Do you ever find yourself wishing you had a more developed and stronger core? Or maybe you’ve got that beach vacation you’ve been dreaming of scheduled, and you find yourself wondering how to get 6 pack abs… Lucky for you, you’ve come to the right place! In this article I’ll cover the steps you need to reveal your abs, get that 6 pack popping, and build core strength along the way!

Why You Should Train Your Abs

First off, why should you train your abs? What if you don’t care about having a 6 pack, should you still train your abs? Yes, you should! Even if having an aesthetic 6 pack isn’t your goal, you will still benefit from direct core training. Direct abdominal training creates a stronger core, which leads to your other lifts being stronger. This will benefit your overall strength and muscle development, athletic performance, and may even help with postural issues or back pain.

Over the course of my career in the fitness industry, I’ve heard a number of times people say that they don’t train their abs because they do compound lifts that engage the core. Compound lifts DO engage your core, but they aren’t a replacement for direct abdominal training. You will see significantly better ab development when you train them directly, similar to any other muscle group.

What Does Science Say?

You can see in this study, from Rodrigo Aspe and Paul Swinton, comparing the core musculature activation of the back squat, overhead squat, and several core exercises that the squat variations were great for activating the erector spinae, but not for the rectus abdominis or external obliques.

This led them to recommend training programs that included compound movements supplemented with various core isolation exercises, to train the core musculature completely.

Abs Are Made in the Gym, but Revealed in the Kitchen

Now that we’re done with our science lesson… When we simplify things down there are only 2 steps that you need to get 6 pack abs. First, you need to have some abdominal muscles built through training your abs. Second, you need to have a low enough body fat percentage that your abs become fully visible. These two steps can take place separately or together simultaneously.

For example, you may focus on building your abs first while in a muscle building phase. Then going into a calorie deficit, and cutting enough weight to reveal them – while continuing to train your core and abs. The more developed your abs are, the more they will “pop” and the easier they are going to be to reveal. This is a great approach if you are already training for hypertrophy (increasing muscle size).

However, if you’re in a hurry to get that summer 6 pack, or you are already focusing on losing body fat, you can start including ab training alongside you current routine. Pair that with a calorie deficit, and your abs will end up looking great!

Training Your Abs

Before you begin training your abs, It’s a good idea to have an understanding of your abdominal muscles and what they do.

The 4 major muscles that make up your abs are the rectus abdominis (this is the 6 pack muscle you see), transverse abdominis, internal obliques, and external obliques. These muscles together allow you to flex your spine, rotate your core, flex laterally, stabilize your spine, and help compress your abdominal contents when you brace your core (like in a back squat).

Our abdominal muscles have a variety of functions, so you will need to train your abs in a variety of ways. 

For complete core training, we’re going to break our ab training down into 3 main movement patterns that we want to include.

1. Lower Ab Movements
2. Upper Ab Movements
3. Rotational and Other Ab Movements

Lower Abs

Your ab training needs to include a lower ab movement, like the reverse crunch or hanging leg raise. These bottom-up ab exercises bring your hips towards your shoulders and primarily train the lower portion of your rectus abdominis.

When performing a lower ab exercise you need to ensure that you’re actually using your abs for the movement, and NOT just swinging your legs up. It’s easy to get sloppy or rush these movements. Start them by squeezing your glutes and contracting your abs, before bringing your pelvis towards your shoulders.

For this part of your ab training I would recommend a variation of the reverse crunch or hanging leg raises.

Upper Abs

For upper abdominal training you will need to include an exercise that moves your abs top-down (like a crunch). Imagine bringing your rib cage and shoulders down into your pelvis, and feel your upper abs contract. These exercises will typically be a little easier to perform (when compared to lower ab exercises). They can also be easier to load and progress with, as you can do a movement like a weighted cable crunch, or your gym may even have a crunch machine that provides resistance.

I would recommend starting with a regular crunch or any unweighted crunch variation for your upper ab exercise. Then progressing, when you can, into a weighted crunch variation.

Rotational and Other Ab Movements

To complete your ab training routine you will also be including a rotational abdominal movement and occasionally an anti-extension exercise as well.

For rotational movements that involve the obliques more, I recommend the bicycle crunch, a weighted oblique twist, or a cable woodchopper (can also be performed with a resistance band).

You can also include an anti-extension exercise (like the plank or an ab wheel rollout) in your abdominal training. These exercises may not be the best for ab hypertrophy, but do help develop core strength and stability, and can carry over well to your other lifts.

Frequency & Volume

So how often should you train your abs?

You can train your abs at a fairly high frequency. You can train them anywhere from 2 to 5 times per week, depending on how you split your ab training up, and your experience level.

Most people will see ab “gains” with their total weekly training sets anywhere between 16 and 20 sets. You could easily achieve this by working your abs on 3 different days each week (with a rest day in between each one), doing 2 ab exercises per day, and 3 sets per exercise. That would get you 18 working sets of abs over the course of the week. If you’re newer to the gym I would recommend starting with 6 total sets per week, and progress from there.

What about reps? How many reps should you be doing for each exercise?

Just like training any other muscle group, you want to use a variety of rep ranges for abdominal training. For loaded movements, like a cable crunch or machine crunch, you can load the movement and keep your rep range a little lower, in the 6 to 12 range. For bodyweight movements the reps will typically be a bit higher, in the 15 to 20 range (or more). Start with what you can do, and progress your reps from there as needed.

Next I’ll give you some examples of how you could set up your ab training, and start you off with a couple ideas.

Beginner Ab Routine

This ab routine would be suitable for someone newer to the gym or someone who hasn’t trained their abs before. Complete this routine twice per week to start. Increase sets or adjust exercises as needed with progression.

1. Reverse Crunch 1 x 6-12 Reps
2. Crunch 1 x 15-30 Reps
3. Oblique Twists (no weight added) 1 x 6-12 Reps (per side)
4. Plank – To Failure

Advanced Ab Routine

Here’s a more advanced option. Complete 2 or 3 times per week. Increase load or reps as needed with progression.

1. Hanging Leg Raise 2 x 6-12+ Reps
2. Kneeling Cable Crunch 2 x 6-12 Reps
3. Standing Cable Wood Chop 2 x 10-20 Reps (per side)
4. Ab Wheel Rollout 1 x 6-12+ Reps

Get Lean

Now that you’ve got the training down, you need to get lean enough to reveal your abs.

How lean do you need to be?

For men, getting visible abs will require you to be somewhere between 6% and 13% body fat, and for women 14% to 20% body fat. This may vary somewhat depending on your genetics, where you hold body fat, and your abdominal development.

Lowering your body fat percentage will require you to be in a calorie deficit. You need to be eating less calories than your body is burning each day, causing you to lose fat. I won’t be going into detail on weight loss in this article. However, you can check out my article How to Lose Weight and Keep it Off for more info, or If you’d like some help from me contact me here.

Alongside a calorie deficit I would recommend following a resistance training program and including some cardio. Both of these will help accelerate your fat loss, and keep you strong and healthy.

How to Get 6 Pack Abs

There you have it! Now you know how to get 6 pack abs! Time to put in the work!

To recap, you should be directly training your core in a variety of ways, whether you want a 6 pack or not. Use an upper ab exercise, a lower ab exercise, a rotational core exercise, and an anti-extension exercise. Use a mix of rep ranges, and find a frequency that works for you. Once you’ve got your training going, you need to be lean enough to reveal your abdominal muscles – and your abs will be popping!

If you have any questions, whether they’re related to ab training or not, you can contact me here. And for some additional workouts you can join my email list to get your FREE copy of 34 Metabolic Workouts: Build Strength & Burn Fat.

Thanks for reading!