk flexion, and it is the muscle responsible for giving you a six-pack.
Let's dig in more.
These abdominal muscles sit in front and run on both sides of your stomach. Responsible for the 6, 8, or even 10-pack look (this is highly dependent on genetics), it originates on the pubic crest and pubic symphysis.
The edges of the rectus abdominis are separated from the obliques by the linea semilunaris, a tendinous intersection located on both sides of the rectus abdominis.
Your genetics will determine how many horizontal tendinous intersections you have, which you can read more about in our article on 4 pack abs vs 6 pack vs 8 pack.
The main job of the rectus abdominis is flexing the trunk, which occurs when you perform exercises like a sit-up. The rectus abdominis helps bend your body forward, lift your pelvis, and stabilize your body during many movements. It also helps you exhale forcefully, braces your abdominals, and protects your spine during movements like the squat or a deadlift.
The rectus abdominis works closely with the internal and external obliques, transverse abdominis, lower back, and hip flexors to hold your spine in the correct posture.
The muscles I just mentioned create a rectus sheath and run behind and in front of the rectus abdominis. When they work together as a team, they help transfer force between the upper and lower body, which in turn helps us safely perform almost all movements.
Simply put, the rectus abdominis is activated when you move your chest and hips closer together. An example of this occurs during trunk flexion, like when you're doing a sit-up or reverse crunch that brings your hips closer to your chest.
It’s important to note that the rectus abdominis has what is called the upper abs and the lower abs. While these portions of the abs are still just one muscle, with changes in body position and different movements, it is possible to target one area more than the other1. Exercises like a hanging leg raise focus more on the lower abs, whereas a sit-up will target the upper abs.
Other stability exercises like the pallof press, farmer's walk, and plank activate the rectus abdominis in a way that forces it to work to resist movement. A good program for the rectus abdominis will include movements that activate it both ways.
Just like any other muscle on your body, a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle. To get visible six-pack abs, you will need to grow the rectus abdominis the way you would build your chest with exercises like bench presses and dips.
It’s going to take progressive overload with resistance unless you are one of the very few people genetically gifted enough to have visible abs simply by doing compound exercises.
Aside from the visible benefits of having six-pack abs, strengthening them allows them to function better.
If you neglect to build these muscles, you are leaving all kinds of gains on the table when it comes to increasing your athletic performance, strength for other lifts, and generally improving everyday tasks and movement. I'll get into this more in the benefits section.
Any flexion movement is going to be crucial for developing the rectus abdominis. Movements like a sit-up, crunch, reverse crunch, standing cable crunch, V-up, bicycle crunch, or hanging leg raise are great for building muscle in your rectus abdominis.
Movements like the RKC plank, weighted plank, farmer's walk, pallof press, L-sit, and hollow hold are all great exercises that force the rectus abdominis to help with spinal stabilization. Other movements more focused on stabilizing are also great for the rectus abdominis.
Finally, the big compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, standing shoulder presses, and bent-over rows are a great way to target your six-pack while simultaneously hitting other muscle groups and building full body strength.
Don't forget that this muscle group needs weighted exercises and progressive overload to grow just like every other muscle. Often, people do these movements for body weight and high reps to feel a burn.
This can give you the illusion that you are working your abs, but if this is all you doing, you're only really improving your abs' muscular endurance. You also need to focus on hitting the rectus abdominis in a strength rep range.
You now know why you need to train your rectus abdominis, but which exercises should you train them with? Not to worry, as I'm about to go over the 7 rectus abdominis exercises I recommend for the best muscle-building and strength-improving results.
This variation of the sit-up uses a decline bench to increase the rectus abdominis' range of motion. Using a weight will further help build the upper abs as they work to achieve flexion. You can always start with body weight if needed and progress when you're ready.
How to do Decline Weighted Sit-Ups:
A hanging knee raise is one of my favorite ab exercises, as it significantly targets the lower ab portion of the rectus abdominis and the hip flexors. Since this move is done hanging from a pull-up bar, it also trains your grip strength and lats as they activate to maintain position during the movement.
Once you're strong enough, try adding a dumbbell between your feet to help build muscle in your lower abs.
How to do the Hanging Knee Raise:
The barbell roll-out is one of my favorite barbell exercises. It's excellent for the upper abs, yet it works differently than the other exercises on this list as it lengthens your core and strengthens your abs eccentrically.
On the roll-out, your core muscles are working to resist spine and hip flexion, and on the roll-in, they are performing spinal flexion.
How to do Barbell Ab Roll Outs:
This gymnastic isometric exercise strengthens your entire body while blasting your rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, and hip flexors as they all work together to stabilize during the hold.
I'm going to explain how to do the full L-sit variation but if you are brand new and need a regression, try holding a knee tuck first.
How to do the L-Sit:
There are tons of plank variations, but this one is fantastic for firing up the rectus abdominis and teaching it to work with the glutes.
How to do an RKC Plank:
This full-body exercise is as simple as it gets. Pick up heavy dumbbells and walk as far as possible while maintaining good posture. Make sure the weights are relatively heavy.
The core strengthening benefits are out of this world, and your body will be hard at work stabilizing your spine. Ladies, this is also a great exercise to help safely heal diastasis recti abdominis.
How to do the Farmer's Walk:
This athletic movement helps build full-body power and explosiveness while training the rectus abdominis as it flexes your trunk during the slam. Medicine ball slams will increase your core strength and can simultaneously be a cardiovascular challenge.
How to do the Medicine Ball Slam:
I just went over my favorite abdominal exercises for strengthening the rectus abdominis, and now it's time to go over the best stretches to lengthen everything out. Adding even 1 or 2 of these movements into a mobility routine can go a long way in helping your entire body feel better.
Stretching your rectus abdominis and deep core muscles is just as important as working to build muscle in them!
This is fantastic movement should be included in many stretching routines as it moves your upper body through flexion and extension. Not only does it stretch your abs, but it helps with circulation for the discs in your spine.
How to do the Cat-Cow:
This famous yoga pose will help stretch your upper abs and improve your hip and shoulder mobility. Make sure not to overarch your lower back in this stretch.
How to do the Cobra:
This supine abdominal stretch on a stability ball does a fantastic job of stretching out the rectus abdominis, hips, and chest. It does provide a more unstable stretch, so make sure to maintain your balance and start slow.
How to do the Stability Ball Ab Stretch:
Like the cat-cow, this standing stretch moves your body through hip and spinal extensions. This means you will get a great stretch in both your upper and lower abs.
How to do the Standing Lean Back Stretch:
Wondering why it's important to work rectus abdominis exercises into your workout split? I'm about to give you five good reasons!
Yay for aesthetics! Your ab muscles will grow by training your rectus abdominis with weighted exercises and eating in a minimal caloric surplus. After a period of growth, you'll lean out during a cutting phase, revealing your hard work.
I guarantee you'll love the sight of 6 bricks underneath your skin, and it’s going to feel amazing to take that shirt off at the beach. Everyone is going to be asking how you did it, to which you can respond: "Hard work and some help from my good friends at SET FOR SET."
Strengthening your rectus abdominis and core as a whole will have a direct carryover into all athletic movements. That’s right, all of them. Sprinting, jumping, rotation, and stabilizing your spine will all improve.
Your body will be better at absorbing and transferring force, whether in sports or everyday movements, like chasing your kids in the backyard.
When those abs get stronger, all of your gym lifts will also start to go up. Remember the rectus abdominis’ role in bracing your core? Well, if it’s stronger and able to brace more effectively, your strength for movements like squats and deadlifts will increase.
It also helps stabilize better, allowing you to safely carry heavy things, like during a farmer's walk or when you're moving heavy furniture into a new apartment.
Think of the core as the gatekeeper that decides when your body can safely handle more weight. If you strengthen it, it will reward you by enabling you to lift heavier.
The rectus abdominis helps maintain your pelvic tilt. If you know anything about anterior pelvic tilt, it’s a real bummer to deal with. If your hip flexors are tight and your abs and glutes are weak, you will have lower back pain, and your discs will start to move due to the muscles pulling on your spine.
By strengthening your abs, you are helping your body maintain proper posture and fighting off this annoying condition. Imbalanced muscles tell you something is wrong by sending a pain signal. Strengthen the correct muscles, and the pain goes away.
Strong rectus abdominis muscles allow you to breathe better due to their role in exhalation. Think of any time you’ve been exhausted or felt like you had short choppy breaths.
If you want the ability to breathe more air in, you have to exhale all of the air out forcefully. These muscles will allow you to do a better job once you strengthen them.
A portion of your core can be trained with almost every workout as long as you are not overdoing it, meaning you're not performing every exercise every day or training too hard in one session.
For example, if you're following a 4-day split, try adding obliques at the end of a strength training session one day, upper abs another day, lower abs the next, and stability-type movements on another day.
Remember that strength also means stabilization, so don’t forget about holds like planks and movements like farmer's walks or pallof presses. You can even train core on its own day, so it gets your full attention. This would probably work best in a 5-day split.
You will need to build your ab muscles like any other muscle group. This means you will need to go through a period of eating in a caloric surplus to focus on building muscle.
After that, you will likely have to go into a caloric deficit to shed some excess fat if you want to get your body fat levels low enough to see the abs you’ve been building underneath the fat. Don’t forget. The bigger your ab muscles get, the less fat you will have to strip off to see them.
We have multiple meal plans that provide bulking and cutting options. Check out our high protein meal plan or our carb-cycling meal plan for a few great options.
Here's a great example of how you can create a rectus abdominis workout. If you're doing all of these exercises in one routine, I suggest having an exclusive core day in your weekly split, as I mentioned in the programming tips section above.
Exercise |
Sets |
Reps |
RKC Plank |
2 |
30 seconds |
Weighted Decline Sit-Ups |
2 |
8 |
Hanging Knee Raises |
2 |
15 |
Ab Roll-Outs |
2 |
10 |
L-Sit |
2 |
To Fail |
Side Plank |
1 |
60 seconds |
Medicine Ball Slam |
2 |
10 |
Farmer's Walk |
3 |
20 seconds |
If you have any remaining rectus abdominis training questions, we'll answer them here.
The rectus abdominis flexes your trunk, bringing your chest closer to your hips. It also braces the core and assists with exhalation.
Decline weighted crunches do the best job of hitting the upper abs and hanging knee raises are excellent for targeting your lower abs.
You cannot completely isolate the rectus abdominis, but any movement that includes flexion of the spine will target it the best.
You should now understand the importance of training your abdomen and core as a whole for both aesthetics and performance improvements. It’s great to build six-pack abs, but it's also essential to improve your core’s function and performance as a whole.
Nobody wants ab muscles that are all show and no go.
Looking for more great core strengthening exercises? Check out our article on the Top 23 Transverse Abdominis Stretches & Exercises!
References:
Marchetti PH, Kohn AF, Duarte M. Selective Activation of the Rectus Abdominis Muscle During Low-Intensity and Fatiguing Tasks. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine. Accessed December 5, 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3761871/
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