I Tested 30 Ab Exercises - You Only Need These 2

What are the best and worst exercises to build well-developed abs? Well, in this video, I'm scientifically testing 30 of the most popular ab exercises and ranking them on the tier list from S for super and F for fail. But what works best for me may not work best for a beginner.

Hahaha.

So Dennis is doing every exercise with me, and by the end, we'll reveal the 2 best ab exercises for an advanced person and the 2 best for a beginner. Starting with the most common one, sit-ups, which are actually not a great way to build your abs. Because for an ab exercise to be great, it has to tick 3 boxes. One, it must be easy to add weight to over time. Your abs respond and grow just like any other muscle does, so you should train them the same way. And sit-ups actually score well here because you can just hold onto a weight to make it harder. But 2, it must give your abs a deep stretch and have some tension in that stretch position. This seems to create a powerful signal for your muscle to grow. Now sit-ups on the floor limit this stretch, so it's as if you're doing just the top half of a bicep curl. And 3, the hip flexors shouldn't secretly be doing most of the work. And to measure this, we're using EMG.

What?

Muscle activation sensors placed on our upper abs, lower abs, and hip flexors. And so while sit-ups show high upper abs activation in the first half of the movement, the hip flexors took over during the last half to pull your body up. Because of this, I'm putting sit-ups into D tier. But what if we remove the top part where the hip flexors take over? That's what you now call a crunch. These focus purely on what your abs are meant to do, bringing your rib cage down to your pelvis, which flexes your spine into this C shape, which is why the EMG now shows far less hip flexor activation and far more abs activation. But because the floor still prevents the abs from getting a deep stretch at the bottom, these are going into C tier. But what if you add a rolled up towel or $20 ab mat Under your lower back.

Oh, cold. There you go. Now I feel it's getting stretched out.

Regular sit-ups, they don't fully stretch your abs, so you don't go through a full range of motion.

Oh, this is nice.

But again, stop using your arms to cheat, okay? Keep them there and focus on just the abs. Now your abs get a much deeper stretch, which is the first exercise that ticks all 3 of our boxes. But it does require extra equipment. And as we found with Dennis, people do tend to cheat either by swinging the arms or sticking their neck out. A lot of people, this is where they strain their neck because they'll use their neck to cheat. It's like when you use your arms to go like this, it's like the same thing. A tier. But while it is the best so far, I think we can do better. Now you can also do crunches on a lat pulldown where the pad locks your knees in, creating more stability, which might explain why the hip flexors were less active than they've been in any exercise we've tested so far. Plus, now you don't have the floor limiting you, which means you can get a deep stretch in your abs at the bottom. But they are an extremely tough movement. Even for me, I can only get 8 clean reps before my form starts to break down. And so for a beginner like Dennis, how low can you go? Oh, can you go all the way down? Oh God, oh God, all the way.

Oh, I can't do it. Go all the way down.

And so while they're probably not going to be one of the 2 best exercises we pick kick at the end for a beginner. I am placing them in A tier because of the deep stretch, assuming you can do them. But what if you do this? It looks weird, but it works like an assisted pull-up machine. The cable now gives you a light upward pull, helping you control the way down while assisting you as you crunch back up. And the heavier the weight you select, the more assistance you get. And so Dennis, who couldn't do one unassisted rep, can now bang out a set of 10, Which makes the assisted lat pulldown crunch the first exercise to fall into S-tier. And just a reminder, I am tracking the muscle activation of the upper and lower abs for every exercise we're testing. And so far, all the crunch-type movements we've tested have activated the upper abs quite a bit more than the lower. Now technically, your abs are just one continuous muscle, so you can't really isolate the upper or lower abs the way that you might isolate say the biceps. But certain movements do seem to place more demand either on the upper or the lower fibers. And although nobody has yet ran a controlled study measuring whether upper versus lower ab exercises actually grows those parts of the abs more, I can't really see why it wouldn't. And so once we've got our full tier list at the end of the video, I'm going to color code every exercise for you. Purple if it emphasized the upper abs more, green if it emphasized the lower abs more, and red if it hit everything pretty much equally. But for now, let's put most people's go-to lower ab exercise to the test: lying leg raises. Which actually showed the highest hip flexor activation out of all the exercises we've tested so far. And that's because your abs are just stabilizing your body while your hip flexors are the ones actually pulling your legs up. And it has the same problem that floor crunches have: the floor prevents your abs from getting a full stretch. That being said, the lower abs were more activated than they have been during crunches, So it seems like this general motion might be key for activating the lower abs. But I am gonna have to put lying leg raises into D-tier. Now what if you do them hanging off a bar? Well, let's start with the bent knee version.

Like this.

Where do you feel it?

A little bit lower. My leg a little bit. Yeah, probably middle here.

Unfortunately, this doesn't change any of the problems we see with the lying leg raises. as your hip flexors are again the muscle responsible for pulling your knees up. So while it is a great hip flexor exercise, it's also gonna have to go into D tier. But what if you now straighten your legs into an L shape? Well, now the exercise becomes even more difficult for your hip flexors because you're creating a longer lever. It's kind of like holding a weight close to your chest versus now holding it with your arms out in front of you.

Oh!

Which explains why we saw just a very slight increase in abs activation but a 40% jump in hip flexor activity. So it's going in D tier. But what if you now do leg raises with a C-shaped form like this? Your abs, what they're trying to do is they bring you from this position into this like curled flex position like this, right? So what I want you to do now is actually think about Curling your pelvis like this. Your legs come along for the ride, but now your abs are actually helping out, which explains why we saw a slight decrease in hip flexor activation and an increase mainly in upper abs activation, which might be because they're now helping assist with that crunching motion at the very top. The only problem is it's not a very stable exercise and the swinging at the bottom can make it hard to focus on your form. So I'm putting it in B tier. But there is one unique exercise that completely fixes this stability issue. While Dennis is setting it up. If you want all the guesswork done for you when it comes to what exercises to do, how many sets to do, and how to progress them over time— all right, good, Dennis, 2 notches up. And that's exactly why we created Built With Science Plus. You'll get a personalized workout plan paired with a nutrition plan to make sure that all your work in the gym doesn't go wasted. All right, perfect. Just add the bar and we're good to go. And if you want to try it out for 2 weeks completely free, you can scan this QR code or head to builtwithscience.com. But for now, the next exercise is ready to test. Now this one is actually one of my favorites.

I feel at this level we're just trying to complicate things.

No, we're not, we're not, okay? Dennis, we're not. What this does is it stabilizes you and all you focus on is that C-shape.

Oh, oh, I see.

So it's like kind of push you there. Yes, it's like a pad. The extra control allowed me to really focus on my abs working, and I even saw a slight boost in lower abs activation Which might be because the bar lets your abs get a slightly deeper stretch at the very bottom. Plus, as you get stronger, you can overload the exercise by wearing ankle weights or just putting a dumbbell between your feet. As for Dennis—

Oh! Oh my god! This is nice. I like this one. I like this one. I actually like this one. I do feel a lot more here and then like, this is very stable. I love this one.

But even with these improvements, hip flexor activity was still pretty high, so I'm gonna put it into A tier. Now across all 3 hanging exercises, Dennis kept complaining about the exact same thing.

Ah, don't like it. Oh my, I'm sorry, I completely— sorry, look at these! How do you do this workout?

So if you're also soft like Dennis and have trouble with your grip, This next one should feel a lot better. I'm sure you've seen this guy at the gym. It's called the captain's chair leg raise. Weird name, I know, but now you can just rest your forearms on the pads and use the back pad to keep your back stable. And so as long as you let your abs fully stretch at the bottom and then curl your pelvis into that same C-shape, you're gonna get the same benefits as the previous exercise without having to hog a squat rack, which puts this guy into A-tier. All right, so far all the exercises we've covered require quite a bit of movement. But what about an ab exercise where you don't move at all? Planks are one of the most popular core exercises that can be done anywhere. Everyone loves it, but it's not gonna score well. First of all, it doesn't give your abs a deep stretch or take them through a full range of motion. They're simply contracting isometrically to prevent your lower back from sagging. And they're also really difficult to progressively overload unless you have someone who can add weight to your back. And while your hip flexors taking over won't be an issue here, I do find that people's shoulders tire out well before their core does. And so while it is a decent way to teach a beginner how to brace and stabilize their spine against gravity, as far as actually building your abs, I'm gonna have to put it into F tier. But there is a way to instantly improve the regular plank, which almost tripled my abs activation. So for this one, it's called RKC plank. Basically put your forearms Up more, and you squeeze your quads. So like a leg extension, and then squeeze your glutes, and then your elbows pull down all at the same time.

What? Is really that hard even for you? That's like a second. That was a second.

But it can be tricky to coordinate as a beginner.

Oh my god! Oh my God.

You, uh, crept forward too much. So start again, start again. And because it still carries many of the same downsides as regular planks, it's gonna have to go into C tier. All right, let's crank up the difficulty with an exercise made famous by the legend himself, Bruce Lee. It's called the dragon flag. You keep your whole body in a straight line from your shoulders down to your feet and Slowly lower yourself down and then back up without letting your hips sag or your lower back arch. Now, the core demand here is honestly insane. It actually produced the highest upper and lower abs activation of any exercise we've tested so far. Now, that's not because it's doing anything unique to my abs. It's just that the dragon flag is so demanding that your abs have to contract almost maximally to keep your body rigid. It's almost like doing a 1 rep max And since this was actually the first time I'd ever tried it, I could only do 2 to 3 clean reps at a time before my form started to break down. But surprisingly, Denis wasn't too far off from learning it.

Just kidding.

Yes!

Oh. Bend straight!

But as good as it is for strengthening your core, your abs actually aren't put in a deep stretch here, nor a full range of motion. They're again mainly just contracting isometrically to keep your body rigid. So while it did completely wreck my core the next day and is something I'm going to continue playing around with, in terms of specifically building your abs, I'm putting it into B-tier. Now, a similar variation is a front lever raise, which trains you to be able to hold this. It has all the same benefits and downsides as a dragon flag, but it is just a bit easier to perform. B-tier. Now, the last few exercises lost points because the abs contract asymmetrically and aren't taken through a full range of motion. But this next exercise might be an exception. And I bet you've never heard of it. It's called the Garhammer hold. You hang your hips off the end of a bench, tuck your knees in, and lower your legs as far as possible down without your feet touching the floor. And then you simply hold. Even though your abs aren't moving, there is a tremendous amount of tension on them in this stretched position, almost like a weighted stretch. And what's interesting is that some new studies are showing that isometrics, when a muscle is stretched, might actually build similar amounts of muscle to full range of motion reps. And when I looked at the EMG, my abs activation increased higher and higher the longer I held the position for, which is exactly what we see when a muscle gets closer and closer to failure during a normal set. But I also noticed this is the first exercise we've tested so far where the lower abs are more activated than the upper abs, and I can definitely feel it too. But it is a lot tougher than it looks. I can only last about 20 to 30 seconds without any weight. And as for Dennis— Hold, hold, hold! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!

Oh, this one's hard, this one's hard!

5 seconds! Now I am tempted to put this into S-tier, but it's still missing the full range of motion that would make me fully confident in it. And I also think tracking progressive overload with this exercise wouldn't be as simple as others. So for now, A tier. But what if instead of holding this position, you raise up and down? That's what's known as a Garhammer raise, and it checks all 3 of our boxes. You get a deep stretch, you can make it harder by extending the legs further out or using ankle weights or a dumbbell between your feet, and as long as you're not swinging your legs and you're just focusing on curling your pelvis up, your hip flexors won't take over. Plus, just like we saw with the Garhammer hold, The lower to upper abs activation is the best I've seen so far, putting it into a well-deserved S-tier. But Garhammer raises are a very tough exercise.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, this is hard, this one's hard. Oh my god, this one's hard.

Luckily, there is a similar movement that should get you most of the same benefits. In fact, in a past video, Denis included these in an ab routine he performed every other day. And after just 30 days, his MRI scans showed his abs had grown by 20%. It's called the reverse crunch. You keep your knees in a 90-degree position and simply think about pushing your tailbone up while curling your pelvis into a C-shape. Now, when Dennis first started doing these, he could only lift his pelvis up an inch or two. You gotta go slow on the way down. Slow. Good, good job. Ah, burning. Now he can bang out 8 to 10 full reps. You started at 1 inch, now you're at 12 inches. And you can instantly make it more difficult by just extending your legs out more. The only major limitation is the bench prevents your abs from getting a deep stretch at the bottom, so I'm putting it into A tier. Now you can instantly solve that stretch problem by placing an ab mat or even a rolled-up towel under your lower back. This now gives your spine more room to extend at the bottom to fully stretch your abs. I'll link the ab mat I personally use in the description box down below, but with this upgrade, there's honestly no reason not to put the reverse crunch into S-tier. Next is the ab roller. Similar to a plank, your abs are contracting isometrically to prevent your hips from falling, and the further you roll the wheel out, the harder it gets. Now Dennis was actually pretty good at this as he practiced it quite a bit growing up, but I did catch him making the one mistake most people make. I want you to kind of round your back like this and you extend and pull back up. So you see how my hips aren't moving like this at all? I'm just locking and then round the back, extend, Pull up. But I will say the biggest downside here is progression. You can only roll out so far to continue making it harder, and you can try it on your feet instead of your knees, but that is a massive jump in difficulty and something that I couldn't even get one full rep on yet. But it is fun and demands a lot for your core, so I am going to put it into C tier. Now we still have 10 exercises left to test, and one of them actually ended up becoming both Dennis and I's favorite. But first, we decided to test some of the more common bodyweight exercises you see online. Like bicycle crunches, which apparently Dennis had never heard of. Bend down like he's on a bike, like you're on the bike, and then the left leg as if you're on the bike.

Like that?

Yeah, bicycle crunch.

Yeah, you're trolling me.

And when we tested the actual exercise, my ab activation was extremely low compared to our other tests, whereas Dennis's abs activation was much higher, which is one of the biggest problems with exercises like this. Once you get stronger, they don't actually challenge you as much, and there's no reliable way to make them harder aside from just doing more reps. Plus, your abs are never taken through a full stretch, so I'm putting these guys down into D tier. We then continue down the most popular list with V-ups, which are challenging but way too much hip flexor involvement. D tier. Butterfly kicks were even worse. Almost all hip flexors compared to abs.

I wasn't sure if I'm using the right muscle cuz I, I feel I'm using a lot of Yeah.

F tier. Whereas mountain climbers were more cardio than actual abs, also F tier. But then we tested an exercise that I personally program for a lot of beginners and still often do myself, dead bugs. This is where you engage your core to flatten your lower back against the floor and then extend your opposite arm and leg. The goal is to reach as far as you can without creating space between your lower back and the floor. And this is actually one of my favorite ways to test someone's true core strength and teach them how to properly engage those muscles. But when it comes to actually building your abs, it just wouldn't be my top choice. So while it is great as part of a warmup and activating those deep core muscles, I'm gonna have to put it into C tier. But now let's move on to what many people argue is the single best ab exercise, cable crunches. And they do live up to the hype. Assuming you do it correctly by locking your hips at 90 degrees and fully extending your spine and then rounding it in a C shape on the way down, they're a great way to build your abs. Especially because as you get stronger, you can easily select a heavier weight. The only major downsides are there's not much tension at the top when your abs are stretched, and because your hips aren't locked in place, most people just cheat by swinging them around. So I'm giving it A-tier. But what if instead of facing towards the cable machine, you face away? It's the exact same movement, but now it becomes way harder at the top when your abs are actually stretched. Plus you can actually rest your butt on the pole to keep your hips locked in place. Beautiful form.

You know what, this is great. The bar is kind of like pushing my butt and I, I can't move. And I also found that I can push my hips back and kind of pushing it so like stable.

It's kind of a cheat. Which puts the face away version into S tier. Now you can also do this exact same movement but And you can put a bar pad on the pole for comfort. I personally prefer the standing version because it just feels a bit more stable than kneeling. So I'm also going to put these guys into S-tier. All right, but what if you do a similar movement on the lat pulldown? So earlier we did crunches here using the seat to lock in our knees while the cable provided assistance on the way up. This time we're using it as the actual resistance as you do a cable crunch.

Oh, crumb, crumb.

Ab cramp.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, cramp, cramp, cramp. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

You gotta stretch it. You have to stretch it. Dennis, you have to stretch it.

Ow, painful, painful.

Extend it, extend it.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Still going, still going.

It's because you're laughing.

Don't laugh. Oh man, laughing is so painful.

My abs are fucked now.

Wait. Oh, okay, let's go down.

Good.

I thought I was gonna use my back.

Yeah.

Or something.

Now I actually much prefer this compared to the kneeling version because it's just so much more stable, but it does come with the downside of not fully stretching your abs, so it's going into A tier. But what if you face away? Well, if you've been paying attention, then you already know this now creates a lot more tension at the top and allows you to fully open up and stretch your abs. And if you raise the seat pad up a little bit, You now have the perfect lower back support to lock your hips in place.

I actually really like this one too. It's so stable because it has 2 pads here. You feel your body is actually completely— I can move around on both sides. Of course, you have a pad, so feel more comfortable. I like this one.

You like it? And so this one is definitely going into S tier. All right, now based on the EMG data, the exercises highlighted in purple hit the upper abs more. The green hit the lower abs more, and the red hit everything pretty equally. But based on Dennis and I's experience with each exercise, if I had to pick only 2 that would cover all your bases and be the best of the best options, for beginners, it would have to be the face-away lat pulldown cable crunch for the upper abs and reverse crunches with an ab mat for the lower abs. Whereas for advanced, it would honestly still be the same exercise for the upper abs But I'm gonna have to go with Garhammer raises for the lower abs. That said, you can do a million reps of these, but your abs are never gonna show if your diet isn't also locked in. So if you wanna avoid wasting your time getting nowhere, you can instead just let me take care of all the guesswork with both your training and your diet for you by trying 2 weeks free of our Built With Science app by scanning this QR code or heading to builtwithscience.com. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.

Bye.