Abdominal / Core Exercises

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EZ Bar Oblique Crusher

This offset-loaded split squat creates enormous rotational forces through the torso, forcing the obliques and deep core muscles to work overtime to keep the spine stable and controlled.

Cross-Body Plate Swings for Deep Core

Many core exercises train muscles in isolation. This movement teaches the core to manage real-world forces by controlling momentum, rotation, and side-to-side loading simultaneously.

Full-Range Abdominal Janda Sit-Ups

Many sit-up variations quickly become dominated by the hip flexors. This setup uses hamstring activation and spinal positioning to shift more of the workload onto the rectus abdominis throughout the movement.

Heavy Bench Press Support Dragon Flags

This combines a heavy bench-press lockout with a Dragon Flag position, creating an advanced challenge for the abs while simultaneously developing upper-body stability and support strength.

Abdominal Sit-Up Progressive Pallof Press to Shrink Wrap Your Abs

This sit-up and Pallof-press hybrid attacks both the six-pack abs and the deep core stabilizers, creating intense anti-rotation tension while maintaining a strong abdominal contraction.

Back-Off Bench Press

Most ab exercises challenge the core in isolation. This setup forces the abs to stabilize your entire torso while simultaneously supporting your bodyweight and controlling moving resistance.

Dumbbell Scoop Shouldering

This isn't a shoulder exercise, and it's not really an arm exercise either. It's a deep-core strength movement that teaches your body how to generate, resist, and transfer force through the trunk under heavy rotational loading.

Barbell Pullover Dragon Flag Lever Raise

This brutal hybrid combines a barbell pullover with a Dragon Flag-style lever raise, creating continuous tension on the lats and abs through a range of motion that's difficult to achieve with either exercise alone.

Vertical Spinal Stability Push-Pulls

This isn't a shoulder exercise and it isn't a back exercise—it's a deep-core stability exercise disguised as a press and pulldown. The real challenge is keeping your spine perfectly stable while opposing forces try to twist and tilt your body apart.

Barbell Curl Squats

This looks like a squat, but it's really a brutal bracing exercise for the entire core. Holding the bar away from your body creates enormous demands on the abs, obliques, and spinal stabilizers to keep you upright throughout the movement.

Dumbbell Cross Swings

Most core exercises happen slowly and predictably. Athletics doesn't. This movement challenges the core to manage rapidly changing forces, exactly the way it must during running, throwing, striking, lifting, and virtually every explosive athletic action.

Lower Ab Bicep Lever

This unique lever hold shifts the challenge toward the lower portion of the six-pack by turning your body into a suspended abdominal lever while minimizing the lower-back stress that can occur with some leg-raise variations.

Monkey Press Push-Pull

Most core exercises train movement patterns directly. This exercise trains one of the most important athletic qualities of all: the ability to resist unwanted rotation while force is being produced in opposite directions.

Dumbbell Dragon Flag Leg Raises

This Dragon Flag variation attacks the abs from both directions at once—your upper abs are fighting to stabilize the heavy dumbbell while your lower abs are controlling the movement of your legs through space.

Offset Weight Farmers Walks 300 lbs + 90 lbs

This offset-loaded farmer's walk is one of the best deep-core strengthening exercises you can do. The uneven loading forces the muscles that stabilize your spine to work relentlessly with every step you take.

One Shoulder Barbell Stepping Intervals for Cardio and Core (335 lbs)

Most core exercises are performed standing still. This exercise teaches your core to maintain stability while you're moving, breathing hard, and managing hundreds of pounds of offset load at the same time.

Ab Barbell Weighted Chin-Ups

This weighted chin-up variation turns a great upper-body exercise into an even better core exercise by directly loading the abs while they're already working hard to stabilize the body.

Flexed Arm / Single Arm Hanging Knee Raises

Traditional hanging knee raises are effective, but many people end up feeling more stress in the shoulders or hip flexors than in the abs. This setup increases trunk stability demands and creates more direct abdominal tension throughout the movement.

Cable Suspended Ab Rollouts

Traditional rollouts are brutally effective in the stretched position but lose much of their challenge as you return to the start. This setup uses cable counterbalance to keep the abs working hard during both phases of the movement.

Stretch Crunch Sit-Ups

This combines the deepest stretch of a crunch with the strongest contraction of a sit-up, forcing the six-pack abs to work through nearly their entire functional range of motion in a single rep.

Fingals Finger Sit-Ups

This landmine-style sit-up turns a basic abdominal exercise into a full-range core challenge by changing the leverage throughout the movement and keeping the abs working hard from bottom to top.

Kettlebell Single Leg Raise Chin-Ups

Many core exercises train the abs in isolation. Athletic movement doesn't work that way. This exercise teaches the core to coordinate the upper and lower body while producing force through multiple joints simultaneously.

Frankenstein + Plate (or Dumbbell) Squats

This exercise is essentially a loaded posture and core challenge disguised as a squat. The weight held out in front dramatically increases the demand on the muscles responsible for keeping the spine upright and stable throughout the movement.

Cable Pullover Dragon Flag (ish) Leg Raises

This exercise combines multiple abdominal functions into one continuous-tension movement, forcing the six-pack abs to work from both ends at the same time while maintaining full-body control throughout the rep.

Band-Janda-Rack Sit-Ups

This exercise combines one of the best six-pack activation methods ever developed with accommodating resistance that gets harder as the abs get shorter, creating brutal tension from the deepest stretch to the strongest contraction.

400 lb Zercher Carry using an EZ Curl bar

Most core exercises challenge the trunk while standing still. A heavy Zercher Carry forces the core to maintain stability while walking, breathing, and managing a massive forward load at the same time.

Deep Core Press/Pulldown Push-Pulls (Ab Ripper)

Most core exercises challenge the trunk in a single direction. This exercise creates powerful opposing forces that try to rotate, twist, and destabilize the torso, forcing the deep core muscles to work at a completely different level.

Rack-Rail Leg/Knee Raises

Many abdominal exercises challenge either movement or stability. This setup does both simultaneously, forcing the core to create movement while also supporting and stabilizing the body.

MMA Closed Guard Core Press

Many core exercises train the abs in isolation. Athletic power comes from the ability to transfer force through the entire body. This exercise challenges the core to connect lower-body tension with upper-body force production.

Lockdown Serratus Dips

This isn't really a dip exercise—it's a scapular-control and core-integration exercise. The goal is to train the serratus anterior to stabilize and move the shoulder blades while coordinating with the muscles of the trunk during breathing and bracing.

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