The 5 best ab exercises for women: Strengthen your core

Introduction

Did you know that abdominal training for women is not solely intended for aesthetic purposes?

Yes, as you read that correctly. This muscle group is part of a set of muscle groups that make up what is known as the core.

It performs very important functions, such as transmitting forces from your upper body to your lower body and vice versa, stabilizing your body, and reducing the likelihood of injury. The muscle groups that make up the core are numerous, and each one will be more involved depending on the exercise or movement we perform. Nevertheless, the main ones, and the ones you are most likely to recognize, are: rectus abdominis, transversus abdominis, obliques, pelvic floor, and quadratus lumborum.

Since we cannot isolate the rectus abdominis from the other muscle groups that make up the CORE, from now on we will refer interchangeably to core / abdominal training. 

Overall benefits of abdominal training for women

• Improved daily functionality: Everyday, simple actions such as bending down, flexing the spine, suddenly changing direction, or stabilizing yourself after tripping… require a strong, well-trained core.
• Improved performance in sports activities: As we mentioned earlier, it serves to “transmit forces” between the upper and lower limbs. If you participate in any sport, whether at the gym or outside it, having a well-trained core will help you perform better in the activities you undertake.
• Reduced lower back pain: It has been observed that people who perform abdominal exercises have a better quality of life and fewer recurring episodes of lower back pain than those who do not. In addition, if you combine them with breathing exercises, Pilates, and full-body strength training, the effect may be enhanced.

Benefits of abdominal training for women

The benefits of abdominal training for women are identical for both sexes, since we now know that there are no exercises that are better for men or women, but rather exercises suited to specific goals or needs. Even so, there is one population group that can benefit greatly, namely pregnant women, as research has found that specific abdominal and pelvic floor exercises may have modest effects in treating abdominal diastasis and urinary incontinence. 

Important considerations for your ab training for women

• It is a muscle group that recovers very well, so it may be worthwhile to use a somewhat higher training frequency, for example, between 2–3 days per week
• It also tolerates a medium to high training volume, but since it participates indirectly in many other exercises you do and receives considerable stimulus, you don’t need to perform a high number of sets per session—for example, ranging between 3–6 sets per session may be a good recommendation.
• You don’t need thousands of repetitions or to do it as a circuit. As you can see, this is a muscle group that should be trained with the same priority and programming than the rest of the muscle groups. When the goal is to develop endurance for certain postures or stability, programming by time may indeed be worthwhile.

5 ab exercises for women:

Below, I’ll show you 5 very interesting ab exercises for women, explaining what you can use each exercise for in the long term and briefly describing it.

• Abdominal crunch

It may be an exercise that some people demonize and others love. The reality is that it is the quintessential exercise for the appearance of the rectus abdominis, or “six-pack”, that is, its hypertrophy / muscle mass development. It is highly effective because it allows you to generate progressive overload over time and emphasizes the rectus abdominis’ primary movement: spinal flexion.

Variations: You have many variations that will allow you to progress and adapt it to your level, such as doing it on the floor, on a decline bench, seated or lying down on a machine, kneeling at a high pulley… 

• Dead bug

Possibly one of the most commonly used exercises for beginners or people experiencing lower back pain. Since it allows you to maintain absolute spinal stability, it provides a strong sense of security. It would be an interesting exercise for stability and coordination.

It enables coordination between the arms and legs and also works the deep core muscles.

Variations: Simple options range from doing them with only the arms or legs, to using a contralateral pattern (left arm + right leg, and vice versa), to an ipsilateral pattern (left arm – left leg). 

You can also vary the difficulty through the load, such as performing it with the knees bent or extended, making the lever longer or shorter, or adding load with ankle weights and dumbbells.

• Russian twist

It is an exercise with which you will work both coordination as well as strength of the abdomen during lateralization and slight rotation patterns. 

Variations: You can do it simply for people who are weak in these movement patterns by performing it without weight, with support from the feet and in contact with the floor. 

Or more complex options for advanced athletes or those who need to reinforce this movement pattern significantly, such as performing it with weight while supporting only the glutes on the floor, increasing the speed, or even using a medicine ball and throwing it against a wall.

• Abdominal plank

It is possibly one of the most commonly seen and performed exercises in gyms. It is a very interesting exercise for your stability and not so much for aesthetics as is often thought.

You can perform it in different positions, but the reality is that the traditional supine variation already activates almost all the abdominal muscles very effectively. You can also use breathing techniques such as hollowing to place greater demands on deep muscles such as the transversus abdominis.

Variations: You can add hip movements such as abduction/adduction, introduce elements that challenge stability, such as someone trying to knock you down, or hand movements and coordination tasks… Ultimately, anything that helps you make decisions while stabilizing your body.

• Pallof press

Known as an “anti-rotation” movement, its main function is to stabilize the body against rotation caused by an external load. It also effectively activates many of the muscles that make up the core.

Variations: It can be performed dynamically or isometrically, kneeling / in a knight position or standing, with ballistic movements using a medicine ball, on flywheel machines that accentuate the eccentric load, or simply with an elastic band or cable in an isometric manner.

Conclusions:

Strengthening your abs will give you much more than defined abs for women. Include these exercises and the guidelines we have provided in your training routine, and it will take a leap forward in quality. It will also help you feel more confident and stable in many everyday activities. And if your goal is body aesthetics and the desired “abdominal definition,” it is important to emphasize that this will depend not only on the training itself, but also on good management of nutrition and supplementation such as Synephrine that you can find on our Moremuscle website.

 

References:

1. Schoenfeld, B. J. (2010). Core stability training: a critical analysis. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 24(2), 586–597
2. Harvard Health Publishing. (2021). The real-world benefits of strengthening your core. Harvard Medical School.
3. Calatayud, J., Casaña, J., Martín, F., Jakobsen, M., Colado, J., & Andersen, L. (2017). Progression of Core Stability Exercises Based on the Extent of Muscle Activity. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 96, 694–699 abdominal exercises for women. 
4. Frizziero, A., Pellizzon, G., Vittadini, F., Bigliardi, D., & Costantino, C. (2021). Efficacy of Core Stability in Non-Specific Chronic Low Back Pain. Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology, 6. abdominal exercises for women 
5. Coulombe, B., Games, K., Neil, E., & Eberman, L. (2017). Core Stability Exercise Versus General Exercise for Chronic Low Back Pain.. Journal of athletic training, 52 1, 71-72 . abdominal exercises for women
6. Gluppe, S., Engh, M., & Bø, K. (2021). What is the evidence for abdominal and pelvic floor muscle training to treat diastasis recti abdominis postpartum? A systematic review with meta-analysis. Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy, 25, 664 – 675.