AB Workout Cheat Sheet: Which Ab Exercises and When to Do Them
Summary
Jeff Cavaliere of AthleanX argues that when you train your abs matters just as much as which exercises you choose. He recommends carving out a dedicated, separate ab session during the day rather than tacking it onto a workout, and emphasizes attacking the abs in a specific strategic sequence for maximum results.
Key Points
- Timing matters: The three options for ab training are before a workout, after a workout, or at a completely separate time during the day — and the separate session is strongly preferred.
- Before your workout: Not ideal because your focus is on the main workout ahead, meaning you won’t give ab training the attention it deserves.
- After your workout: Also problematic — after a high-intensity session, you have little energy left, and fatigued hip flexors and legs significantly compromise ab exercise quality.
- Separate daily session: Recommended 5–6 times per week, requiring only 5–10 minutes. Short duration makes it sustainable and allows full focus.
- Habit stacking for consistency: Linking your ab session to an existing daily habit — such as right before dinner — makes it much easier to stay consistent.
- Strategic exercise order matters: Abs should be attacked in a specific sequence (lower abs → obliques → mid-range/upper abs), not randomly. This ensures that when lower abs fatigue, the upper abs can still function and be effectively trained.
- Any timing beats skipping: If a separate session truly isn’t possible, doing abs before or after a workout is far better than skipping entirely — no matter how low your body fat percentage is, you still need muscle development to make abs visible.
Exercise Details
The video demonstrates an AthleanX-style ab routine following the six-pack progression framework. While individual exercise names are not fully detailed in the transcript, the following structural guidance is provided:
Target Muscles (by progression order)
- Lower abs (trained first, while freshest)
- Obliques
- Mid-range / upper abs (trained last)
Form & Programming Principles
- Follow the bottom-up → rotation → mid-range sequence to ensure each muscle group is targeted while still fresh
- Avoid relying on hip flexor dominance, especially when legs are already fatigued from a prior workout
- Keep sessions short and focused — 5 to 10 minutes is sufficient when the approach is strategic
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Randomly selecting ab exercises without a structured order
- Training abs after leg day when hip flexors are already exhausted
- Skipping ab training entirely because the timing isn’t perfect
Frequency
- 5–6 dedicated sessions per week, each lasting 5–10 minutes