The 4 Best Core Workouts to Hit Your Abs From Every Angle

If you’re after six-pack abs, you’re in the right place. The core workouts below have been hand-picked by top trainers to help you build muscle and forge a rippled midsection with enough definition to grate a block of cheese. But that’s not all these exercises can do for you. A strong core is the driving force behind almost every athletic movement, regardless of activity or sport. And it’s one of your best defenses against injury and back pain.

What they won’t do, however, is burn fat. “The research is so incredibly clear that abdominal exercises don’t reduce fat at all,” says Luke Carlson, founder and CEO of Discover Strength. And we mention that only to save you time. Even the world’s sharpest abs can’t cut through a spare tire.

Regardless, whether you’re obsessed with getting abs by summer or couldn’t care less about what goes on under your shirt, let alone your body-fat percentage, the core workouts below deserve a spot in every guy’s workout rotation.

Back Extension

People often use the words “abs” and “core” interchangeably, but there’s more to your core than the six-pack muscles you can (or will soon be able to) see in the mirror. Your core wraps all the way around your midsection, and includes the lower back muscles. “This group is called the lumbar extensors,” says Carlson, “and the one that’s most prominent is the erector spinae.” These are the larger muscles that run along your spine, and the best way to train them in a commercial gym, according to Carlson, is with a lumbar extension on a Roman chair—the exercise that most gym-goers simply call a “back extension.” “Every gym on earth has a Roman chair back extension, and it’s an awesome exercise,” Carlson says. “It’s more favorable than back extension machines, because those don’t have what’s called pelvic restraint, and so they’re just glute exercises, really. Even though they’re designed for the lower back, they just don’t do a great job.”

How to do it:

1. Set up on the Roman chair with your hips resting against the pad and your feet flat on the platform—toes together and heels out wide. (“By positioning your feet that way, you take the glutes out of the equation, and you really focus on the lower back,” Carlson says.)

2. Carlson recommends holding a weight plate against your chest for added resistance—anything up to 25 pounds. But if you’re new to the exercise, start with just your body weight.

3. Begin with your chest up and lower back flexed. Your body should form a straight line from your feet to your head. This is your starting position.Slowly lower your upper body until your torso goes just past parallel with the floor. Pause for a count, and then engage your lower back to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.

Trainer tip:

“You want the pad that your pelvis is resting on to be adjusted high enough so it’s above your hip joint—almost digging into your abdomen as you do that exercise,” Carlson says. “That’s going to take the glutes out of the equation and focus more on lumbar extension, which is what you want.”

Pallof Press

Next up, you’re going to want to hit your obliques, which are basically the sides of your core. There are a lot of oblique exercises out there, like side bends, that will help grow these muscles, but some exercises come with additional functional benefits that you won’t want to miss. “I like to throw in an anti-rotational exercise, like the Paloff press, which helps your body stabilize against rotational forces,” says Matthew Accetta, MS, ACSM-CEP, CSCS*D, CSPS, exercise physiologist on the Sports Rehabilitation and Performance Team at HSS. “That gives you more spinal protection, engages your obliques, and really helps you better stabilize against any sort of rotational forces, especially if you play sports like golf or tennis.” The Pallof press is a simple but highly effective anti-rotational exercise, and because you can do it with either a cable or a band, you can do it in pretty much any gym, and even take it with you on the road. “For me, when it comes to setup, I don’t have a preference whether you use a band or cable machine,” Accetta says. “It just depends on what you have access to.”