About this workout
Let me get the anatomy out of the way first. There is no lower ab muscle. The rectus abdominis is one sheet running from your ribs to your pelvis, and it contracts as a unit. What you can do is change which end moves. Crunches move the ribs toward the pelvis. Leg raises, reverse crunches and tucks move the pelvis toward the ribs, and that shifts more of the work to the bottom half of the sheet. That is what this plan is built on, three days a week for eight weeks, with a bar and a floor.
Who This Program Is For
- Your upper abs show first and the bottom two rows never seem to catch up.
- You want ab work you can run at home with nothing but a pull up bar.
- You already train the rest of your body and want a focused block for this.
- You have 15 to 20 minutes on three days a week.
Who this is NOT for: If your goal is to lose fat from your lower stomach specifically, no plan does that, including this one. Fat comes off in the order your genetics decide, and the lower belly is usually last for men and hips and thighs first for women. If that is what you are here for, run a fat loss program and come back to this.
What You'll Need
- A pull up bar, a doorway bar at home is fine.
- A mat or a carpeted floor.
- 15 to 20 minutes on three days a week, with at least a day between sessions.
The Program
Three sessions a week, all built around moving the pelvis rather than the ribs. Day 1 is the heaviest, with hanging work first while you are fresh. Day 2 goes to the floor so your grip and lats are not the limiting factor. Day 3 is a shorter session that mixes both and finishes with a hang, which is good for your shoulders and gives you a grip benchmark to watch. Run them on non consecutive days.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Hanging Emphasis | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Hanging Leg Raise | 4 | 8-12 | 75 sec |
| Reverse Crunch | 4 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Seated Leg Tucks | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Hollow Body Hold | 3 | 20 to 40 second hold | 60 sec |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor Work | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Bottoms Up | 4 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Lying Heel Touch | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Flutterkicks | 3 | 30 second effort | 45 sec |
| Plank | 3 | 30 to 60 second hold | 45 sec |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mixed and Short | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Hanging Leg Raise | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Hip Roll | 3 | 10-12 | 45 sec |
| Scissor Kicks | 3 | 30 second effort | 45 sec |
| Dead Hang | 3 | Max hold | 60 sec |
How to Progress
Every movement here has a clear ladder, so use it instead of just doing more reps badly.
Weeks 1 and 2. Bend your knees on every hanging and floor raise. The straighter the leg, the longer the lever and the harder it is to control the bottom. Control the bottom first, then lengthen the lever.
Weeks 3 and 4. Straighten toward the top of each rep range. Add five seconds to every hold. Your lower back should stay pinned to the floor on the floor work; when it lifts, the set is over.
Weeks 5 and 6. Straight legs on hanging leg raises, and slow the lowering to a three second count. That single change is worth more than twenty extra reps.
Weeks 7 and 8. Add load. A light dumbbell held between the feet on hanging leg raises and reverse crunches, and drop back to the bottom of the rep range when you do. Dead hang should be noticeably longer than it was in week 1.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Cat cow for 10 slow reps and a hip flexor stretch for 30 seconds a side. That second one matters here more than usual, because tight hip flexors will take over on every leg raise you do and you will feel the work in the front of your hips instead of your abs.
If you feel these mostly in your hip flexors rather than your abs, your pelvis is not tilting. Before the next set, flatten your lower back deliberately and start the rep by curling your tailbone up rather than lifting your feet. If your lower back arches off the floor and you cannot stop it, cut the range of motion until you can. Low back soreness after this is a signal that your technique slipped, not a badge.
Nutrition and Supplementation
The bottom of the stomach is usually the last place fat leaves on a man and it is stubborn on purpose. If seeing this work is the goal, that is a diet job: roughly a 300 to 500 calorie daily deficit, which is half a pound to a pound a week, held for long enough to be boring, with protein around one gram per pound of goal bodyweight. Training this area more often will not speed it up.
Simple support: protein powder to hit the protein number without adding much else, and a multivitamin to cover the gaps a long deficit creates.
FAQ
So lower ab exercises are pointless? No. They bias the bottom of the muscle and they train hip flexion and pelvic control, which most lifters are bad at. What they do not do is create a separate muscle or spot reduce fat.
Why is there a dead hang in an ab program? Grip is usually what fails first on hanging work, not the abs. Training the hang directly means your abs get to be the limiting factor by week 6, which is the whole point.
Can I add this to another ab plan? Do not stack two ab programs. Run this one on its own for eight weeks, then go back to general core work.
Questions and results
Ask a coach
Running this program? Tell us what week you are on and how the progression is going. A coach answers every question here.