100 Abdominal Exercises - List of the Best 100 Abdominal Exercises

100 Abdominal Exercises - How many do you need?

Do you need 100 different abdominal exercises to build six pack abs? The answer is No. But knowing lot of variations of the most popular {and few unknown} ab exercises will definitely help you avoid boredom from abdominal training and keep you motivated.

This Article will be an ongoing list. I want to add 100 Abdominal Exercises here.

If you know of any Abdominal Exercise or its variation which is not in the list,  please let me know.

I will verify it and add here.

Please include a description of the new exercise you are suggesting and how you do it. This will help the readers get an idea of how to do your version of an abdominal exercise and they might add newer variations of your exercise too.

Win-win situation for all of us six pack lovers.

Why 100 Abdominal Exercises

If you were to ask most people what they consider the top abdominal exercises they will answer the sit up or crunch exercise.

The irony to this is that the question posed asked & "what are the top 100 abdominal exercises?" with exercises being a plural word.

A sit up would reflect a singular response. The reason that most people will present a singular response is that the average person does not think there are all that many different ab exercises to perform.

Forget about 100 Abdominal Exercises they say. But Not you!

This is most definitely a good thing since they ab muscles are quite vast and do require several different exercises in order to hit the entire surface of the abdominal muscles from a variety of angles.

So, what are these many common ab exercises that one needs to include into a regular session of ab workouts?

Here is a brief overview of the common and most helpful abdominal exercises.

1.  The Basic Sit Up: Again, this is the most well known of all the abdominal exercises. It targets the center of the abs and is easy to perform. Basically, you lie down on the floor with your knees bent and then sit up towards them. 

2.  The Roman Chair Sit Up: This is a sit up performed in a gym on a decline bench system that hooks your ankles into place. The added stress helps develop the abs tremendously. 

3.  The Crunch: This is a tough variant on the sit up but it makes the muscles quite strong. Basically, you perform a sit up with one modification: you crunch your knees in towards the elbows as you perform the sit up. This enhances the stress on the abs significantly. 

4. Side Bends: Also known as leans, these exercises involve little more than standing up and bending side ways. This will target the obliques of the abs and can be done with or without holding dumbbells.

5.  Twists: The entails twisting your upper body horizontally with your elbows flared. This exercise helps with fat burning while also engaging and toning the abdominal muscles in the process. Consider it an overlooked but helpful ab exercise.


6.  Leg Presses: Lie flat on your back and then perform a kicking/pressing action with your feet straight up to the ceiling. You will probably want to support the underside of your back with your hands in order to have the proper angle. This can be an excellent and effective lower and middle ab exercise.

7.  Leg Raises: This is among the most difficult of the abdominal exercises to perform. It targets the lower abs to a significant degree which is commonly a weak section of the abs. Basically, you would lift your legs six inches off the ground and then lift them from 6 inches to 12 inches from the ground. Raise from 6 to 12, lower from 12 to 6, and repeat for several reps. Again, this is a tough exercise but it delivers results. The hanging version is shown here.

8.  Holding Leg Raises: As the name implies, you raise your legs 6 inches off the ground and hold them in that position for 15 - 30 seconds at a time. This is a very tough exercise but it is one well worth performing.

9.  Bicycle Sit Ups: These are alternating crunches that rely on touching opposite knee and elbows to one another. This aids in hitting the abs from angles they are not commonly stressed. This can lead to high ab development as a result. Just be careful to perform such exercises in a controlled manner.


10.  Rope Pull Downs: These exercises are performed in a gym with a pulley device. Basically, you will be on your knees and reach overhead and grab the rope. Then, pull down the rope as you crunch downward and touch the ground. Often, this exercise is performed as a finishing exercise on the abs and it.

11.  Scissor Crunches: These are dynamic crunches that entail lying flat on your back and then throwing the arms forward while swinging the knees inwards. Just be sure to perform this type of ab exercise in a controlled manner since it will prevent injuries from occurring.

12.  Hanging Leg Raises: These are performed in a gym while holding and hanging from an overhead bar. He legs are lifted straight up and gravity will aid in adding stress to the lower abdominal muscles.

13.  Hanging Leg Raises - Bent Leg Variation: These exercises are performed in the same manner as the straight leg hanging raise. The only difference is the knees are bent and pulled in towards the stomach.

14.  Crunches on an Inflatable Aerobics Ball: Various different abdominal exercises can be performed on an aerobics ball. The addition of the aerobics ball to the equation adds to the ability to target areas of the abs that might otherwise not have been impacted by the exercises. As such, integrating the aerobics ball to the mix would be a nice plus.

15.  Hip Swivels: These are most commonly performed as a warm up exercise but they do engage the abs to a certain degree. Really, anything that hits the abs is a huge plus which is another reason why any and all ab exercises are a plus.


16.  Incline Leg Raises: Consider these a variant on the lying leg raise. Instead of being performed on the floor, they are performed on an incline bench. This is slightly more difficult than the traditional lying leg raise variant and they improve ab development dramatically.

In Summation

No, you cannot do all the abdominal exercises in one session. That would just not be realistic. However, performing a number of these exercises in a daily 20 minute session can aid in producing excellent results over time.

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Common Abdominal Exercises Questions and Answers - FAQs

1. Exercises to do to reduce abdominal fat?

Crunches are an easy way to reduce abdominal fat. But they need to be combined with full body muscle workouts and fat bruning high intensity cardio. They do strengthen and tone the abdominals but the effective way to reduce abdominal fat is diet plus exercise.

2. When to include abdominal exercises into a cardio workout?

Abdominal exercises should be included in every workout and should be done at least every other day. The best time to perform crunches and other ab exercises is after weight training routine and just before cardio workouts.

3. Are bridges good abdominal exercises?

Bridges  are great for an abdominal exercise. Of course, you will want to make sure that you are mixing up your routines with other abdominal and core exercises every once in a while.

4. How often should you do abdominal exercises?

There are some people that will tell you to do abdominal exercises everyday. The thing is though, your muscles need time to rebuild and relax in order to get the results you are really looking for. The best way to train abs is to do 2-3 abdominal workouts per week and try to keep them away from heavy squats and deadlift workouts as these exercises use abs for stabilization more than upper body exercises.

5. How often should you perform abdominal exercises to achieve washboard abs?

You should perform abdominal exercises every other day in order to achieve the best results for washboard abs. But please combine them with full body workouts that build muscle {for calorie burning outside the gym} and cardio for calorie burning during workouts.

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