Calisthenics ab exercises – beginner to advanced

If you want to get anywhere with calisthenics, a rock solid core is invaluable. Instead of doing endless crunches you want to focus on exercises that have a good carry-over to your other skills. Conquer all of the following calisthenics ab exercises and you’re ready to achieve anything.

Ab myths

Before getting into the exercises, first bust some ab myths.

Visible abs

To be able to see your abs you need to have a relatively low body fat percentage. You can work your core all you want, but if you carry excess body fat you won’t be able to see your abdominal muscles. The more developed your abs are the more visible they will be though. I’m probably somewhere around 15% body fat. My abs are visible although I still carry a bit of fat in the area. I feel quite good at this bodyweight though, so I wouldn’t sacrifice anything just for the sake of having more defined abs. But I will dive deeper into body fat percentages in another blog post.

Doing ab exercises to burn belly fat

A lot of people do ab exercises because they think it will make their bellies disappear. You can’t really blame them for that as this myth has been used to sell ‘fitness products’ for decades. The truth is you can’t get rid of body fat in one place only. If you want to lose weight, lower your caloric intake and move more. And of course do your ab exercises, so they start popping out once your body fat percentage is low enough.

But the goal of these exercises is not to make you into a fitness model, but to make it easier to progress with calisthenics, no matter what age you are or what your current body fat percentage is. And if you’re a complete beginner when it comes to calisthenics make sure to read my blog post for beginners too.

1. Hanging knee raises

Knee raises are one of the best calisthenics ab exercises to start with. Although primarily hitting your lower abs, this exercise also hits your obliques and your hip flexors. And because you’re hanging from a bar it will also improve your grip strength and shoulder health and work your forearms too.

Form cues

Hang from the bar with a pronated grip (palms facing away from you). Tilt your pelvis towards your ribs, engaging your glutes and lift your knees to your chest. Then, slowly, lower your legs down again. The slower and more controlled you perform this movement, the more you gain from this exercise. Aim for 3 set of 6 to 15 reps. Once you can perform 15 reps with perfect form you can start doing leg raises with straight legs.

Key to ‘skin the cat’

Apart from being a great core exercise on their own, knee raises are a necessary progression to unlock the ‘skin the cat’ exercise. And from there, the back lever.

Still too hard

If hanging knee raises are still too challenging for you, you can perform them on the ground. The movement pattern is the same. Lie on your back, palms facing down, legs extended. Brace your core and your glutes and pull your knees to your chest. Hold this for a second and then lower your legs back to the starting position. Perform this movement slow and controlled, to get the most out of this exercise.

It’s also a good idea to perform dead hangs to improve your grip strength. Simply hang from a bar for as long as you can without flexing your shoulders. Dead hangs are beneficial to anyone regardless of their level of fitness as they are great for your shoulder health and reducing pain and soreness.

2. Hollow body hold

The hollow body hold is not as much a beginner exercise as a staple for everyone doing calisthenics. It can be challenging at first, but perfecting this ab exercise will definitely aid your calisthenics journey. This exercise works your abs and obliques, but also your quads, hip flexors and spinal erectors.

Form cues

As the name suggests, your body should have a ‘hollow body’, banana shape. Lie on your back with your legs extended, arms in line with your head (if this is too challenging you can keep your arms lower). Contract your abs to press your lower back into the floor, posterior tilting your pelvis. Point your toes and raise your legs a few inches while you keep your lower back on the floor. Then lift your head and shoulders off the floor.

The most important cue for this exercise is to keep full body tension throughout this hold and always (always!) keep that lower back on the floor. You can make the hollow body hold a bit easier by lifting your legs a bit higher or changing the angle of your arms. Hold the hollow body hold for as long as you can for 3-5 sets. The hollow body hold is also a good exercise to implement in your warm up routine.

Key to handstands, front levers

The posture cues you learn from doing the hollow body hold will help massively with your handstand. If you want to keep your body in a straight line, you need to brace your abs to prevent your lower back from arching. Like with most of these calisthenics exercises the main goal is not just to build your core muscles, but to learn how to control your spine. This is also essential when learning the front lever. Of course the front lever takes tremendous lat strength, but if you lack the ability to control your spine effectively, your front lever is dead in the water.

3. L-hang

When it comes to important calisthenics ab exercises the L-hang is the next step. The L-hang is an isometric hold that focusses on your abdominal muscles but also targets your lats, shoulders and hip flexors. For me the L-hang is less challenging than the L-sit, but that might be different for you. If you find L-sits easier, feel free to swap 3 and 4 around.

Form cues

As with the knee raises, hang from the bar with a pronated grip. Keep your body straight with your heels in line with your lower back and your toes pointing downwards. Lift your legs up until your feet are in line with your knees and hips. Hold this position for as long as you can. Rest and repeat for 3-5 sets.

Key to L-sit pull ups

A great way to increase the difficulty of pull ups without adding weight is to do them holding an L-sit. This will work your lats even harden than with normal pull ups.

4. L-sit

Although your body is in a similar shape, the L-sit is a very different calisthenics ab exercise. This exercise works your shoulders and triceps a lot harder than the L-hang. To be able to push your body off the floor you need to depress your shoulders and compress your core. If you’re not used to this, this can be quite challenging.

Form cues

It’s best to start practising your L-sit slightly elevated. You can use books or parallettes. Depress your shoulders and lift your legs, holding an L-shape. Hold for as long as you can rest and repeat for 3-5 sets. A good way to progress is by lowering the object you hold your L-sit from. For example start with three books under each hand, go down to two, one until eventually you can hold the L-sit from the floor. Doing L-sits on your fists also gives you a bit more height.

You can also practise your L-sit in a reverse pyramid way: start on the floor, then move on to your fists, books, parallettes. You can also do them on the rings, but only if you’re comfortable doing at least 10 ring dips with good form.

Key to tuck planche

Getting good at L-sits is very helpful once you start practising your planche progressions. Not just because that means you have a strong core, the ability to depress your shoulders is also very important. If L-sits are getting too easy for you, you can start practising your V-sit.

5. Ab wheel roll outs on knees

Ab wheel roll outs when done correctly are far from an easy exercise. It’s a lot more challenging than a plank, even when you do it on your knees. In the beginning, mainly focus on perfecting your form, treating every repetition like a set on its own. Apart from your abs and obliques, this exercise also works your lower back (spinal erectors), hamstrings, lats, and even your shoulders.

Form cues

First of all, you want to put something soft under your knees like a pillow or rolled up yoga mat. It’s also a good idea to film yourself the first couple of times you do this exercise, to make sure you perform it correctly. Doing ab wheel roll outs incorrectly can put a lot of strain on your lower back. The position of your hips is very important when you perform this exercise. At the starting position you want your hips to be just in front of your knees, and when you come back up you don’t want to come back past this point. Also, you want your hips to be extended and not flexed. Your arms should stay straight and in front of your shoulders. Your abs should be under tension throughout the whole movement. Make sure not to arch your lower back!

As said before, the ab roll out is a hard exercise. In the beginning you might not be able to roll all the way out and that’s fine. Just make sure you perform the exercise correctly and increase the range of motion over time! Daniel Vadnal from FitnessFaq’s made a good video about what the common mistakes are when performing this exercise.

Key to standing ab wheel roll out

In my opinion the standing ab roll out is the holy grail of calisthenics ab exercises. No matter how advanced you are, this exercise is extremely challenging. Don’t start with standing ab roll outs until you can perform at least 20 knee ab roll outs with perfect form and preferably after you mastered the Dragon Flag (coming up).

6. Toes to bar

Toes to bar is one of the hardest calisthenics ab exercises. If you can perform toes to bar with perfect form there is no doubt you have tremendous core strength. Like previous core exercises where you are hanging from a bar, this exercise also targets your lats, hip flexors, forearms and shoulders.

Form cues

Like with the previous exercises toes to bar should be performed with a pronated grip. Start from an active hang, engaging your lats. Then use your abs and hip flexors to move your toes to the bar. If you can hold an L-hang for a longer period of time this shouldn’t be a problem for you. Avoid kipping, and perform this exercise as slow and controlled as possible.

Key to front lever

If you want to achieve the front lever, you definitely want to implement toes to bar in your routine. If you get good at these, while also getting really good at weighted pull ups, the front lever shouldn’t be that hard to achieve.

7. Dragon flag

Made famous by Bruce Lee, the dragon flag is an advanced calisthenics ab exercise. If you can perform dragon flags with perfect form it means you have absolute control over your body. Even more than the previous calisthenics ab exercises, the dragon flag is effectively a whole body exercise.

Form cues

To perform dragon flags you need a fixed or heavy object. In the gym, you can do this by holding the sides of the bench you’re lying on. At home, the bottom of a solid sofa or bed is probably the best option. Contract your torso and lift drive your legs up. Point your toes and keep your entire body rigid. Your shoulders and upper back remain in touch with the floor but the rest of your body should be elevated and straight. Once vertical, keep your body straight as a plank and lower it down, slow and controlled until it hovers just above the ground. Raise it again and repeat for reps. Once you fail to keep your body straight, stop immediately or you might hurt your lower back.

If you start practising dragon flags it’s a good idea to perfect the eccentric (negative) part of the movement first. Pay special attention to the bottom of the movement where your legs almost touch the ground. Once you can perform ten consecutive negatives with good form, you’re ready to start working on the concentric too.

Key to

Although the dragon flag is a great goal on it’s own, there isn’t a single calisthenics skill that doesn’t benefit from that amount of body control. Whether your goal is a one arm pull up or a full planche, having mastered the dragon flag will definitely help you.

Programming calisthenics ab exercises

Because your core is challenged with most calisthenics exercises, there’s no need to do too much volume. If you’re on a whole body split, program one challenging ab exercise into your routine and move on to a more difficult one when it becomes easy. If you’re on a ‘push-pull-legs’ split like me, do one or two ab exercises on leg day. Like with every exercise, progressive overload is key to get the results you want.

What are your favourite calisthenics ab exercises? Please share them in the comment section below. Likewise if you have any questions about this post, feel free to ask them. And if you want to receive a notification every time I publish a new post, please subscribe to the newsletter!