6 Intense Ab Exercises for Super Core Strength

Intense ab exercises should find a spot in your workout routine.

You must not skip exercises that can enable you to build a strong set of core muscles, especially because core muscles are for more than showing off a six-pack.

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Why Do You Need Strong Core muscles?

When you’re focusing on developing your physique, you should not skip any muscle group, including the core muscles.

Apart from chiseled abs, a strong set of core muscles can help you with several compound exercises because of the balance and stability the muscles can provide. It’s essential to engage the core in several exercises.

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Intense Ab Exercises for Super Core Strength

The following six ab exercises can help you build your core strength and enable you to work your core muscles in various exercises.

1) Plank

Planks are a common ab exercise. If you need to choose only one exercise for the core, it should be planks.

To do planks, you need to support your bodyweight on your toes and forearms. The back should have a slight curve, and the core muscles must be engaged. Hold the position for as long as you can before relaxing.

You can find a guide for plank variations here.

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2) Dead Bug

Dead bugs require you to use your arms and legs to properly work on the core muscles. Additionally, this is one of the intense ab exercises that develops your coordination as well.

To do a dead bug, you should have a strong muscle-mind connection with your abdominal muscles, and coordinate your arms and legs at the same time. When your right hand moves back, your left leg should extend and vice versa.

You can find a guide for doing dead bugs here.

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3) Hanging Leg Raise

Hanging leg raises are not easy if you do not have grip strength. Ideally, you should be able to hold a bar and allow your body to extend all the way without any support, and hold that position without swaying back and forth.

If you have that core stability, the way to develop it is by holding that position and pulling your knees towards your chest. During the same time, you should keep your body stable, and use the core muscles to pull your knees towards your chest.

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4) Ab Wheel Rollout

The ab wheel rollout requires you to have access to the ab wheel.

To do a rollout, go to your knees, and place your palms on the bars sticking out of the wheel. Keep your arms extended, and roll the wheel away from yourself. As you roll it away, your upper body will go closer to the ground.

Roll out to the point where you can go back to the starting position using your core muscles. If you roll out more than your muscles can take on, you will end up not being able to finish the exercise at all.

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5) Dragon Flag

The dragon flag is an extremely advanced intense ab exercise. You need to have an incredible amount of core strength to it.

To do a dragon flag, lie on the floor. Hold a support, but your hands should be beyond your head. Use your core muscles to lift your legs first, and slowly move your bodyweight to the shoulder blades while raising your hips and lower back as well.

At the top of the motion, only your head and shoulders should be on the floor while the rest of your body is in a diagonally straight line.

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6) Seated Twist

Not all intense ab exercises need to be completely exhausting. However, they need to work on your entire core muscles, including the obliques. To work on the same, you can do seated twists or Russian twists.

Start exercising without weights, and slowly move to using weights during the twists as you become stronger.

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Bottom Line

Intense ab exercises do not have to be the way you begin your core exercises for the very first time.

To have super core strength, you need to start with the basics, and slowly build yourself to the point where the advanced variations are manageable. Nevertheless, do not attempt an advanced exercise or variation without understanding and learning its basic foundational form.