Best Exercise for GIRLS Lower Abs?

Getting rid of a gut\fuppa is all about fat loss, not building ab muscles. If you are in a calorie deficit which I imagine you are, you won't really build much ab muscle (or any other) anyway outside of noob gains.

To answer your question, ab wheel, hanging leg raises (hang from a bar, keep legs straight, move ankles to wrist), lying leg raises with ankle weights or holding a dumbbell between your feet

theres this one move that i love because my lower abs annndddd my thighs feel tighter right away when i finish it.
you lay on your back with your knees up at an 90 degree angle. and slowly you drop one foot down, dont quite touch the groud then bring it back up. then repeat on the other side. make sure you keep your leg in the 90 degree angle the whole time, go slow and feel the burn and keep your back on the floor(dont let it arc up) and try to do as many as you can. i try to do at least 50 and the last ten are killer!

theres this one move that i love because my lower abs annndddd my thighs feel tighter right away when i finish it.
you lay on your back with your knees up at an 90 degree angle. and slowly you drop one foot down, dont quite touch the groud then bring it back up. then repeat on the other side. make sure you keep your leg in the 90 degree angle the whole time, go slow and feel the burn and keep your back on the floor(dont let it arc up) and try to do as many as you can. i try to do at least 50 and the last ten are killer!

I love toe taps! They're fantastic for lower abs.

Captain's chair is also good for lower abs if your gym has one. More fave moves for lower abs are pike on a ball and the yoga pose lolasana.

Getting rid of a gut\fuppa is all about fat loss, not building ab muscles. If you are in a calorie deficit which I imagine you are, you won't really build much ab muscle (or any other) anyway outside of noob gains.

To answer your question, ab wheel, hanging leg raises (hang from a bar, keep legs straight, move ankles to wrist), lying leg raises with ankle weights or holding a dumbbell between your feet

I should not be in a calorie deficit as I have done all the calculations and am eating an average of 1600 cals plus some of my exercise calories. I'm lifting 3 times a week, after 30 minutes or so of cardio, and doing more cardio on other days (usually 2). I've upped the protein a bunch and am losing weight on the scale, but can definitely see muscles buidling (or firming?).
I'll try the leg raises, they hurt like a mother, but I have no idea what an ab wheel is!!

If you're not in a calorie deficit, you should be if you want to lose that last bit of fat. Worry about your diet, that's what's going to get rid of the fat on the belly.

They have this thing in my gym - the back support padded board and the two padded bars on the sides. You bend your arms at 90 degree angle and rest your back against the back board and do leg rises with either bent knees or straight leg rises. It will make your lower abdominal muscles very strong. Another good one is doing crunches on the exercise ball - you use several groups of muscle at the some time - works magic for your stomach. And the good old bicycle crunches. I personally thing that slow crunches on the floor/ball will work much better then the one's on the machines.

My problem is lower ab strength. I did zero activity post c-section and now that im working on improving my balance and core, my lower abs seem like they dont exist. I cant even hold my legs up to do Flutters.... I feel like I'm way behind the curve. However, I've lost a lot of weight in my lower abdomen area. It was always bigger than my 'spare tire', and for a while they were shrinking at the same rate, now my lower abdomen is smaller. I just havent been able to manage any of the ab work that requires sitting in a 'C' or 'V' shape. There are a ton of the lower ab stuff that I try really hard to do but I think my muscles are so weak that I need something lighter.

Perhaps a stability ball?

Sounds like you are in a calorie deficit. You want to stay that way to shed the extra bodyfat. This link is to some excellent ab/core exercises...


http://www.tonygentilcore.com/blog/everything-pallof-press/


Eta: the best part is you're off the dang floor.

Barbell squat.

Definitely second the ab wheel and leg lift exercises. I will also lay down and put an exercise ball between my ankles, lift legs and arms, pass ball to arms and bring arms and legs down, reverse and repeat.

However, I think people are predisposed to store fat in a certain place, and for me its the lower abs (I have a proportionally short torso). Even when I weighed 108 (at 5'3" and age 22!) I hated that area, even when I was ripped and benched my weight, or when I could run 5 miles in under 40 minutes, it's always there!

Getting rid of a gut\fuppa is all about fat loss, not building ab muscles. If you are in a calorie deficit which I imagine you are, you won't really build much ab muscle (or any other) anyway outside of noob gains.

To answer your question, ab wheel, hanging leg raises (hang from a bar, keep legs straight, move ankles to wrist), lying leg raises with ankle weights or holding a dumbbell between your feet

I should not be in a calorie deficit as I have done all the calculations and am eating an average of 1600 cals plus some of my exercise calories. I'm lifting 3 times a week, after 30 minutes or so of cardio, and doing more cardio on other days (usually 2). I've upped the protein a bunch and am losing weight on the scale, but can definitely see muscles buidling (or firming?).
I'll try the leg raises, they hurt like a mother, but I have no idea what an ab wheel is!!

It's debatable if you are building muscle, but what you're seeing with more definition is more likely a reduced bf% allOwing your musculature to peek through.

Two things--the ab wheel that someone else mentioned. It looks like a training wheel for a kid's bike but has a small handle/bar through the middle of the wheel. While kneeling you grab each side of the handle and stretch your body forward onto your stomach. Then pull yourself back to the starting position. Works all your core muscles. If you can do a few sets of these, your abs will be in killer shape.

2nd exercise--prone jack knife. (see New Rules of Weight Lifting for Women). You need an exercise ball. Lay on top of the ball on your stomach and walk your hands forward until you're balanced on the ball just with the front of your calves. You'll basically be in a plank/push up position on top of the ball. You'll have to use your abs to stabilize your body on top of the ball. Then using your abs and lower body bend your knees and crunch toward your arms. Return legs to starting position.

Both of these have worked my abs like no other exercises I've tried. Plank is pretty good too but I think these are harder. I still have some fat to lose on my stomach but my abs are in really good shape.

I think that laying on my back with my legs up at 90 degrees and then scissoring them as I bring them down towards the ground and back up again really work my abs. That, and planking (which can be done anywhere without any equipment!)

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand why people get all, "If you want nice abs you have to lose the fat" and such. Well duh! Would people have the same reaction if the OP had asked for the best arm exercises, or the best leg exercises? She mentioned wanting to get rid of the lower belly pudge, but had she lost a lot of BF% there would be somebody naysaying that "How can you expect to have a flat stomach if you've never worked your abs before?"

No, that would never happen. You can have a nice flat stomach/6pack without ever having done an ab exercise in your life. All it takes is losing fat until you can see the abs. On the flipside, you can do ab exercises 7 days a week and it will never make the slightest difference if you don't get your bodyfat low enough.

Ab isolation exercises are one of the most pointless things you can do unless your intent is purely to increase core strength. You will get tons of ab work in indirectly if you're doing most compound exercises anyway. Waste of time for 90% of people.

Point is, if you want to see your abs, all you have to do is get your bodyfat down. Focus on your diet as a primary concern.

reverse crunches.. they suck, but you'll definatly feel them

this!! They are great, in a painful awesome way.

I'm looking for a couple of good exercises to work into my gym routine that focus on the lower abs. I've had two kids and certainly still have a decent bit of weight to lose in the gut, but would like to suck that stuff in as much as possible! I currently always use the Nautilus abdominal at 30/95 and the Cybex Torso at 30/90. Can you share any moves that have helped you successfully reduce your FUPPA? Thanks!

As a matter of fact, I was just thinking about stomach muscles, and just learned that often post-children stomach muscles have a condition called diastasis recti. It can be corrected, but you should do specific exercises to heal the "split" created down the middle of your gut area. Not saying you have this, but just in case you do, you should know that the average abdominal exercises can make this condition worse...thought you would like to know.:)

Check out the post I just made here
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/674886-post-children-stomach-muscles