An expert trainer shares four of her favorite abs exercises for beginners and reveals how to upgrade them

The key to successful strength training is progression. If you want long-term results your workouts need to evolve with you and be consistently challenging. 

To help with this, Sweat app trainer Katie Martin has shared four of her favorite abs exercises for beginners, along with ways to upgrade each one. 

You can start by trying the exercises in their beginner form then, as your core becomes stronger over a few weeks of workouts, you can swap them for the advanced versions. 

How to do Katie Martin’s four favorite abs exercises for all fitness levels

• Crunch or crunches with a plate
• Plank or weighted plank
• Flutters or V-ups 
• Russian twist or Russian twist with dumbbell

For a complete abs workout, you can perform the four exercises above as a circuit, using the beginner or advanced options depending on which one best suits your fitness level.

Perform 12-15 repetitions of each exercise in turn, taking a 30-second rest between each one, and repeat this four-move sequence for three total rounds. 

What is progressive overload and why is it important?

The idea of raising the difficulty of your workouts as your strength and fitness levels improve is called progressive overload. Here’s an example of it in action. 

On week one of your workouts, you might find a 20-second plank hold poses a significant challenge. However, after a few weeks of doing this and other core-strengthening exercises, your mid-body muscles will strengthen and it’s likely the same task will feel much easier. 

That’s when you need to increase the difficulty of the exercise. In this case, you could hold the plank for longer, or take Martin’s advice and add weight to make it harder.  

By doing this, you ensure your muscles are continually challenged and avoid unwanted plateaus in your strength training progress. Progressive overload applies to your whole body too, not just your abs, so make sure you’re using it in all of your your weights workouts.

Need some weights for your home workouts? Our guide to the best adjustable dumbbells can help