I am sure you can’t disagree with me on this when that your abs are among the “most wanted’ group of muscles. And you are not alone, rather it is the case with almost every one of us.
Similarly, not all abs need to be labeled as “made-in-gym or weighted abs workouts” rather there are certain movements that you can do without any special gym equipment. Such simple yet effective exercises that can carve your perfect abdomen are called “pull up bar ab workouts”.
For these pull-up bar abs exercises, all you need is a pull-up bar, like you need in case of Pull-Ups & Dips, and witness your core shredding and going strong over strength in days.
Below are easy ab exercises by using a pull-up bar that can help you perfectly sculpt your chest to give you your beloved V line abs.
What muscles does pull up work?
The muscles worked during your pull up bar exercises for chest are.
- Latissimus dorsi or Lats: it lies in your back and gives power to your pull-ups
- Pectoral muscles or Pecs: they lie in the upper chest, and are primarily involved in powering your pull-ups i.e they work and are worked on.
- Pectoralis major and pectoralis minor: part of your chest
- Biceps brachii, Brachioradialis, and Brachialis: biceps muscle
- levator scapulae
- Rhomboids
- Infraspinatus
- Supraspinatus
- Subscapularis
- teres minor
- Erector spinae
- Obliques
Now, before even going to pull up bar exercises you first need to know how to properly do a pull up i.e How to properly place your hands on the bar? What your body position should be like? How your shoulder and hands should behave while you are doing them?
How to properly perform pull-ups?
The basics of pull-ups remain the same no matter what type of grip you choose on your bar, whether it is overhand grip, lower handgrip, or a wider hand grip.
Below, I will briefly explain how to ace the pull-ups properly with an “overhand grip” which is the most common type of a bar grip
Step 1: Get your hands on a bar either a little jump or any elevated object for your assistance. After grabbing it with your overhand grip, keep your hands wider than your shoulders.
Step 2: Using your abdomen muscles to get your torso in a stable position and pull your shoulders back and down in such a way that they should remain in the same posture during the whole pull up exercise.
Step 3: Now while breathing out, get your elbows to get your sides by powerfully pulling them bringing them to your body up and close with bar. You need to stop when your chin becomes parallel with the bar.
Step 4: Now, slowly undo the whole movement and bring your body to its original position but making sure that your shoulders are down and back. This will complete one rep of pull up movement.
Best pull up-bar Ab workouts
While building that six-pack is not the easiest of tasks but it is worth the time and effort you put to show a chiseled chest to your world of family and friends. But, giving a proud movement and awe that it creates for it witness is not the only benefit that it offers.
Rather a well-built abdomen and strong core are important for your other daily life purposes too like maintaining better posture, achieving better sports performance, and managing your pain more comfortably.
With that being said, just finishing off dozens of crunches for perfectly toned abs just like and hundreds of light dumbbell curls won’t give you bigger biceps but hitting them from several angles, alternating reps, and sets of different ab exercises will surely create a rock-hard six-pack that makes proud and happy.
The following are some of the best pull up ab exercises for beginners. They are sometimes also called doorway pullup bar exercises or horizontal pull exercises.
1. L-hang
How to do it?
- Start by hanging from the pull-up bar and then go directly into such a position that your knees are lifted to your chest side while your legs are bent. While in this posture, open your shoulder blades back and down under.
- Now, while maintaining that tucking position where your knees are lifted to your chest side while your legs are bent, create a pull up by using your power to pull yourself up towards the bar hanging horizontally above.
- Finally, get your back down, and uplift your lifted knees and unbend your bent legs to come back into a straight hanging by the bar position.
2. L-hang siders
How to do it?
- Start by hanging for a pull-up bar such that your hands are as wide as your shoulders.
- Now, lift your legs right in front of you to get them perpendicular to your hips
- Now, while keeping this posture and angle intact, try moving your torso from one side to the other side and taking them to as far as possible while doing to either of the two sides.
- Make sure that your chest and upper body are relatively still and unmoved.
3. Windshield Wipers
How to do it?
- Start by hanging from the pull-up bar, lift your toes to the bar side to get yourself in a “pike” position.
- Now, while in this position, try moving your legs back and forth with complete control and in slow motion. It is just like a windshield wiper does when you are removing water from your car’s glasses.
4. Around the World
How to do it?
- Start by hanging from a pull up bar such that your hands are kept as wide as your shoulders.
- Now, while keeping your core in control, try lifting your legs to such a height that your feet reach a bit higher than the pull up bar.
- Finally, while keeping everything in controlled, rotate your legs like a circle in one direction. Take a brief rest, and go on to rotate them again in the other direction.
5. The Dragon Flag
How to do it?
- Start with a pull-up bar fixated at lowly height very near to the ground.
- Now, lie down while keeping our face up and grabbing the pull up bar just over your head.
- Now, lift and swing your legs to the up a few inches off the ground and in the meantime, keep your abs tight and raise your torso up the ground or a nearby placed bench.
- Now, when you are in the air with power from your core, try lowering down yourself slowly.
6. Plank
How to do it?
- Start by fixing the pull-up bar in a position that is just about 10-12 cm above the ground.
- Now, letting your toes touching the bar with your feet, let your elbows or hands be just under your shoulders supporting your upper body.
- In this position, your forearms should be running parallel to each other while in this position your hands should be touching.
- Now, by engaging all muscles in your body, align your hips, abdomen, lower body and upper body to remain in this tensed position for as much time as possible.
7. Garhammer raise
How to do it?
- Begin with a top of the hanging knee raise like a position in a way that your abs are completely involved.
- From here, while completely involving your abs and keeping them stretched, get your knees to further height while pointing towards your chest.
- Finally, lower yourself back to the starting position but your abs should not relax. This exercise requires a high rep range so you might feel your abs cramping and breaking at the end of your exercise sets and reps.
Difficulty level: Easy
Targets muscle: Lower abs
Rep range: 15-20
8. Knees to chest
- Form begin with the top of the hanging knee position while keeping your abs involved throughout the process.
- Now, in this position of abs and body, get your knees to as high as possible.
- Finally, get to lower back to the original position while keeping the tension in your body intact.
Difficulty level: Medium
Targets muscle: Entire core
Rep range target: 10-12
9. Hanging Leg Raises
How to do it?
- While setting yourself to hang from a pull-up ab bar, get your body to complete relaxation such that your body and your arms form a single, vertical and straight line.
- No, without swinging around, lift your legs forward to as high as possible without creating a bend in your knees.
- Once your knees have reached the maximum possible height, hold on there for a second, and then lower it down under complete control.
Difficulty level: Medium
Targets muscle: Lower abs
Rep range: 10-12
10. Hanging Knee Raises
How to do it?
- Knee raises are a low key form of a leg raise. These are generally used when you can’t perform leg raises to their maximum potential due to physical issues.
- The major difference between a leg raise and knee raise is that while you have to keep your legs upright and lift them up in case of leg raise, here, simply you are allowed to bend your knees and lift them to your chest level.
Difficulty level: Easy
Targets muscle: Lower abs
Rep range: 10-15
11. Hanging Crunches
How to do it?
- As the name suggests, this exercise is the hanging version of crunches done for abs while hanging up a bar.
- Start by hanging in a neutral position, and in this posture, tighten and bend your abdomen as you would perform in a sitting crunches position.
- Now, by bringing your legs above and forward, get them to bend at the knees. Hang on here for a moment and then stretch back to the hanging position.
- Finally, resist the temptation to drop your legs freely, however, try your best to lower them in a slow and precise way.
12. Hanging knee raise twist
How to do it?
- Start by hanging from a ring bar while keeping your legs straight.
- Now, while keeping your chest upright and involving your abs and glutes, bring your knees up while making twisting to one side as you are lifting them until they become equal to your hip’s height.
- Hold one here for a second, and then lower down back to the original position.
- Finally, get to the other side of the body and repeat the same as above while alternating between both sides in each rep is important.
Difficulty level: Easy
Targets muscle: Obliques
Rep range: 10-15
13: Hanging pike raises
How to do it?
- Start by hanging from the pull-up bar by lifting the leg straight such that your legs are beyond parallel to the ground and are kissing your bar.
- Now, keep your legs joined to each other and straight as possible while they are moving up.
- Finally, return to the original position to make one rep. Try doing at least 10-12 repetitions for best results.
Important Pull-up bar ab workouts tips
- While doing any of the above pull up bar exercises, you always have to maintain tension throughout your abdomen for the complete duration of the sets. The more stretched your abs are, the better the chance for you to grow them stronger and toned.
- If your grip at the pull-up bar is wavering, you can use some straps to keep your hands locked to help you hit an extra number of reps and sets.
- Or even your hands are very slippery, you can use ab straps to hang down from the bar and you can use your upper arms to control your unstable body while you are doing any of the above intense exercises.
Top Ab workouts for getting a six-pack fast
No doubt, pull up abs workouts are one of the great ways to reveal your abs definition, but you have to work more than this if you really want to build those six-pack abs. You have to choose a variety of abs workouts to get perfectly chiseled workouts.
These could be either a complete Abs circuit setup, a set of weighted abs workouts, and other abs toning exercises. Following are some of the best abs workouts in addition to that pull-up bar workout routine to help you get those v line abs quickly.
1. Reverse crunches.
Instructions
- First, begin with lying on the floor with your legs just extended straight to you.
- Then, start bending your knees and try lifting your feet until your thighs are just perpendicular to floor i.e at a 90-degree angle to the floor.
- Then get you knees to tuck in your chest and try lifting the hips above the floor
- Now bring back your legs to the starting position by lowering them.
- Now, keep repeating this moment for one and a half minutes.
2. Oblique crunch
Instructions
- Firstly, lie on your right with your upper body just off the bench
- Now, get your bottom side to the front and fix your heel just under the bench and after this get your upper leg back and fix your toes just under it.
- Now extend your torso downwards the floor at about a 30-degree angle below the bench.
- Now, slowly lift your hand upwards so that your hand palm is touching your head in close and put your right hand on your side torso like if you are hugging your torso and you feel them being stretched.
- While keeping your legs stable, try crunching your left-hand elbow up and side, then taking it towards your left hip to maximum height
- Now get yourself back and down to your initial position where you started just underneath your bench. This completes one rep
- Now repeat all you’ve done up to 12-15 reps and after doing that you can start doing these crunches from left side.
3. Ab rollout
Instructions
- Firstly, put the ab roller on the floor but firmly grip it with both hands and while doing this bent down onto the floor.
- Now get the ab roller out slowly, and extend your body forward.
- Now, try going down as below as possible while making sure that your body should not touch the floor. Also, try keeping your core as controlled as possible.
- Finally, stay some time in the stretched position, bring your core into play and take easy breadths while you are bringing yourself back to the original position. This is one rep
- Try doing at least 12-14 reps in this workout
4. Hanging knee raise
Instructions
- Start by getting yourself hanging from a pull-up bar with your hand palms not towards your mouth and at kept at the distance of shoulder. But make sure your feet should be together.
- Now try bending your knees and hips together at the same time and tuck your lower back under as you are trying to lift your thigh towards your big chest.
- Stop when your thighs are close to your chest and then slowly get your legs back to the original position. If you want to avoid turning your hips and torso, try engaging your core.
5. Lying Leg Raises
Instructions
- Firstly lie down on your back with your legs expanded in your front.
- Now, put your arms on both sides of your legs
- Now by straightening your legs and keeping your feet together, keep them raising until they are just 45 degrees to the floor.
- Now keep lowering your legs until they reach to start position.
- This is one step, keep repeating this for at least 1 minute.
6. Swiss-Ball Curl Up
Instructions
- Start by reclining on a swiss ball so that your body parts like head, shoulder, and back are properly in touch with the ball but your feet should lie flat on the floor.
- Now get your arms to fold around your chest such that hands should be touching across the opposite shoulder.
- Now, try pulling your bell and core towards your spine while keeping your abs squeezed while you this move. This focus is important for building abs.
- Now slowly push your torso up, ribs by ribs, until you are just short of an upright sitting position.
- Finally, lower your body to its original position. This will complete one rep for your body. Try doing this for as many times as you can until you can’t
An important thing to remember: The ball should not move away from your body as you are curling.
7. Cable Crunch
How to do it?
- Start by getting a triceps rope handle up on the pulley by the carriage of a cable station. The carriage should be adjusted such that it reaches almost the top third of the cable machine. Also, it depends upon your height too.
- In the next step, choose the resistance amount you can handle easily. When you feel more confident and strong enough, you need to increase the weight.
- While keeping your face towards pulley, come down in a kneeling position like about one and a half so feet away from the machine.
- Now hold on the triceps rope and get your core in position. You would feel a kind of stretch in your abs. If you can’t do that because weight is not heavy enough. So increase it and bring it near to your shin.
- Now, try pulling the handles and bent arms at the same time and get yourself a crunch. In this case, your elbows should become equal to your thighs.
- Finally, keeping control of yourself go back to the original position while still maintaining the tension in the pulley. This is where one complete rep is performed.
8. Plank and Rotate
How to do it?
- Start in a position like a plank while you are holding on to about 5-pound dumbbells in your both hands, and stiffening your wrists to safeguard your joints.
- Now, get your feet to litter more wide than your body width.
- Now, lift your left hand towards the ceiling while rotating your entire torso. In this movement, your pelvis will try to rotate itself but keep it under control.
- Finally, bring up your left hand back on the ground, and repeat the same above action for the other side to complete one repetition.
9. Barbell Ab Rollouts
How to do it?
- Start by placing a barbell that is weighed with about 7-10 pounds of plates, on the ground such that your hands and knees make a kneeling position. This is your beginning point.
- Next, hold on firmly barbell with both hands kept wider than shoulders.
- Now, slowly get the bar rolling out forward, with your body being stretched in a straight position.
- After a few seconds rest in this stretched position, get yourself back by pulling yourself back to the initial position while you are breathing out.
10. Landmine Anti-Rotation
How to do it?
- Start with having a landmine apparatus having a handle. If you don’t have a landmine apparatus, you can make use of a simple barbell placed in a room’s corner.
- While making a half-moon shape, Never move the hips whatsoever, which is the key to success in this exercise.
- While doing the movement, keep your body under control and nothing should move except your arms.
- To involve more abs muscle fibers, keep your abs upright and try exhaling at the end of each rep.
11. Seated Russian Twist
How to do it?
- Start with sitting on the ground while making sure your knees are bent and your heels kept at a distance of foot form your butt.
- While maintaining your back as straight and still, try leaning back without rotating your spine for a second even. This is crucial for this exercise effectiveness.
- Now, hold one either weight or medicine ball right under your chest.
- Now, while keeping the weight as close to your body as possible, try moving the weight further and further.
- Now pull back your navel to your back and move away slightly to the left. This movement is primarily generated by rotating ribs.
- Finally, while spinning to the right, try inhaling through the center. This is one rep completed.
Keeping in view the length of the content and user experience, you can find all the best abs workouts in the post about the best beginners gym ab workouts.
Best Abs workouts part II: Abs circuit as full Abs workout
In the following part, I will be going through a complete circuit of the Abs workout. I will start with the upper abs of the abdomen, then give exercises of lower abs. Finally, I will be giving you some core and obliques workouts and complete the ab workout circuit.
Exercise 1: Sit-Up
Primary Target: Upper Abs
- Lie flat on your back on the floor with your knees bent and your legs secured under a piece of heavy furniture or bench.
- Place your hands by your chest.
- Flexing your abdominals, raise your torso until you are in nearly a sitting position.
- Retaining tension on the abs, lower your torso to the beginning position. (Note: Maintain full control throughout the movement. Avoid the temptation to rock back and forth.)
Exercise 2: Jackknife Sit-Up
Primary Target: Upper and Lower Abs
- Lie flat on your back on the floor with your legs straight in front of you.
- Place your hands at your sides by the floor for support.
- Flexing your lower abdominals, raise your legs until they are perpendicular to the floor.
- At this time, raise your shoulders and torso as far as possible from the ground in a curling movement without raising your back from the floor.
- Maintain tension as you lower your legs to the beginning position, then bring your torso to the starting position as well. (Note: Maintain full control throughout the movement. Avoid the temptation to rock back and forth.)
Exercise 3: Knee-In
Primary Target: Lower Abs
- Sit on the floor (or on the edge of a chair or exercise bench) with your legs extended in front of you and your hands holding on to the sides for support.
- Keep your knees together and pull them in toward your chest until you can’t go any farther.
- Keeping the tension on your lower abs, return to the start position and repeat the movement until you’ve completed your set.
Exercise 4: Toe-Toucher
Primary Target: Upper and Lower Abs
- Lie on the floor with your legs touching and extended in front of you, and your hands by your side.
- Lift your legs up as high as possible while at the same time bringing your torso toward them and reaching your hands toward your toes.
- Return to the start position and repeat the movement until you have completed your set.
Keeping in view the user experience and length of content, for your complete guide about best this complete ab training, visit the post about the complete abs circuit training for beginners.
FAQs
Q: Can you get abs from pull-ups?
Answer: Definitely, pull-ups are one of the best forms of exercise to tone your abs. These pull-ups bar workouts work your abs from many different angles, which is the only way to properly tone your abs.
Following pull up bar workouts can get you abs from pull-ups.
1. L-hang
2. L-hang siders
3. Windshield wipers
4. Around the world
5. Toes to bar
6. The Dragon flag
7. Plank
8. Garhammer raise
9. Knees to chest
10. Hanging leg raise
11. Hanging knee raise
12. Hanging crunches
13. Hanging pike raises
Q: Are pull-ups good for core?
Ans: Definitely, pull-ups are one of the best forms of exercise to tone your abs. These pull-ups bar workouts work your abs from many different angles, which is the only way to properly tone your abs.
Following pull up bar workouts can get you abs from pull-ups.
1. L-hang
2. L-hang siders
3. Windshield wipers
4. Around the world
5. Toes to bar
6. The Dragon flag
7. Plank
8. Garhammer raise
9. Knees to chest
10. Hanging leg raise
11. Hanging knee raise
12. Hanging crunches
13. Hanging pike raises
Q: What can you do with a pull-up bar?
Ans: A pull up bar can be used as one of the best tools to work many of our bodies important muscles group like our chests, our abs, our glutes and our shoulders and arms.
With a pull-up bar, you can a variety of pull-ups like:
1. Climber pull-ups
2. Behind neck pull-ups
3. Negative pull-ups
With a pull-up bar, you can do a variety of chin-ups like:
1. Batwing chin-ups
2. Band assisted chin-ups
3. Gironda sternum chin-ups
4. A standard chin up
5. A hanging reverse shoulder shrugs
With a pull-up bar, you can do following abs workouts like:
1. L-hang
2. L-hang siders
3. Windshield wipers
4. Around the world
5. Toes to bar
6. The Dragon flag
7. Plank
8. Garhammer raise
9. Knees to chest
10. Hanging leg raise
11. Hanging knee raise
12. Hanging crunches
13. Hanging pike raises
Q: Does chin-up work abs?
Ans: Yes chin-ups are one of the best workouts for abs. Following are the chin-ups exercises that can be the best work for your abs.
1. L-hang
2. L-hang siders
3. Windshield wipers
4. Around the world
5. Toes to bar
6. The Dragon flag
7. Plank
8. Garhammer raise
9. Knees to chest
10. Hanging leg raise
11. Hanging knee raise
12. Hanging crunches
13. Hanging pike raises
Q: Does hanging from a pull-up bar help?
Ans: Yes, hanging from a pull-up bar can help in many ways.
A pull up bar can be used as one of the best tools to work many of our bodies important muscles group like our chests, our abs, our glutes and our shoulders and arms.
With a pull-up bar, you can a variety of pull-ups like:
1. Climber pull-ups
2. Behind neck pull-ups
3. Negative pull-ups
With a pull-up bar, you can do a variety of chin-ups like:
1. Batwing chin-ups
2. Band assisted chin-ups
3. Gironda sternum chin-ups
4. A standard chin up
5. A hanging reverse shoulder shrugs
With a pull-up bar, you can do following abs workouts like:
1. L-hang
2. L-hang siders
3. Windshield wipers
4. Around the world
5. Toes to bar
6. The Dragon flag
7. Plank
8. Garhammer raise
9. Knees to chest
10. Hanging leg raise
11. Hanging knee raise
12. Hanging crunches
13. Hanging pike raises
Q: Can you get abs from doing pull-ups?
Ans: Definitely, pull-ups are one of the best forms of exercise to work your abs. These pull-ups bar workouts work your abs from many different angles, which is the only way to properly tone your abs.
Following pull up bar workouts can get you abs from pull-ups.
1. L-hang
2. L-hang siders
3. Windshield wipers
4. Around the world
5. Toes to bar
6. The Dragon flag
7. Plank
8. Garhammer raise
9. Knees to chest
10. Hanging leg raise
11. Hanging knee raise
12. Hanging crunches
13. Hanging pike raises
Q: Does a pull-up bar build muscle?
Ans: Yes, hanging from a pull-up bar can help in many ways to build important muscles group like our chests, our abs, our glutes, and our shoulders and arms.
The following are the muscles that are worked and built in the process of pull up bar workouts.
1. Latissimus dorsi or Lats: it lies in your back and gives power to your pull-ups
2. Pectoral muscles or Pecs: they lie in the upper chest, and are 3.primarily involved in powering your pull-ups i.e they work and are working on.
4. Pectoralis major: part of your chest
5. Pectoralis minor: part of your chest
6. Biceps brachii: the biceps muscles
7. Brachioradialis: the biceps muscle
8. Brachialis: biceps muscle
9. levator scapulae
10. Rhomboids
11. Infraspinatus
12. Supraspinatus,
13. Subscapularis
14. teres minor
15. Erector spinae
16. Obliques
Q: Is the pull up the best exercise?
Ans: Yes, arguably, the pull-ups are of the best exercises to build a variety of important muscles of our body. Being a lot of versatile, they perfectly work your Abs, your chest, your shoulders, your biceps and triceps, and your lats.
In other words, pull-ups can serve as one of the best complete body workouts and the best thing about it is that pull-up offers a variety of workouts than no other workout can.
