In our last article, we have seen the importance of a good lower ab workout, what benefit it has for your back and your health, and also how it can help you to get a flatter stomach. We also explained reverse crunches, the best lower ab workout for beginners. Abs machines can you help to exercise your lower abs and can make your workout more effective, so today we will look at the best abs machines for your lower ab workout and what exercises to do.
Using an abs bench for lower ab workout: doing inclined reverse crunches
Initial position: lie on your back on an declined abs bench, using your arms to stabilize your body, with your feets raised and your knees bent.
Exercise: now bring up your knees towards your chest, trying to raise your pelvis off the board. Hold for a second and lower your knees back to the initial position. Make sure not to lower your legs to far as this might cause you to overstretch your back and hurt your back.
The higher the angle of the incline, the more challenging the exercise is for your abs.
Decline leg raises with an abs bench
This is an advanced exercise. It works your abs a lot but it also really puts a lot of strain on your lower back. Personally, I would rather jump to the hanging knee raises and skip this exercise.
The exercise is the as the decline reverse crunch, but instead of having your knees bent, you have your legs straight at all times. You lift your legs up as far as possible, curling your torso towards your chest and then lower them again. Don’t lower your legs too far down as this will only increase the stress on your lower back.
Using ab balls for lower ab workout: knee tucks on stability ball
Initial position: you have your shins on an abs ball and are in push-up position (i.e. face down, rested on your arms and on your shins which are on the stability ball).
Exercise: use your abs to roll the ball closer to your hands. To do this, bring your legs towards your body, bending the knees and sticking your buttocks into the air.
By the way: you can also do the reverse crunches on the abs ball. On the abs ball you will obtain a greater stretch of the abdominals, so the exercise will be more effective. Lie on the ab ball, face up. Use your arms to stabilize your body and then lift and lower your legs.
Using ab straps for your lower ab workout
As we have seen in the article on ab straps, doing hanging knee raises and hanging leg raises are two great exercises to train your lower abs. Find the detailed description of the exercise here.
Many persons look for ways to work out their lower abs, and there are many webpages claiming to have the best lower ab workout. So, why is there so much interest about this abdominal muscle?
Most people hope that by working out their lower abs, they will get ripped abs and a flat stomach. There is some truth to this, as we will see later, but as we have already mentioned in many posts on this blog, the main reason why you don’t have a flat stomach or a sixpack is this excess fat, so you need to focus on burning belly fat!
In order to take a closer look at the lower ab workout, let’s have a look at the muscles involved in this exercise. As we have seen before, the sixpack-muscle is called rectus abdominis and runs from your pelvis until your rips. It is one large muscle, even though it has several sections.
So, as it is one large muscle, there is no way to “isolate” the lower or upper abdominals, whatever exercise you do, it will always train both areas. But it is true that certain exercises will exercise more one or the other area. Generally speaking, exercises in which you move your torso will exercise more your upper abs whereas a good lower ab workout uses exercises where you move your legs.
Your lower abs also include the transverse abdominis. This muscle is called the “corset muscle” as its main function is to keep the abdominal organs tugged inside. So, when you train this muscle you indeed can obtain a flatter stomach!
But apart from the aesthetic benefit of giving you a flatter stomach, the main function of your lower abdominal muscles is to stabilize the spine and the pelvis and thereby preventing back injury. Many people nowadays suffer from lower back pain and this is often a result of weak lower ab muscles. Their pelvis is not stabilized and thus tilts excessively or moves when they are moving their legs. So, a good lower ab workout has the benefit of increased core strength and stability and a healthy back.
Let’s get to the grain and to your lower ab workout. In order to exercise your lower abs you move your legs while stabilizing the rest of your body. There are many different exercises and you should chose the one that matches best your physical condition and fitness: the most popular exercise is the reverse crunch and as you get better and your abs get stronger you can increase difficulty by changing the position of your legs, do the exercise inclined or even hanging.
Reverse Crunch for lower ab workout
This is a basic exercise for beginners, yet it can be very effective. The main advantage of this exercise is that it puts little strain on your lower back, so sometimes even patients in rehab can do this exercise. Initial position: lie on your back, with your feet off the floor and your knees bent at about 90º.
Exercise: now move your knees, bringing them towards your torso. Ideally you try to lift up your pelvis a little bit in order to get your knees even closer to your rips. Hold for one second and then lower your legs again.
This exercise is even more efficient if you try to tug in your stomach while you do the exercise as this will also train your transverse abdominis (imagine you’re standing in front of a mirror and try to suck in your belly). Double leg lifts This is the same exercise as the reverse crunch, but instead of bending your knees you leave your legs straight. This works more the abs, but it also strains more your lower back so be careful.
Bicycle Maneuver for lower ab workout
Initial position: lie on your back, contract your abdominal muscles, press your lower back down against the exercise mattress and lift your legs.
Exercise: while maintaining your abs firm and your back pressed against the floor, move your legs as if you were riding on a bicycle. Do this exercise for thirty repetitions and increase repetitions as you get stronger.
What to keep in mind during your lower ab workout:
Your lower abs serve to stabilize your pelvis and your lower back, so for any lower ab workout you need to ensure that you really stabilize your lower back. All exercises for your lower ab have in common that performed incorrectly you can hurt your back, so you should respect the following points:
If you have or ever had a back problem, consult your doctor before doing any of these exercises. Done correctly these exercises can strengthen your lower ab and protect your ab. Done incorrectly you can hurt your back.
You should never ever feel pain in your back while doing any of these exercises. If you feel pain, stop immediately.
Build up your lower abs gradually. Start with an easy exercise first and don’t increase the difficulty level until you can perform it properly.
It is crucial to do slow, controlled movements. If you make fast movements your lower abs won’t work as hard as usually we use the momentum to cheat. Also, that way you can easily get into uncontrolled, jerky movements which can cause you back problems.
An ab ball, also called exercise ball or fitness ball can be an incredibly good abs machine and very effective for your abs workout. So, what exactly is an ab ball? An abs ball is a heavy-duty inflatable rubber ball on which you can sit or lie to perform your exercises. They come in different sizes so you can choose the one that fits your body size.
Using ab balls as ab exercise equipment has several advantages:
When doing a crunch on an ab ball your back stretches backward. In comparison with the standard crunch where you lie on the floor, on an abs ball you train your abdominals in a much wider range of motion and it has been scientifically proven that this trains your abdominals more.
You need to permanently maintain your balance on the ab ball. That means that you train a wide variety of muscles at the same time and your lower back and abdominals have to work harder to maintain stability while at the same time doing the crunch.
You gain increased balance, stability and coordination.
Many people find the workout on the stability ball more comfortable than the standard crunch on the floor.
Keep in mind that one of the main functions of your abdominals is not only to flex your torso, but to actually give stability to your torso, balancing your body and protecting your spine from injury. It is clear that a workout on the ab ball where you permanently need to adjust your balance is the perfect exercise for this objective and will give you true core strength.
With an abs ball you can train all your abdominal muscles (rectus abdominis, obliques and transverse abdominis).
How to train your abs on an ab ball:
When you start off exercising on an ball, make sure that you hold onto a wall in order to maintain the balance.
Sit on the abs ball, then move your feet forward while leaning backwards, until you reach the initial position in which you lie face upwards on the ball, your back stretched backwards over the ball.
Place your fingers behind your head.
Now do the crunch movement, flexing your torso approaching your rips towards your thighs.
There is no need to do a complete sit-up (the last part of the movement only trains your hip flexors and not your abdominals), it’s enough to get up to a position where your body is angled about 30º .
Now slowly lower your weight again until your back is again stretched over the exercise ball.
Watch out, unlike other abs machines, the ab ball does not provide any support for your neck so you need to stabilize it yourself. Many persons make the error of locking both hands behind their head and then pulling their head upwards, straining your neck. In order to avoid that, the best trick is not to lock the fingers of your hands. Place your fingers on each side of your head so that they just touch. When doing the exercise focus on maintaining the head in line with your spine, don’t tilt it forward.
The truth is that you can train your abs perfectly without an abs machine. And if you’re one of those hard-core “no pain, no gain” bodybuilders, you probably prefer the good ol’ crunch. In that sense, the floor is the cheapest ab exercise equipment you can find!
However, if you think about what is the most effective and most comfortable abs workout, then the abs machines come back into consideration. One of the most common reasons why exercisers stop doing crunches are neck and lower-back strain. Many abs machine models support your neck, thereby avoiding the neck stress and making your abs workout more comfortable. And when your workout is more comfortable, this might lead to that you do work out more and longer.
Also, on the floor in the initial position your back is just straight. But the most effective way to train your abs is to have them pre-streched, like for examplewhen you lie on an ab ball. So, using an abs machine you can train your abs more effectively.
As we haveseen in our last article, hanging abs exercises are great for lower ab workout and some even claim that hanging exercises are more effective thanlying exercises. You can do ahanging lower ab workout just hanging from a chin-up bar, or if your grip is not that resistant you can use ab straps.
And finally the mere act of investing into an abs machine might make you take your abs workout more seriously, be more motivated and determined to really get the maximum out of your investment.
So, you definitely can do just ab exercises on the floor, but using an abs machine can make your abs workout more varied, more fun and it can be more effective.
Can ab straps serve as abs machine? Well, it’s a little strange to describe a few straps you hang your body on as “machine”, but strangely enough they are the best tools for your lower ab workout.
As we have seen in a previous article, the abdominals are actually a group of muscles, including the “washboard”-like rectus abdominis. Some researchers claim that one of the best and most effective lower ab workouts targeting this muscle are hanging abs exercises, such as the hanging leg raise (see below for an explanation of how to perform hanging leg raises).
The tricky part is that – in order to perform hanging abdominal exercises – you need a strong grip, as you need to hold on to a chin up bar. Sustaining your body during the length of your lower ab workout takes a lot of strength in your hands and forearms, and many people don’t have grip to hold on to the chin up bar for that long.
That’swhere the ab straps come in. Ab straps are slings with a ring or carabiner onone end where the straps can be fixed to the chin up bar. You then just fityour arms into the cushioned slings and that way your body hangs on the straps, while your arms and shoulders support your weight and you can focus on your abs workout instead of fighting with your grip.
Now you’re ready to start your lower ab workout. First of all, it’s very important that when you train your abs with ab straps you need to do slow, controlled movements and you don’t swing. You don’t want that the momentum of your swing lifts your legs, you want to train your abs! Also, if you make any jerky movement you can easily strain your back, so you really need to make slow controlled movements and you should try to maintain your back in a neutral position as much as possible.
Hanging Knee Raises:
In the initial position you hang in the ab straps, arms parallel to the floor. Now you slowly raise your knees towards your chest while bending the knees until you reach a 90º angle, with your thighs parallel to the floor. Slowly lower your knees back to the initial position. Remember: no swinging!
Hanging Leg Raises:
This is an advanced exercise and it works your abs even more. From the same initial position, you slowly raise you straight legs without bending the knees until your legs are parallel to the floor. You hold them for a count of two and then slowly lower them back.
HangingTwists:
If you want to train your obliques, you can vary the previous exercises by twisting your body, i.e. while lifting your legs you lift them first to one side and then in the next movement to the opposite side.
Ab straps are relatively affordable, costing around 10-30 US$. The problem is that you need a chin-up bar to fix your ab straps on, so if you want to train at home and not in a gym you’ll also need to buy a bar.
In a nutshell, ab straps are a good way to trains your abs, especially your lowerabs. However, if you don’t perform the exercise correctly you can strain your back, so if you have any kind of back problem you’re probably better offlooking for a different ab exercise equipment.
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