Have you been doing abdominal exercises for years, yet still aren’t satisfied with the results? Or maybe you’ve been working for a solid month or two on your abs and feel like you’re not getting anywhere. Here are four reasons your ab work isn’t working.

  • Poor Technique
  • Low Diversity of Exercises
  • Insufficient Overall Activity
  • Diet

Poor Technique

It’s easy to do abdominal exercises incorrectly. And it’s often difficult to figure out what you’re doing wrong. Have a personal trainer or group exercise instructor take a look at what you’re doing. If this isn’t an option, try videoing yourself to see if you can pick out any bad habits or poor form. Beyond those recommendations, I always encourage people to slow down. With slower movement, you can focus on form and improve your execution. A few other things to consider:

  • Breathe Correctly. Don’t hold your breath and don’t bear down through your belly (called the valsalva maneuver) with abdominal exercises. In general, exhale with exhertion. Pull your belly button in towards your spine as you exhale. This will help you engage your abdominals more, particularly your transverse abdominals.
  • Make It All About the Abs. Your abdominal muscles should be doing most all the work. For example, with crunches your hands are there to support your head, not pull it up. For exercises like V-sits, focus on the abs and try not to rely on the hip flexors. With every exercise, key in on the abs and don’t let other muscles compensate.
  • Take It Through Full Range. Are you working through the full range of motion available? As you work your abdominal muscles in flexion, extension, rotation, and side-bending, check to make sure you are moving fluidly through your full range. Stretch if you feel that you are tight in any of these motions.

Low Diversity of Exercises

We all tend to get stuck in ruts with our workouts. Routinely take a look at the exercises you’re doing. Make sure that you’re working your abdominal muscles in all planes of motion. Crunches only work the abdominals in trunk flexion. You also need strength with extension, rotation, and sidebending. In this post, I cover the details of how to activate the abdominals in relative trunk extension – the position we spend most of our day in, as opposed to the flexed crunch position.

Go beyond your rectus abdominus. Work the internal and external obliques, the transverse abdominals, and all of the muscles that contribute to core strength. If you do them correctly, planks are one of the best abdominal workouts you can choose. For plank variations and instructions for other abdominal exercises, check out this playlist on my youtube channel.

Insufficient Overall Activity

Are you moving enough? Physical activity helps burn abdominal fat. Take a look at how much you move during your week. You should be doing a fair amount of cardio work and weight lifting. You may have super strong abdominals but you won’t be able to see them if they’re tucked under belly fat.

Diet

Exercise alone won’t compensate for poor eating habits. Diet affects your overall health as well as the appearance of your abdominal muscles. This is not new information. In fact, there’s no shortage of information out there on how and what to eat. The trick is figuring out a healthy and sustainable eating plan. This short article from Johns Hopkins Medicine provides a solid starting point.

The One Thing That Truly Does Work

Go through the list above – the four reasons your ab work isn’t working – and get yourself on track. Then, there’s just one more thing you need to do. Be consistent. Fitness is not a 30-day proposition. It’s a life-long pursuit.

For some thoughts on how to be consistent with your fitness program, read my post Fitness Goals v. Fitness Pledge.