I swapped sit-ups for an ab roller and it delivered a more effective abs workout

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Louise Thomas

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Sit-ups have copped a lot of flack in recent years, but I still believe they’re pretty good at their job – namely, conditioning the rectus abdominis (RA), or the muscles on the front of your stomach responsible for the six-pack shape.

In my eyes their main shortcoming is that, once you can do a few fairly comfortably, you have to crunch through countless reps to challenge yourself and feel the benefits. Sure you can add weight to increase the difficulty, but I think it’s more fun to find trickier alternatives. Enter the ab roller.

This nifty bit of kit can be picked up for a snip (Myprotein.com, £9.99) and will test the strength of your abs more than most bodyweight exercises. It calls other core muscles into action too, like the spine-stabilising transverse abdominis, offering extra bang for your buck.

I’ve weaved an ab roller into my exercise routine for some time, but recently sit-ups and other abs exercises have been more prevalent. So I decided to remind myself why I picked up an ab roller in the first place by subjecting my mid-section to quick strengthening sessions, exclusively using this training tool.

A 2001 study by the biomechanics lab at San Diego State University, commissioned by the American Council on Exercise (ACE), used electromyography equipment to measure muscle activity in several core muscles during some of the most popular abs exercises.

While the bicycle crunch came out on top for RA activation, researchers stated that: “The ab roller was proven to be virtually no more effective than the traditional crunch.”

Despite this, I’m still an advocate of this cheap and cheerful training tool, mainly because it presents more of a challenge than most bodyweight abs exercises. And when it comes to strength training, challenging your muscles is the way to make progress.

The San Diego State University research would suggest that a crunch and an ab rollout feel similarly difficult, but having tried both I can confidently say this isn’t the case. I can perform 12 controlled sit-ups, no sweat, but a few sets of 12 ab roll-outs in my recent workout left my mid-body muscles fired up.

Ben Gotting, founder and coach at the Foundry gym in London, explains why this might be. He says that, “ab rollers allow you to train your abdominals both concentrically [on the way up, when your spine is flexing] and more importantly eccentrically [on the way down, when your spine is lengthening].”

“Trauma in the muscle occurs predominantly when eccentrically contracting our muscles, hence why we get very sore when performing slow tempo work. After the muscle gets damaged, it then cleverly repairs over time and gets bigger and ultimately stronger.”

So, if you want to strengthen your abs, an ab roller is a cheap and effective option. Gotting advises that you can also try slowing down your reps to make ab rollouts harder and more effective.

Another reason I like using this equipment is because it adds variety into my workouts. There’s a lot to be said for consistently repeating the same exercises in your training and applying progressive overload (gradually increasing the difficulty over time) if you want to see improvements, but it’s also fun to mix things up and test yourself in new ways. The ACE-commissioned study agree on this point.

The study’s authors report that, “the important thing to remember is that you don’t need to purchase a piece of exercise equipment to strengthen your abs. If, however, you find that an ab device inspires you to stick with your exercise program, then it may be valuable.”

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It’s possible to spend a lot of money on an ab roller, but I don’t think this is necessary. If you want to work your rectus abdominis muscles, a small, simple wheel with two comfortable handles on either side will suffice. And that’s exactly what you get with this Myprotein option, all for less than a tenner.

So, if you want to switch up your ab training and challenge yourself with some new kit, this ab roller may just tick every box. There’s a lot to be said for slowing down your movements and training in new ways and from my perspective, this can keep things interesting, especially if you’re craving a change.

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