Six-pack abs are arguably the holy grail for many guys at the gym – it’s the true testament to one’s dedication to putting in the work both at the weights room and the kitchen alike. It’s just not an easy feat to achieve. More than the aesthetics of six-pack abs, though, developing a strong core will help improve your posture, balance, and stability, allowing you to not just work out with proper form but to go through your everyday movements more efficiently. A strong core also helps you avoid injury, which will allow you to stay more active through the coming years.
There are many ways to hit your abdominals during workouts. Compound movements like deadlifts and squats, for instance, can engage your core muscles while targeting other major muscle groups at the same time. There are also isolation exercises focused on hitting your abdominals, such as planks, crunches, and mountain climbers, all of which can help build up your six pack muscles. However, if you want to really isolate your abdominal muscles to focus all your effort on them, the best way is to use some kind of ab machine. These pieces of training equipment are designed to target those specific muscles without exhausting your arms, shoulders, or any part of the body, allowing you to put in extra work on your abs without affecting the rest of your workout.
These are the best ab machines to help you sculpt a six-pack.
RIMSports Hanging Abs Straps
You can do leg raises on any pull-up bar. However, if you want less strain on your hands, arms, and shoulders, it’s better to do it with abs straps like this one, which can hook onto any pull-up bar and give you a place to set down your elbows for less strenuous leg raises. Not only do they stabilize your elbows, you can also grab the strap for even greater balance, making it a really great way to add leg raises to your workouts.
BalanceFrom Ab Trainer
This metal frame is designed to make it easier to perform crunches, so you can keep hitting your abs repeatedly without putting any strain on your back or neck muscles. To use it, simply rest your head on the cushion, grab the top tube, and perform a crunch movement, making sure your head is rested on the cushion throughout the full range of motion. It’s a very basic equipment, but can prove really indispensable for beginners and anyone else who’s struggling with the proper form for crunches.
Perfect Fitness Ab Carver Pro
Any ab roller will make for a great addition to a home gym, as it allows for a moving plank position that just engages your abdominal muscles in an intense manner. We also like that you can progressively raise the difficulty level when using a roller. You can start on your knees with a short range of motion, then progressively increase the range as you get used to the movement. Once you’ve expanded the range enough, you can then proceed to start it from a standing position, which makes the movement just that much more difficult.
This particular roller takes things a step further by coming in a wide profile that makes it even more challenging, all while allowing you to remain stable when carving left or right to target the obliques. It’s also equipped with carbon steel springs inside that provide additional resistance, amplifying the stress the movement puts on the abdominal muscles. We also like the unusual shape of the grips, which, the outfit claims, will help to engage arm muscles during the moment.
Stealth Core Trainer
This ab machine takes the plank and turns it into a more engaging exercise by adding interactive games into the mix. It’s, basically, a piece of board that’s mounted on a ball that can roll in any direction, forcing you to engage your core muscles to maintain stability and balance. If that’s not enough to shake things up, you can also put your phone on a built-in dock on the board and play any of the four games available from its companion app. The games, by the way, are designed to respond to the board’s movements, which, basically, destabilizes the board and forces your core to adjust to keep things in check once again. The catch? It’s expensive as heck for something that just lets you do the plank over and over.
TRX Rip Trainer
This training equipment consists of a weighted bar connected to a resistance bungee on one end that you can anchor to a fixed structure like a door or a hook. When anchored, you hold the bar with two hands and use it to perform various movements designed to work the abs, obliques, back, and hip muscles. Granted, you’ll have a bit of a learning curve with the exercises, similar to TRX’s suspension straps, although it’s well worth the trouble, as it allows for different kind of exercises you don’t usually do at the gym. By the way, it’s not just a great training tool for hitting the abs, it also helps build rotational power and promote better overall spine health.
Sideshaper
This ab machine takes up a bit of space, but it’s well worth the footprint, with its ability to allow for crunching movements that, the outfit claims, can help you burn up to 100 calories every five minutes. To use, you grab the handles on top and put your knees between the tube cushions. From there, you move your knees up along the rail incline, essentially creating a reverse crunch motion. We love the way this hits the abdominals, especially the lower ab muscles and obliques, which tend to get less action on traditional crunch exercises. The knee pads are designed to swivel left or right, by the way, allowing you to isolate either side of the abs and put more pressure on the obliques. It also gets an LCD display that can calculate reps and estimate calories burned, while coming in a collapsible design that lets you tuck it under furniture when not in use.
Body Solid GCAB360 Cam Series
This commercial-grade gym machine lets you perform crunches and back extensions with added resistance, allowing you to pile on the weight plates and crush that iron. You can add as much weight as you want, so you don’t have to do 1,000 crunches just to feel some burn, all while giving you a pin adjustment that allows you to modify the range of motion over 26 settings. If you like doing every exercise with weights, this is the perfect way to incorporate those heavy plates in your abdominal exercises.