According to celeb trainer Gunnar Peterson, the secret to awesome abs is “working consistently, working in different planes of motion, and adding weights to your abdominal work.” Here are a handful of ab exercises using weights that put these principles into action — all you need are a set of dumbbells, a medicine ball, or a couple of handy weight substitutes like water bottles or cans of food.
Strengthening your midsection will help you feel stronger during other workouts, will prevent injury, and help create muscle definition in your waistline. To get the most bang for your buck when doing these exercises, choose a weight that feels challenging by the last few reps. You’ll notice using weights when doing ab exercises is much harder than bodyweight ab moves, and you may even feel your muscles quaking, but that’s totally normal! That’s how you know they’re working!
Incorporate a few of these exercises into your next strength-training workout by mixing up a variety of moves to target all the areas of your core. Keep reading to see the 19 moves.