22 Best Ab Exercise Equipments You Can Try

Are you dreaming of getting the same ripped abs as your favorite movie star but are unsure of how you can get them? It is possible to achieve this goal right at home with the best ab exercise equipment. Abs are the trend right now, and no wonder most of us want to flaunt them!

Using the right equipment like barbells, balance boards, and even resistance bands is indeed the best way of achieving the kind of body you desire. And this post talks about various other top machines that help you get those well-toned abs! Want to check them out? Read on!

Workout Blueprint: Ab Exercise Equipments

• Frequency: 2-3 times per week
• Benefits: Strengthen core muscles, increase endurance, and improve posture.
• Equipment Needed: Sit-up chair, kettlebell, bosu ball, foam roller.
• Space Required: Small space
• Assistance Required: Yes, for certain exercises
• Who Should Avoid: Anyone with a history of back issues.

Ab Exercise Equipments – Top 22

1. Sit Up Benches

Abs bench is the most common and frequently used abs exercise equipment. It is available in almost all gyms or fitness centers as the bench can be used for a variety of exercises. They are useful for both beginners or advanced trainees. The ab bench is also known as an adjustable sit-up machine, as you can adjust (increase or decrease) the angle of the bench. A steep angle adds more resistance and hence, is harder to work on. Likewise, a wider angle is easier to do and more appropriate for beginners. These adjustable benches assist in strengthening the core muscles.

1. Lie down with your back on the bench.
2. Place your feet under the foot pads and keep your arms across your chest, look at the ceiling and crunch. When crunching up, lift your shoulders off the bench, ensuring that you do not lift your lower back off the bench.
3. Hold the position for 30 seconds. Lower yourself and come back to the starting position. Controlled movements are the key to strengthening core muscles such as the rectus abdominis, side abs, and obliques.

Quick Tip

You can train most of your muscles in the lower trunk area, like obliques, rectus abdominis, hip flexors, and quadratus lumborum, by doing different exercises on sit-up benches or incline boards.

2. Abs Swing

The Abs Swing is one of those machines that have constantly been disputed about. Does it work or is it just another exercise machine that you should write off? Any kind of abs fitness equipment, when combined with fat-burning exercises and a proper diet will show results. The abs swing has a pivot seat with handles on either side and is meant to work the lower and upper halves.

1. Sit on the seat and secure your feet with the straps at the bottom.
2. Focus on your lower abs and contract them as you pull your knees towards your chest. Hold the position for 10 seconds and then lower your legs. The abs swing works your upper abs, side obliques and strengthens your lower back.

3. Captain’s Chair

The Captain’s Chair is an exercise machine with a suspended backrest and armrests on either side. Similar to the pull-up bar, you suspend your weight on the armrests, with your back firmly to the backrest and your feet off the floor.

1. A simple abdominal exercise that you can perform on the Captain’s chair is to bend your knees together and raise them to the waist level. While performing the exercise, you got to make sure you do not move your upper body and are consciously contracting your abdomen.
2. Like the pull-up bar, this machine works your rectus abdominis, obliques, and pelvis.

4. Roman Chair

The Roman Chair is more commonly known as the hyperextension bench. It is great for hamstring, glute, core, and lower back strengthening exercises. It comes in many variations, but the most common one features a padded bench with leg support that offers stability to the lower body while you bend your upper body to perform the exercises.

1. Find a stable position on the equipment with your legs firmly supported.
2. Cross your arms across your chest or place them at the back of your head.
3. Engage your core and exhale as you lower your torso, bending at the waist.
4. Inhale, keep your core engaged and lift your torso up to align with your lower body. Hold for a few seconds and repeat. Do about 10 repetitions to test how your ab muscles feel and continue as per what feels comfortable.

5. Foam Roller

The Foam Roller is a versatile core exercise equipment for abs. Although it was originally used to relieve muscle tightness and tension, it has been adapted as a strength-training tool. The foam roller is a total-body workout tool that helps in toning your key muscles like the arms, thighs, and abdomen. Because of its shape, it is used to strengthen the core muscles and improve balance. For your abdomen, you can perform the following exercise using a foam roller.

1. Lie down on your back and keep the roller under your knees.
2. Keep your hands by your side and pull your knees towards your chest.
3. Hold the position for 10 seconds and return. Complete 10 repetitions. This crunch variation using foam rollers is effective for firming and developing your lower abdominals.

Katherine, an ACE-certified personal trainer and blogger, shared that she found it difficult to perform a straddle split and used a foam roller to overcome this challenge. She states in her blog post, “I started stretching – laying on a 6-inch foam roller After practicing this regularly for a while, it actually became comfortable (i).” Once she was comfortable with it, she replaced the roller with a 3-inch half roller. She adds, “From there I was finally brave enough to go unsupported.”

6. Kettlebell

Kettlebells are weights that are used for weight training. With a handle on the top, they look like a cross between a dumbbell and a cannonball. One kettlebell exercise that specifically targets your abdominal muscles is the Kettlebell Windmill.

1. Standing with feet apart, hold the kettlebell in your left hand.
2. Raise the kettlebell above your head and turn your torso towards the right.
3. Engage the muscles on your left side. After 10 repetitions, switch sides. This specific exercise engages your entire core, the rectus abdominis and your obliques.

7. Ab Wheels

At a first glance, the Abs Wheel seems like a fairly simple machine to work on. However, there’s much more to it than what meets the eye. It looks like a small dumbbell on wheels that you can hold on to at each side.

1. To perform the exercise, get down on your hands and knees.
2. Hold on to the abs wheel and roll yourself forward to form a straight line (lift your knees off the floor and contract your abs.) Hold this position for 30 seconds. Using your abs, (and not your back or hips) pull yourself back to the starting position. It is extremely effective in strengthening core muscles, upper and lower abdomen, obliques, lower back, arms, shoulders, waist, thighs, and legs.

The wheel movement works on the abs and develops the lower back, making it one of the best oblique exercises to do at home. Moreover, the wheels are easy to use and store and can be taken anywhere.

8. Pull-Up/Chin-Up Bars

Did you know that a simple bar can be used to tone your abdomen muscles? You would think that using the pull-up bar will only build your upper body, arms and back. However, pull-up bars provide an intense routine that strengthens and builds your lower, upper and oblique muscles. When using a pull-up bar, one of the best abdominal exercises is the scissor-kick.

1. Holding on to the bar, raise your right leg in a straight line so that it is parallel to the floor.
2. While you lower your right leg, raise your left leg simultaneously. Thus, mimicking a scissor’s motion. This exercise works your lower rectus abdominis, obliques, pectorals, and biceps.

9. Exercise/Stability Ball

Although the Stability Ball is not exactly a “machine,” it is one of the most effective equipments that tone your midsection. The stability ball is a huge and inflatable rubber ball that is used for several purposes, ranging from strengthening core muscles and increasing balance to improve posture, physical therapy, and rehabilitation. Ball workouts can be used in many ways to train the full body and make daily exercising more enjoyable. Just like the stability ball, medicine balls also help in increasing core strength and correcting posture.

1. Sit on the ball, as you would sit on a chair, keeping your feet flat on the floor. If you have never used a stability ball before, this will take some practice, as it is hard to maintain your balance on the ball.
2. Position your arms behind your head and lower yourself backward. Hold the position for 30 seconds and then come back upward, contracting your muscles. The stability ball will strengthen and develop your abs.

Quick Tip

Stability balls can strengthen the core, improve balance, increase flexibility, boost the range of motion, and help maintain a healthy posture.

10. Bosu Balance Trainer

Just like the stability ball, the Bosu Balance Trainer (or Bosu Ball) looks like a stability ball, cut in half and placed on a platform. Both sides can be used for training. One of the most common and effective abs workout equipments on the Bosu ball is the plank.

1. Place the ball side down and position yourself into a plank with your elbows on the platform and your body straight.
2. Suck in your stomach and keep your core tight. Hold this plank position for 20 seconds. The Bosu ball makes your usual plank more challenging because you need to work harder at maintaining your balance, working your transverse abdominal muscles, obliques, glutes, quadriceps, and hamstrings.

11. Rowing Machine

The Rowing Machine is designed to replicate outdoor rowing with mechanical oars on either side, thereby making it an effective alternative to the traditional sport and aiding in core strength.

1. Sitting on the sliding seat, users have to row with both the oars. Resistance and speed can be adjusted, thereby working every large muscle group in the body.
2. The rowing motion consists of 4 moves: the catch, the drive, the finish and the recovery. During each of these moves, you work your legs, shoulders, arms, back muscles, glutes, hamstrings, and quads. The best part is that the core is engaged throughout the strokes that the rower performs.
3. Increase the resistance to feel the contraction.

12. Adjustable Sit Up Machines

The best types of sit up benches are the adjustable ab benches – in which you can adjust the angle of the board, thus altering the resistance according to your workout needs. Besides sit ups, it can be used for a wide variety of ab exercises like crunches, leg raising, twists and so on.

13. Ab Chairs

Ab chairs are both comfortable and safe for anybody to use. Their main advantage over a bench is that they are structured in a way such that the back is protected. The ab chair helps to stimulate the crunch using a folding mechanism. Here, you need to use your abs to lift your legs when you use it. This motion results in the stimulation of the lower muscles. It is good for beginners as it does not need an existing strong core. Similar to ab chairs, resistance chairs can also be used for other core strengthening exercises.

14. Ab Gliders

An Ab glider is designed to make exercising a pleasure. Gliders have a special design which forces you to stimulate the crunch. The complete movement is controlled by the machine while training all the muscles. It also focuses on the shoulders and the back. As ab gliders are larger machines, you can use them for an entire body workout.

15. Ab Rollers

Ab rollers are a great way to stimulate the body’s upper muscles. Ab rollers are essential to developing the upper part of your abdominals. The best advantage of this tool is that it provides support to the neck and helps avoid strains. It is a good tool for women who do core exercises, especially if they are beginners.

16. Ab Slide

An Ab slide is a fairly inexpensive home fitness machine that helps get a flat stomach. It also assists in efficiently working the entire body. It is useful for both beginners and advanced trainers, and it can be used anywhere because of its small size. Due to the continuous resistance, an ab roller trains the midsection effectively.

17. Resistance Bands

The resistance band can be used in many ways to enhance common core exercises such as crunches, sit-ups and so on. As a core tool of, it helps to strengthen ab muscles and also supports the belly fat-burning process. You can do efficient resistance band exercises with it, and as resistance grows progressively, it improves the health, flexibility, and agility of the person. One alternative you can use in place of resistance bands is resistance tubes, in case there is an unavailability of bands.

18. Ab Power Wheel

The Ab power wheel is a powerful tool that works out the entire core. They are inexpensive and suitable for any fitness level. The Power Wheel comes with a foot pedal which lets you perform more types of exercises to work the midsection with upper body moves.

19. Power Tower Stations

Power towers are among the most complicated home gym machines that allow you to do many dynamic body weight exercises. With this kind of machine, you will be able to perform all bodyweight exercises such as push ups, pull ups, ab exercises and so on.

20. Ab Carver

The Ab Carver comes with a unique technology which aids in performing effective abdominal workouts. It has a strong spring inside, which serves to perform better. This also encourages performing the motion precisely to work your abdomen efficiently.

21. Ab Crunch Machine

The ab crunch machine supports the neck and gives a full range of motion. The resistance can be set and maximum abdominal contraction can be achieved which is important for effective core training, another reason why it is one of top favorites of bodyweight trainers. It helps you to strengthen your entire midsection efficiently.

22. Dumbbells

Dumbbells are also effective tools for ab training. First you spend time doing various body weight core training until you gain enough strength. Then try the ab exercises. Gradually increase the amount of weights you use.

Infographic: Top 4 Ab Exercise Equipment You Should Try

Nobody said getting abs was easy. However, with the right equipment, you can improve your abdominal muscles and strengthen your core over time. We have rounded up the 4 best ab exercise equipment you can include in your workout routine in the infographic below. Scroll down to know more!

Illustration: StyleCraze Design Team

Frequently Asked Questions

Are ab gliders effective?

Yes, ab gliders are an excellent way to not only build abs but also improve your posture and balance.

Are ab crunch machines bad for you?

Overusing or wrongly using the ab crunch machine may lead to spinal injury.

Do ab machines burn belly fat?

No, ab crunch machines do not help burn belly fat. They may help strengthen your abdominal muscles. A healthy diet and cardiovascular exercises will help you burn belly fat.

Do ab stimulators work?

Yes, ab stimulators help strengthen abdominal muscles, and support and increase endurance.

Get ready to sculpt your abs with this intense cable-only ab workout! Packed with effective exercises and expert tips to help you get defined abs fast, check out this video now.

Was this article helpful?

Reviewer Author Editor Fact Checker

Rakesh RathodCertified Personal Trainer

     

Rakesh Rathod is a certified fitness trainer and yoga instructor with more than 20 years of experience in the fitness industry. He also has a diploma in nutrition, level 1 in Krav maga, and is a bodybuilding contest coach.

Read full bio of Rakesh Rathod

Jyotsana RaoBeauty & Lifestyle Writer

 

Jyotsana Rao is an engineering graduate from NIT, Nagpur, who discovered her love for writing during her undergraduate days. She is passionate about writing about everything related to beauty - makeup, fashion, hairstyles, skin care, or hair care and has 4 years of experience on writing in these genres.

Read full bio of Jyotsana Rao

Arshiya SyedaCo-Editor-in-Chief

Arshiya Syeda is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of StyleCraze with 8 years of experience. Prior to that, she was a content writer who combined her writing and research skills to write over 200 high-performing articles on hairstyles, hair care, and skin care.

Read full bio of Arshiya Syeda

Himanshi MahajanHealth & Wellness Writer

Himanshi Mahajan is a Certified Health & Nutrition Life Coach. She has a bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences from Guru Nanak Dev University and two years of experience in writing SEO-based and research-backed content across health and lifestyle genres.

Read full bio of Himanshi Mahajan