Without Equipment

There are plenty of home ab exercises that you can do pretty much anywhere. You do not have to be able to get to the gym to work on your abdominal muscles and flatten your belly.

Curl

This is a great exercise to warm up at the start of your workout. Or do just this one if you haven't exercised at all in a while, to avoid straining the muscle on your first day!

Lie on your back on the floor with knees bent up. Imagine your pelvis as a saucer and tilt it, so the front rim moves up toward your head and the back rim moves down toward your feet. This will straighten out the hollow of your back so that all of your lower spine is on the floor.

Consciously tighten your abs. Hold for a moment, being sure to tighten up the whole of the abdominal muscle. Then if you are able, with the muscles still tightened, slowly raise up the legs, still bent, so your knees are coming toward your chest. Then slowly lower them back down to the floor, and relax the muscles for a few moments before repeating.

It is very important to keep the abs tight while you raise and lower the legs. If you forget this, your butt and lower back will be working instead of your abs.

If you are very unfit you may not be able to raise the legs at first. That's fine, just tilt the pelvis, tighten the abdominal muscle, hold and release. After about a week most people can do the full curl and when you are comfortable with that you can start to add sit ups and leg lifts.

Sit Ups

Start lying on your back. Bring your feet toward you so the knees are bent up to avoid damaging the lower back. Never do sit ups with the legs stretched out flat. The angle of the knees should be about 90 degrees.

Lock the hands together behind the head. Then breathe in as you sit up, breathe out as you go back down.

Leg Lifts

Like the curl, but keep your legs straight throughout. Don't forget to consciously tighten the abs as you raise and lower the legs.

Reverse Crunch

Lie on your back with hands behind your head. Bend knees and bring them in toward the chest, lifting the butt off the floor. At the same time curl the head up, bringing the head and knees as close together as possible.

Relax to a position where the head is lower (but not on the floor) and thighs are pointing straight up. Feet are a couple inches off the floor. Then repeat.

Keep feet as close as possible to your butt all through this reverse crunch, and bend the body from a point just below the navel, not from the hips. Make sure your abs are working harder than your thighs.

People who have long legs relative to their upper body (including many women) may not be challenged by this exercise. If your head and knees easily touch, try doing this on a slope so that you have to lift the butt against gravity.

For best results, exercise slowly and be conscious of working your ab muscles all of the time. If other muscles are getting tired, then they have probably been doing the work and your abs will miss out on the benefit of your home ab exercises.

Editor
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