Written by Patrick Dale, PT, ex-Marine

You need a great set of abs if you want to look your best naked. That’s why so many people include exercises like crunches, planks, and sit-ups in their workouts, do cardio and watch what they eat.

A shredded six-pack is a fitness, figure, and physique must-have!

However, when it comes to abs training, a lot of lifters train their abs very differently from how they work the rest of their body. For example, instead of doing 2-4 sets of 6-15 reps with a challenging load, they do hundreds of reps with low resistance and work their abs every day.

The abs are just another muscle group. You wouldn’t bench press 45lbs for 100 reps five or seven days a week to build your chest, so why do that with your abs?

If you want your abs to show, you need to a) lose the body fat that’s currently covering and obscuring them and b) make them thicker, so they’re more prominent.

The best way to induce some abdominal wall hypertrophy is to drop the high-rep/low-resistance training and start doing weighted abs exercises.

In this article, we reveal the best weighted abs exercises and provide you with a couple of workouts to try.

There is more to effective abs training than repeatedly hammering the front of your abdomen. In fact, there are several muscles that make up your marvelous midsection:

The Rectus abdominus is the long, flat muscle on the front of your abdomen. It’s separated by lines of ligamentous tissue, which give it the six-pack appearance. However, it’s important to note that this six-pack shape is only visible if body fat levels are low enough. How low depends on gender and genetics, but 10% is typical for men and 15% for women.

 The main functions of the rectus abdominus are:

The obliques are located on the side of your abdomen. There are external and internal oblique muscles, but because they work together, most people refer to them as one muscle, simply called the obliques.

The main functions of the obliques are:

Where the rectus abdominus runs vertically up the front of your abdomen, the transverse abdominus runs horizontally across it. Acting a lot like a weight training belt, your transverse abdominus encircles your abdominal contents. When it contracts, the TVA increases intra-abdominal pressure to support and stabilize your spine.

While you can’t see the transverse abdominus, no matter how lean you get, it is still a critical muscle. It is involved in every abs exercise, especially those that feature bracing your midsection, i.e., planks.

The main functions of the transverse abdominus are:

Build stronger, thicker abs for a more prominent six-pack with these weighted abdominal exercises!

Hanging knee raises are already a great abs exercise, but they’re even better with weight. Save yourself from doing high-rep sets by clamping a dumbbell between your feet or wearing ankle weights. Do this exercise by hanging from a pull-up bar or using a captain’s chair-type apparatus.

Target muscles: Rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis.

Planks are the perfect example of a good exercise gone bad. They’re great for working your anterior core but doing planks for minutes at a time is inefficient and ineffective. You’ll get a lot more from this exercise if you do it with some additional load.

Crunches are a popular abs exercise but can also be ineffective if you are strong enough to do 20-30 or more reps without too much effort. Adding weight and increasing the range of motion with a stability ball makes this classic abs exercise much more effective.

The great thing about cable crunches is how easy they make loading your abs. Just move the pin on the weight stack up or down as needed.

This makes cable crunches ideal for muscle-building drop sets. Do a heavy set, lower the weight by 10-15 percent, and then rep out again. This technique allows you to train past your usual failure point.

Target muscle: Rectus abdominus, transverse abdominis.

Ab wheel rollouts are already a challenging exercise, but they’re even harder if you wear a weighted vest. A little load goes a long way with this exercise so start light and only increase the weight gradually. 5-10% of your body weight is a good starting point for most people.

The V-sit is so-called because that’s the shape your body makes at the mid-point of each rep. Involving a leg lift and an upper body crunch, this is an effective total abs exercise. However, it’s also pretty challenging, so make sure you can do it unweighted before trying this variation.

Target muscle: Obliques, rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis.

Farmer’s walks are usually thought of as a grip or conditioning exercise. While that’s very much the case, doing this exercise with one arm turns it into an excellent lateral abdominal exercise. You’ll need to use your entire core to keep your torso upright.  

Target muscle: Obliques, rectus abdominis.  

While no one seems to know why this exercise is called Russian twists, there is no denying its effectiveness for training your oblique or waist muscles. However, this is no one-trick-pony; Russian twists are also pretty tough on your rectus abdominis.   

Target muscle: Obliques, rectus abdominis.  

Windshield wipers were one of the exercises that special forces strength and conditioning coach Mark Twight used to train the actors for the movie 300. For this move, you must work hard to stabilize a weight while rotating your lower body and working your core. This results in a uniquely challenging exercise that hammers your abs and obliques.

Target muscle: Obliques, transverse abdominis.

As the name implies, Cable Woodchop exercise replicates chopping wood with an ax or swinging a sledgehammer. This type of rotational movement is an excellent way to train your obliques or waist muscles. It’s typically done using an adjustable cable machine. Still, you can do it almost as effectively with a resistance band fixed to a suitable anchor.

Target muscle: Obliques, rectus abdominis.

Weighed side bends are one of those exercises that a lot of people do wrong. To save time and try to work both sides at the same time, ill-informed lifters hold a dumbbell in each hand.

This means the weights cancel each other out and make this exercise ineffective. So, don’t be a dummy – use one dumbbell to ensure your abs get a more intense workout!

Target muscle: Obliques, transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis.

The Pallof press is an anti-rotation exercise. Invented by physical therapist John Pallof, this exercise teaches you to resist unwanted movement. In some ways, it’s like doing a non-rotational plank. This is a useful weighted exercise for athletes and anyone who wants a strong, toned midsection.

Target muscle: Obliques, rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis.

All standing overhead pressing exercises involve your core, albeit indirectly. However, unilateral or one-sided exercises like this one-arm press make your midsection muscles work much harder. You’ll need to engage your abs to keep your torso rigid and upright. This exercise is a great twofer as it works your shoulders and abs at the same time.

Target muscle: Obliques, rectus abdominis.

Arthur Saxon was a late 19th/early 20th-century German strongman. Famed for his incredible lifting prowess, Saxon also invented several exercises, some of which are still performed today. Saxon side bends are a great way to train your core using a medicine ball, dumbbell, kettlebell, or weight plate.

While you could just add a couple of these exercises to your usual abs workout, you’ll get better results from a more structured routine. So, here are three short but brutal weighted abs workouts. Do them on non-consecutive, e.g., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the end of your regular strength training program or after cardio.

Save time by performing them circuit style, moving from one exercise to the next without resting. Alternatively, do 2-4 sets of 12-20 reps of each exercise, resting 60-90 seconds between sets.

Bodyweight abs exercises are useful for home exercisers and anyone who travels a lot. Requiring nothing but an exercise mat or folded towel to lie on, you can do bodyweight abs exercises anywhere and anytime, making them the ultimate in excuse-free workouts.

But, you may need more than your body weight to challenge your abs, especially if you are an intermediate or advanced exerciser. And that’s where weighted abs exercises come in.

Using weights means you can train your abs just like any other muscle group, i.e., progressively by adding load and not just doing more reps. This is arguably the most effective way to make your workouts more productive.

So, stop chasing reps with bodyweight exercises and look for ways to increase the weight. Whether you use a weighted vest, dumbbells, a cable machine, or resistance bands, loading up your abs with extra weight will create more muscle tension and make your workouts much more effective. Plus, it will save you from the boredom of doing 100s of reps or planking for five minutes at a time!

Patrick Dale is an ex-British Royal Marine, gym owner, and fitness qualifications tutor and assessor. In addition, Patrick is a freelance writer who has authored three fitness and exercise books, dozens of e-books, thousands of articles, and several fitness videos. He’s not just an armchair fitness expert; Patrick practices what he preaches! He has competed at a high level in numerous sports, including rugby, triathlon, rock climbing, trampolining, powerlifting, and, most recently, stand up paddleboarding. When not lecturing, training, researching, or writing, Patrick is busy enjoying the sunny climate of Cyprus, where he has lived for the last 20-years.

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