The 9 Best Ab Exercises You Can Do in a Chair

Many popular ab exercises require you to get up and down from the floor. But you can hit all your core muscles without standing up from your seat. And not all chair ab exercises are for beginners, either — some can humble even the most experienced exercisers.

The best part? These exercises can be performed without any equipment, no matter where you are. All you need is a place to sit and your own body weight.

Below, we share the best ab exercises you can do in a chair. Here are a few things to know before you get started:

• Always engage your core muscles and keep your shoulders relaxed as you do these exercises. Breathe normally — don't hold your breath.
• Some of these exercises can be modified to match your strength level. If something feels too hard or too easy, try changing your body position.
• These chair ab exercises can be performed for a number of reps or for time. We suggest starting with 10 to 15 reps or 20 to 30 seconds per exercise. Add more reps or time when you need an additional challenge.
• These exercises are a great fit for many people, but if you're already very strong, you'll likely need external load or harder core exercises to see further strength gains.

Want to build your own ab chair workout? Select 3 to 5 of these exercises to do in circuit. Perform each exercise in a row with 10 to 30 seconds of rest in between. Once you've completed all the exercises one time, go back to the top and repeat for 2 to 5 rounds.

The hollow hold is a classic ab exercise that teaches you to engage and hold your muscles for time. Think of this as an upside-down plank that targets every muscle in your core.

If you're a beginner, use hollow holds to build strength and improve your posture. More experienced? You can seriously smoke your core and legs using long hollow holds with arms and legs up.

You can perform several variations of hollow holds while seated. Start with level 1, then gradually make the exercise harder as you get stronger.

Leg marching is a combo move that targets your core and lower body. It's a great way to strengthen your hip muscles, which can become tight and weak with too much uninterrupted sitting.

The forward crunch is a seated variation of the standard floor crunch. This move primarily targets the rectus abdominus, also known as your six pack. Skip this exercise if bending your spine causes low back discomfort.

Despite the name, this exercise isn't a true crunch. Rather, you use your core muscles to lean backward while maintaining a flat, straight back. This is a great alternative for anyone who feels discomfort doing forward crunches.

Bicycle crunches on the floor are a staple of many ab workouts because they effectively target the front and sides of your abs. This chair variation works the same way and can be surprisingly humbling!

This challenging crunch variation targets your abs, hips and legs. Beginners may want to build strength with other exercises on this list before trying these.

Your obliques are muscles on the sides of your core that help you bend and twist from side to side. The oblique twist is a simple exercise that anyone can do to train their obliques from a chair. This exercise requires you to rotate through your spine, so it may not be a good fit for some people with low back pain.

Side bends are another simple chair oblique exercise. Whereas the oblique twist hits the rotation function of your obliques, side bends hit them through side-to-side bending. This exercise also provides a nice stretch for your side.

The side crunch is the most challenging oblique-focused exercise on this list. Add it to the mix once you feel strong with side bends and forward crunches.