Ab Workout: 3 Routines, Best Exercises, Sets and Reps

The best ab exercises

Your abs do two jobs. One is to move: bending your trunk or curling your pelvis toward your ribs, as in a crunch. The other is to resist: stopping your lower back from arching, your torso from twisting or your body from leaning to one side, as in a plank. A complete workout includes both, because doing only crunches leaves out the second job.

To bend your trunk (flexion). The rope crunch can be loaded like any other exercise, so it is easy to progress. Without a cable, use the crunch or the reverse crunch, which moves your pelvis instead of your shoulders.
To lift your legs. The hanging leg raise adds work for your hip flexors and asks a lot of your abs if your pelvis curls up as you lift. If it is still too hard, start with the hanging knee raise.
To stop your back from arching (anti-extension). The plank is the first option. The ab wheel rollout takes the same idea much further, because the load grows as you stretch out.
To stop your torso from twisting (anti-rotation). In the cable Pallof press, the cable pulls you sideways and your job is to keep your torso from turning. The loop band Pallof press works the same way.
To stop you from leaning sideways. The side plank and the dumbbell suitcase carry load one side and train your obliques without you having to bend.

To pick others, see the full list of ab exercises, each with a photo and step-by-step instructions.

Ab workout at the gym

At the gym you can load your abs like any other muscle, which makes progress easier. This session has one exercise of each type. It usually goes at the end of your workout, after the main exercises, so it does not take energy away from them.

That is 12 sets, so you do not have to do them all on the same day. If you already train four days a week, do the first two exercises at the end of one session and the other two at the end of another: that leaves 6 sets per session.

Dumbbell ab workout

A pair of dumbbells and a bench cover almost everything. The dumbbell adds load to the crunch, and the renegade row is a row from a plank position: besides working your back, it makes your abs keep your hips from turning.

To load the decline crunch, hold a dumbbell against your chest. If your bench does not decline, do the crunch on the floor the same way.

Ab workout at home, without machines

You can do this without weights too: muscle grows similarly with light or heavy loads when the sets are hard (Schoenfeld et al., 2017). That is why the ranges are higher here and each set should end close to failure. You only need a resistance band and a sturdy point to tie it to.

Ab workout at home: 4 exercises and 11 sets.

Just starting out? Swap the reverse crunch for the crunch and the plank for the dead bug. When the plank feels easy, move to the plank shoulder tap, which adds the job of not twisting.

How many ab sets to do per week

The general rules of muscle growth apply to your abs: more hard sets per week bring more growth (Schoenfeld, Ogborn and Krieger, 2017). The ACSM links the greatest hypertrophy to 10 or more sets per muscle per week and sees gains level off around 18 to 20 (Currier et al., 2026). Those numbers are for muscles in general, so use them as a guide and not as an exact number for your abs. When you are starting out you do not need to reach 10: fewer sets also bring progress (Currier et al., 2023).

Direct ab sets per week by level
Level	Sets per week	Sessions	How to split them
Beginner	Fewer than 10	1 or 2	2 exercises per session, 2 sets each
Intermediate	10 to 12	2	5 or 6 sets per session
Advanced	12 to 16	2 or 3	More than 2 sessions if your last sets lose form

Training a muscle once or twice a week gives similar hypertrophy when the volume is the same (Schoenfeld, Grgic and Krieger, 2019). You do not need to train abs every day: the sets you add at the end of 2 sessions are enough. Squats and deadlifts also ask work from your trunk, but do not count them as ab sets.

What an ab workout does not do

An ab workout trains the muscle, but it does not burn the fat covering it. In a trial with sedentary adults, doing ab exercises 5 days a week for 6 weeks, on a diet that kept their weight stable, did not change belly fat, although it did improve endurance (Vispute et al., 2011). A meta-analysis that compared the fat over a trained leg or arm with the untrained side also found no difference (Ramirez-Campillo et al., 2022).

For your abs to show, you also need to lose that fat with a calorie deficit. The whole process is in the guide on how to get abs.

Common ab training mistakes

Doing only crunches. You repeat a single movement and leave out the exercises that resist. Add at least one that stops your back from arching and one that stops your torso from twisting.
Doing sets that are not hard. Reaching failure does not build more muscle than stopping close to it (Refalo et al., 2023), but a set counts when it is hard. If you finish without effort, add weight or move to a harder variation.
Arching your back in the plank or rollout. If your lower back sags, the exercise has stopped doing its job. Shorten the rollout or the plank time until you can hold the line.
Pulling on your neck in the crunch. Rest your fingertips lightly at the sides of your head. The movement comes from your trunk, not your arms.
Doing circuits without a break. Resting less than 60 seconds tends to cut your volume (Singer et al., 2024). If the second round is much worse than the first, rest longer.
Changing exercises every week. Rotating at random or very often can hurt (Kassiano et al., 2022). Repeating the same session lets you see whether you are improving.

How to progress on your ab workout

Log every set. Weight, reps or seconds for each exercise. Without that number you do not know what to beat next session.
Add reps or time first. When you reach the top of the range on every set, for example 15 reps or 60 seconds, it is time to make it harder. Adding reps and adding load both worked in trained people (Plotkin et al., 2022).
Add weight or change the variation. On the rope crunch, raise the weight. On the others, move to a harder variation: from the hanging knee raise to the hanging leg raise, or from the plank to the ab wheel rollout.
Keep your form. If continuing means arching your back or swinging, it is not time yet.

The full rule is in the progressive overload guide. To fit abs into your week, add them at the end of an upper body workout or a lower body workout.

Questions

How many times a week should I train abs?

Twice is the most convenient, at the end of other sessions. You do not need to do it daily: with the same weekly volume, training a muscle 1 day or more than 5 days gave the same hypertrophy (Currier et al., 2026).

Do ab exercises reduce belly fat?

No. They train the muscle, but fat comes off your whole body when you eat less than you burn. We explain it in the guide on how to get abs.

Should I train abs before or after the rest of my workout?

They usually go at the end of the session, after the main exercises, so they do not take energy away from them.

Can you train abs without equipment?

Yes. The crunch, the plank and their variations are enough if each set ends close to failure and you keep making them harder.

Is the plank or the crunch better?

They do not compete, because they do different jobs. The crunch bends your trunk and the plank stops your back from arching, so it is worth doing both.

Sources

This guide is for information only and does not replace advice from a health professional.

Ab workout: the best exercises, sets and reps

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