10 Best Lower Ab Exercises (Killer Workouts at Home)

If you’re having trouble targeting the lower ab area, then you’re going to want to try this list of the best exercises and workouts. After using these killer lower ab exercises, you’ll be well on your way to sculpting the abdominal muscles in this stubborn area.

If you’re ready for real results, these lower ab workouts and exercises are specifically designed to maximize the engagement of your lower abdominal muscles. Picture yourself with a strong, tight core after you’ve finally flattened the bottom row of your abs.

But most people do lower ab exercises incorrectly and use more their hip flexors than their lower ab muscles. This causes their lower abs to stubbornly still remain and the frustration of not getting a flat lower abdomen is discouraging.

In my nearly 20 years as a personal trainer, I’ve found these to be the 10 best lower ab exercises. You can use the included killer lower ab workouts below too, to finally start defining and toning up the lower abs fast.

How to Tone & Tighten the Lower Belly

So, what’s the difference between your lower abs and upper abs?

Your upper and lower abs might look like different muscles, but the “six-pack” is really just one long muscle called the rectus abdominis. Your upper abs are the top section just below your ribcage, and the lower abs are the lower section that’s closer to your pelvis.

Popular abdominal exercises like sit-ups and crunches mostly target the upper abs. So it’ll be nearly impossible to tighten your lower abs just by doing hundreds of crunches. You need specific exercises that target this lower section of your abdominals.

You may have heard some say that you can’t isolate just your lower abs since they are all one muscle. But old-school bodybuilders have known for decades that you can focus more on one area by using targeted exercises that place more tension in the lower ab section.

The lower core muscles tend to be underused in comparison to the upper core muscles. Everyday activities like sitting, standing, reaching, etc. all tend to use the upper core muscles. Natural body mechanics like twisting the torso also cause more engagement in the upper body.

This is why doing lower ab exercises is so important. The lower core muscles are usually underdeveloped and must be trained significantly more than the upper abs.

To strengthen and tighten the stubborn area, these targeted exercises for the lower abs should be done two to four times more than upper ab exercises. Making up for this deficit will be the most effective way to tone and tighten your lower abs.

Why Lower Abs Are So Hard to Get

There are three reasons why most aren’t able to get tight and toned lower abs:

1. Genetics
2. Not enough muscle
3. Too much fat on top

Your genetics largely determine the distribution of excess fat in your body. We all have stubborn body parts that gain fat first, such as the belly, hips, thighs, love handles, and arms. You can thank your genetics for these stubborn spots!

Those with an apple-shaped body usually have more excess fat in their abdominal area. This can make getting lower abs more difficult since the first place you gain weight is also usually the last place you’ll lose it.

If you don’t have enough muscle in your rectus abdominis, then you’ll have a difficult time really tightening the lower ab region. Those who are “skinny fat” can still have a flabby pot belly despite appearing thin.

Doing these targeted exercises will go a long way toward building muscle in your lower abs. But if your body lacks total definition, then you’ll need to gain more muscle in your entire core. Skeletal muscle mass is key to tightening and toning not just your lower abs but your entire core and body.

Lastly, if you have too much excess fat on top of your lower abs, then you may never flatten this bottom row. Reducing your overall body fat will get you lean enough to show off your lower abs.

This is why really skinny guys can appear to have a six-pack. They have just a little bit of muscle on their abdominal muscles, but they’re so lean that the small layer of six-pack abs will show.

Next, we’ll dive into what exercises target the lower abs the best and how to use them to get the fastest fat-burning in the lower ab region.

The Best Exercises to Target Lower Abs

While some say you can’t target specific regions of a muscle group like the abdominal muscles, this study found otherwise. Researchers found that abdominal strengthening exercises can activate specific regions more than others.

You can place focus on different parts of your abs because the muscle itself is divided into sections. And each section can be controlled with different nerves. This allows you to work the lower abs harder during these exercises.

Studies have found you’ll get the best results with these exercises by:

• increasing exercise intensity
• changes in body position
• exercise variation

Be sure to do a posterior pelvic tilt whenever you’re doing one of the lower ab exercises below. Since most people have an anterior pelvic tilt (the top of the pelvis leans forward), this will help put your pelvis into a neutral position.

Studies have found posterior pelvic tilts activate more of the lower abs than crunches. But if your pelvis remains in an anterior pelvic tilt, then you’ll probably end up using more of your hip flexors than your lower abs.

A good way to practice posterior pelvic tilts on the floor is to lie on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor. Hold your hands on the side of your hips. Then, rotate your pelvis upwards so the top of your pelvis goes down and the bottom goes up. Your lower back should be flat and flush against the floor.

The following list of the best lower ab exercises includes what I’ve found to be the most effective in my personal experience. Many are backed up by science and research studies. If you have a bad lower back, you’ll want to avoid certain core exercises.

Flutter Kicks

1. To get in the starting position, lie on your back with your hands underneath your hips and lift your chin up off the floor until it reaches your chest.
2. Then, lift your legs up off the floor and begin to alternate them back and forth.
3. Try to focus on keeping your legs lowered to the floor and put your pelvis up toward your nose.

Leg Raises

1. Lay on your back with your hands on your hips and try to tuck your chin to your chest.
2. Lift your legs up off the floor so they’re pointing towards the ceiling.
3. Then, begin lifting your hips up off the ground toward the sky and slowly bringing them back down towards the ground.
4. As you’re bringing your legs down also lower your feet towards the ground as well.
5. Stop before your feet reach the ground and repeat the exercise.

Dragon Flags

1. This is one of the hardest bodyweight ab exercises. Ideally, you’ll have a healthy back before attempting this exercise.
2. For this exercise, it’s a good idea to grab onto a strong base such as a chair or your bed frame. Hold the strong base behind your head and then lift your hips and legs off the ground while keeping them in a straight line.
3. You should now rest only on your upper shoulders as you begin to slowly lower your body back to the ground.
4. Make sure you squeeze your glutes throughout this movement and maintain a straight body.
5. Keep in mind this is an advanced exercise.

Scissor Kick Crunches

1. Get in the starting position by laying on your back with your hands behind your head and your feet up in the sky.
2. Slowly lower one leg towards the floor as you begin to bring one elbow to the other knee that’s still up in the air.
3. Then alternate your legs so one is going up and one is going down.
4. As the other leg raises up, bring your opposite elbow up to meet it.

Hanging Leg Raises

1. For this exercise you’ll need a pull-up bar or you can use some ab straps. Jump up and hold the bar so your body is hanging straight down.
2. Tilt your pelvis up so it’s pointing up toward your nose.
3. With your legs together, slowly bring your feet up until you’re almost in an L position.
4. Tighten your abs at the top and then slowly bring them back down to the starting position.

Hanging Knee Raises

1. Hang from a pull-up bar with arms fully extended and hands shoulder-width apart.
2. Engage your core: Tighten your abs and keep your torso stable.
3. Lift your knees toward your chest, bending at the hips.
4. Control the movement as you lower your legs back to the starting position. Repeat.

Dead Bugs

1. Lay on your back with your arms and legs pointing straight up to the sky.
2. Slowly begin to lower one leg towards the ground and, at the same time, lower your opposite arm to the ground as well.
3. Keep your abs tight throughout this movement, and make sure your pelvis is tilted upwards.
4. Then slowly alternate to the other side as you bring the other leg down and your other leg arm at the same time as you bring back up the other ones.

Reverse Slide Outs

1. For this exercise, you’re going to need a stability ball or something you can use to slide on like towels.
2. Put your feet on top of the stability ball while holding your hands out in front of you, and you will be in the push-up position.
3. Slowly begin to roll yourself backward by pushing away from your hands.
4. The ball will roll along your legs until it reaches right above your knees.
5. Then slowly bring yourself back up into the starting position.
6. Be sure to keep your abs tight, and your pelvis tilted upwards throughout the movement.

Hollow Body Holds

Lay on your back with your arms out straight at a 45° angle and your legs up with your knees bent. Make sure your chin is to your chest.

1. Extend your legs out so they’re now straight and at a 45° angle from your body too.
2. Slowly lower your legs down towards the floor until you really feel your abs tighten up.
3. Hold this position with your pelvis tilted upwards throughout the required time. Make sure you keep breathing too.

Reverse Crunches

1. Lay on your back with your hands underneath your hips and your knees bent.
2. Slowly bring your knees towards your shoulders by lifting your hips up off the ground.
3. Once they get up closer to your shoulders, you can slowly bring them back down towards the floor, but don’t allow them to touch the ground.
4. Make sure you keep your abs tight and your pelvis tilted upward throughout this movement.

How To Do This Lower Abs Workout

You’ll get the best results by combining the above lower ab exercises into a high-intensity workout. High-intensity exercise increases heart rate, blood flow, core temperature, and fat-burning hormones. By combining high intensity with these targeted lower ab exercises, you’ll maximize fat burning in the lower ab region.

Exercise variation is key to “mixing things up” and keeping your body guessing. Your body adapts quickly to certain exercises, causing your results to stagnate. So vary the exercises, their order, reps, sets, rest, supersets, etc. to maximize results.

Perform each exercise until you feel the burn in the muscle and it becomes fatigued. Instead of “just doing 10 reps” try to focus on doing as many as you can while keeping proper form. Once you start feeling the burn then try to do 10 more reps. This will give you much better results.

But here is a sample lower abs workout:

Order	Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest
A1.	Reverse Slide Outs	3	12	X
A2.	Flutter Kicks	3	10/side	30 sec.
B1.	Mountain Climbers	3	20	X
B2.	Reverse Crunches	3	15	30 sec.
C1.	Jumping Jacks	3	20	X
C2.	Scissor Kick Crunches	3	10/side	30 sec.
D1.	Running in Place	3	30 sec.	X
D2.	Leg Raises	3	10	X
D3.	Hollow Body Holds	3	20 sec.	30 sec.

Afterward, perform 20-40 minutes of slow-go traditional cardio exercise, such as brisk walking, jogging, biking, or swimming. Use an Apple Watch to stay in your Zone 2 cardio. This zone maximizes fat-burning and also has many health benefits.

Cardio exercise after this workout will help to increase fat burning in the lower ab region. After completing the above lower abs workout, your body will continue burning off body fat for fuel.

Fitness models have known that doing ab workouts followed by cardio works. So if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it. It’s better to just get results rather than try to reinvent the wheel.

Ideally, you’d perform this workout while intermittent fasting towards the end of your fasting window. Your body will be in a prime fat-burning state. Try adding C8-MCTs sometime prior to working out to help kickstart the fat-burning process.

Summary

• Body Position Matters: Changing your body position during core exercises, like switching from curl-ups to leg raises, can shift the focus to the lower portion of the rectus abdominis, effectively targeting the lower abs.
• Exercise Variation Enhances Results: Mixing exercises and varying intensity levels can help emphasize different parts of the abs, ensuring a more balanced and effective core workout.
• Combine Workout With High-Intensity Exercise, Followed by Cardio: Combining the targeted lower abs exercises above with high-intensity exercise will give you the best and fastest results. This maximizes fat-burning in the lower ab region, which will continue afterward by performing post-workout cardio exercise.
• Posterior Pelvis Tilt Enhances Focus on Lower Abs: If you want to get the tension off your hip flexors and onto your lower abs, tilt your pelvis up. Most people have an anterior pelvic tilt that causes them to use more hip flexors than lower abs.