Mike:

Agree with – “What is the best ab exercise to do________ or perform better at_______?”

but how about adding – “What is the best exercise to do _______ or perform better at ______ …..during day ___ of week ___ of the ________ phase, based on ______ (result) of ______ assessment…”

LOL

Excellent question, but a better question would be

What is the best ab exercise to do________ or perform better at_______?

In general, the best one is the one that will positively transfer to their goal and has them moving better (increased quality of movement).

Having said all of that, I am not a fan of planks or many of the “standard” ab drills. I don’t really use any of them for the most part.

I do love breathing patterns and rolling can be of huge benefit in some.

I typically use
suitcase deadlifts

offset pressing motions (lunge stance, lunge stance w rotation)

hanging ab crunches (not the way everyone does them though–no hip flexors)

offset or normal farmers walks (again, assuming their gait is good)

overhead rotation and lunge med ball slam or sledgehammer strikes.

turkish get up

“b-stance” deadlifts

moving plank (aka push up)

Again, if their movement quality does NOT improve after the exercise, this is not a good exercise for THAT athlete.

McGill had a great study a few months back on strongman athletes that came to his lab.

Thoughts?
Rock on
Mike T Nelson PhD(c)

I tested the EMG activity of nearly every ab exercise I would think of…bodyweight, weighted, band, cable, anti-extension, anti-rotation, shoulder to hip flexion, hip to shoulder flexion, hip flexion, lateral flexion, etc. I also threw in upper body and lower body exercises. Surprisingly, chin ups beat out every exercise in lower rectus abdominis activity. By the way the upper and lower abs do contract in different proportions. Following chin ups were hanging leg raises, ab wheel rollouts, and weighted crunch. For external obliques, it was ab wheel from feet, Turkish get up, hanging leg raise, and bodysaw. For internal obliques it was ab wheel from feet, bodysaw, and tornado ball slam. For erector spinae it was cable half kneeling low to high lift, landmine, reverse hyper, and thoracic extension.

Of course there are plenty of things to consider…posture, muscular balance, sport, goals, etc.

VERY well written!

I agree with your answer to a large extent. There are a lot of variables that matter. I see a lot of runners who are awesome with their plank type exercises but really have poor control of their local stabilizing system.

As such, the two biggest impact exercises with regards to restoring core function are breathing patterning and rolling patterns. These allow us to gain some reflexive control of “inner unit” and develop effective feedback and feedforward strategies of core control.

Additionally, they provide a gamut of benefits throughout the body both mechanically and chemically that can lead to us being more effective practitioners.

Finally, they are low level enough that they can be applied to healthy and injured athletes with success. We can progress them or regress them many ways to accomodate most populations.

Best regards,
Carson Boddicker