So, you see these Russian twists, well, yeah, they're going to have to go.
What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx.com. What you see behind me is a bunch of different
ab exercises that you likely recognize because you're either doing them right now or you have
in the past. However, after today's video, you're going to get rid of a few of them.
Today, I'm going to rank the ab exercises from worst to best, and there can only be one best.
I'm going to help you to find the exercises that going to give you the most bang for your buck and
give you the results that you're looking for. So, in beginning our ranking here, we start
at the bottom. And unfortunately, the bottom here means the ab exercises that you might want to stop
doing. And the criteria for all of these exercises in terms of grading them is to consider A. How
multidimensional are they? Are they hitting just one single area or are they helping us to do more
than just one thing because the abs are capable of much more? Do they have scalability to them,
allowing beginners all the way up to advance, to be able to work within their ability level
on that exercise? Or do they require a lot of equipment that might make it something
that is not possible for a lot of us to do? So, that being said, I start with another criteria,
and that is the exercises that people screw up often and the first one is the Russian Twist.
Now, I like the Russian Twist, but again, this is done wrong more often than maybe any other ab
exercise in the gym. And because it's so popular and common, we have to put it in this category.
And the reason is that people turn this into something called a Russian Tap. They don't do any
rotation at all and we know that the abs prefer to control and produce rotation on their own.
However, if you're just tapping your hands left or right, all you're doing is an isometric hold,
which is not going to get the job done. If you can ensure that you were getting the
right rotation by driving your elbow back behind your body, almost as if you're rowing your arm
back and then therefore turning this exercise into the way it should be performed, then sure,
it's going to bump up into a higher category. But once again, many people don't get this right,
even when they know the cue, they still can't execute the right way. So therefore, we have to
put the big red X through the Russian Twist. The next exercise in this worst category is one
that suffers from the same problem unfortunately, it's the Bicycle Crunch. It's supposed to be a
rotational ab exercise as well. It's supposed to also tie in some of the obliques. But if you just
flip your elbow side to side and pistoning your legs up and down with nothing more than your hip
flexors, that I'm sorry, you're not doing what you should be doing for your abs. Of course,
there's another way to do this exercise as well and I pointed it out many times before
that would jump this up into a much better category. And that would be by concentrating
on the actual rotation of the shoulders and not worrying about the elbows. But many of us still,
even with that proper cue in mind, don't get this right. And because of how commonly performed
and mis performed, it is we have to put the big red X through the Bicycle Crunch as well.
And so, if you watch any Athlean-X ab video before, by the way, if you have it,
where the hell have you been? You likely know how I feel about the Dumbbell Side Bend.
I don't like it and there's a lot of reasons why not. It belongs in the worst category because it's
an inferior ab exercise. As a matter of fact, it does more for your obliques than it does your abs.
And even there is not effectively the best thing you can do. And if you even put two dumbbells in
your hands to perform this, you're just turning yourself into a human seesaw. But more so than
that is what happens at the low back when people perform this. You can create some compression on
the side that you're leaning towards and you can create tightness in the muscle called the
quadratus lumborum, which oftentimes gets tight and leads to chronic low back pain.
For all these reasons, guys, you should probably have expected the Dumbbell Side
Bend is also going to earn the big red X. So, the exercise behind me are dwindling and
we're still not out of the worst category, which should be a bit of a wakeup call. And I target
next to one that's right here, dead center in the middle of the screen and it's the Plank. And look,
I understand that this exercise can be beneficial for some, but that some is very few. And what I
mean by that is this exercise tends to be far too remedial to provide any benefits in terms of
advancing your level of core strength. If you could do a play for more than a minute and a half
or two minutes, you are way beyond the ability to do this exercise. You need to move on to
something else. Not to mention the fact if you're not being conscious about contracting your glutes,
this exercise can turn into nothing more than a hip flexor tightening reinforcement exercise
because you're driving and keeping yourself off the ground by pushing through your hip flexors
and not through the appropriate muscles. We have to put the big red X through the basic Plank.
And finally, we get to wrap up this bottom of the barrel category when it comes to making
our ab exercises with one sitting up here in the corner, the Lying Leg Raise. Now, I like exercises
that challenge the lower abs by using the weight of your lower body to do that. However, when you
limit the action to just lifting your legs up and down, relying on the fact that this will create an
isometric stress for the abs, it's not going to cut it. What we're doing here is this causing a
hip flexor over dominant exercise. Simply raising your legs up and down, using only the hip flexors
is going to lead to an arching lower back, which can cause a low back pain or just overactive hip
flexors, which can lead to low back pain. So, for those reasons, this two gets the big red X.
And with that I finally get to break out my blue marker, which means we're moving to the
next level. Better. And I mean better and not great. Meaning better than the last category,
but still not where we ultimately want them to be and there's reasons why. And we start with
the Hanging Leg Raise. And for very much the same reason as the Lying Leg Raise, this exercise can
be challenging for some in different ways. Number one, if you are limited in your ability
to hold the bar, then this exercise could cause fatigue in your hands before it does your abs,
which would lead to less desirable results. The second thing is, if you still have the tendency to
want to just lift your legs up in space and you're not focusing on your pelvis, then this exercise
would not be very desirable, and some tend to do that. If you want to make this exercise better,
it could jump to a better category if you do it properly, and that would be by moving the
pelvis and curling it underneath. I've used a tip before. Show your ass to the person standing
in front of you if they can see that then your pelvis is curling. But for now, I have to break
out my blue marker here and give it a circle as one that's better, but not yet best.
And giving the Hanging Leg Raise some company in the better category is the Ab Wheel Roll Out.
And this exercise is one that I actually like a lot, but it tends to be another one of those that
people don't perform properly. And when you don't, it goes from being a good option to a not so good
option, which makes it fall in this category for now. When done correctly, this is a great
anti-extension course stabilization move. Right? One of the key functions of the abs. And the
further you roll out, the more work your abs are going to have to do to prevent you from dropping
in like this. The other thing people do is they just tend to roll themselves all the way back
and take all the stress off of the abs. And that's actually making the exercise less effective too.
You want to pretend there's a line right behind your butt from the starting position that you
never want to cross in order to keep the attention focused on the abs to do this properly. And when
you do that, it is in the better category. And for that reason, it gets the blue circle.
And so let's keep our journey going up the scale towards best with our even better still category,
slightly better than the exercises we just showed you and for good reason why.
And we start here with the Hanging Knee Raise. And different than the Hanging Leg Raise,
we get to shorten the momentum by keeping the legs tucked closer to our body. So, A.
It becomes instantly easier for those that might be to challenge like keeping the leg straight. At
the same time is going to decrease the tendency for us to try to dominate and lift with the hip
flexors because it's easier to focus on curling the pelvis up and under. Both of the things I
pointed out before. Once again, though, it has its limitations of demanding that you have enough hand
grip strength to maintain this hanging position on the bar for the duration of the exercise. So,
meaning you have to have stronger hands that abs to ensure that your abs are what fail first. That
being said, the yellow marker comes out now as an improvement to mark the Hanging Knee Raise.
I talked about the multi dimensionality of an ab exercise and what makes it a better choice
when you're looking at one versus another and the Hanging Corkscrew does just that. It doesn't just
focus on the rectus abdominis, but it gives us a chance to tie in the all-important obliques as
well. And with just a slight twist and I mean slight twist in the motion, literally. You're
just trying to turn your legs a little bit and you're just focusing on moving the pelvis alone.
This is not a leg lift, it s a pelvis lift and by doing this, you can see how concentrated and
effective it is. But the same limitation being the grip strength is going to be required for you to
do this. But it's still a great exercise that belongs right here smack dab in the
middle of a ranking chart and therefore, the Hanging Corkscrew gets that yellow circle.
Speaking of the obliques, another ab exercise that has that ability to bring the obliques into it
strongly is the Single Sided Slow Carry and beyond the fact that it needs a piece of equipment. It
only needs one single dumbbell to do this right. And by holding the dumbbell in our hands here,
we're working on controlling that pillar strength, not allowing this to turn into that dreaded side
bend by moving in that direction but preventing the side bend with that heavy weight held on our
side. And we can challenge this even more by performing the exercise slowly. Each time you
pick up one foot off the ground, you now have more instability by being on only one leg at a time,
which is going to demand that the opposite side oblique contract and contract hard in conjunction
with your core to provide a great stability exercise. This here gets that yellow circle as yet
another better still exercise for your abs. And so now, with plenty of ab exercises left up on
the board, we get to move up into the Almost Best Category, not the best, but right up there as very
good and solid ab exercises. And we start with the Side Bridge Twist. And what I like about this is
it's sort of the anti-side bend, right? This is a better way to perform that lateral flexion, we get
to do it from the bottom up. So, I do as I lift my trunk up off the ground to create that lateral
flexion pillar strength with the assistance of the obliques, but also to introduce another component
here that rotational control instability. Remember, if we can layer on benefits. We
have a better exercise controlling both rotation and lateral flexion is a better exercise. It
gets the green marker here, the first of the Almost Best Category, the Side Bridge Twist.
Moving on, improving that ab exercises don't have to be elaborate to be effective,
the Levitation Crunch is one of my favorite ways to train the abs. It's a very simple and
small movement when done properly, all your goal should be when you're trying to perform any crunch
is to simply lift your shoulder blades off the ground. All too often, people want to crunch
pulling their head closer to their knees, thinking that they're doing more of a crunch.
That's not the range of motion of the abs. You need to only lift those shoulder blades up,
so stop cranking on your neck and instead think of just levitating your body up towards the ceiling
by putting your hands back behind your head and letting the shoulder blades guide the way. For
these reasons, the Levitation Crunch earns the second spot and the Almost Best Category on the
ranking of our ab exercises from worst to best. If the Limitation Crunch is a great minimalist
exercise for the upper abs the Swiper is a great minimalist exercise for the lower abs. Because
once again it relies on a very slow and easily controlled movement to make sure you're getting
this done right. All we have to do to work the lower abs is get the pelvis off the ground. I
alluded to it before. I talked about the lying leg race. It's not about the legs it's about getting
the pelvis to curl back. And the Swiper allows us to get that feedback that we're doing it right
by making sure you can swipe your hands underneath your tailbone. This is one of
my favorite easily performed type exercises that anyone can do with no equipment at all. It belongs
here in the Almost Cest Category for sure. And as we get down here to the bottom to remember,
only one can be the best. The almost best of the almost best is the Gymnast Ab Tuck. And this
one here is one of my favorite ways to work once again, those lower abs proving once again that you
don't have to worry about what's happening with your legs, but rather with your pelvis. The focus
here is unfolding your trunk right at the level of the pelvis, creating a posterior pelvic tilt.
The all-important posterior pelvic tilt that is responsible for the flexion of the spine that
creates the activation of the abdominals. And the thing that this exercise provides us over
any of the hanging ab exercises that work your lower abs is the fact that we don't have to hang.
You simply push your hands down into something like a captain's chair or even on the countertop
if you do this in the kitchen counter corner. This here is one of my favorite ab exercises, it's the
almost best of the almost best right there up in the number two spot, the Gymnast Ab Tuck.
And that brings us to the top of the top, the best of the best. In this group of exercises is called
the Sliding Tuck. And what you should notice here is a lot of the same similarities with the Gymnast
Ab Tuck minus the requirement for equipment, which is what places this one at the top.
Once again, we want to curl that pelvis into the posterior pelvic tilt, not by driving with the hip
flexors, but instead pulling into posterior tilt with the abdominal muscles. And when we do this,
we have the benefit of doing some extra things. We don't have to allow ourselves to slide straight
back. We could do it as somewhat of an angle to involve the obliques as well. And if we want to
really drive the lower abs into this, we can add some additional knee tuck like a Hanging
Knee Raise to make this an all-encompassing exercise that does pretty much everything. Guys,
there can only be one best and only one worthy of the top prize, the green star when we're talking
about the best of the best in ab exercises. And so there you have it, guys worst of first,
the best ab exercises, the great to the ugly. If you want to see me do this with other ab
exercises, make sure you leave a comment below. If you want to see me do this with other exercises,
just let me know below, I will make sure I do that. If you're looking for programs that
select only the best of the best so you can get the best results, you can find them all over at
Athleanx.com. If you haven't done so, make sure you click subscribe, turn on your notifications
so you never miss a new video when we put one out. All right guys see you soon.