The Ab Wheel Rollout Exercise

The Ab Wheel Rollout is an advanced exercise that works the entirety of the core including the rectus abdominis, commonly known as the “six-pack” muscles, the transverse abdominis, the obliques, and the erector spinae in the lower back.

Benefits of the Ab Wheel Rollout

Here are 5 key benefits of the Ab Wheel Rollout exercise:

Core Strength: Ab-rollouts are one of the best exercises for building core strength and stability. You essentially start in a plank position with the core braced tightly, and then extend the arms forwards so that your core is required to maintain the brace with movement, building endurance, strength and stability in the core muscles.

Upper Body Engagement: Whilst the primary focus is on the core muscles, the Ab Rollout also engages muscles across the upper body, including the lats, delts, biceps, triceps and pecs; which can contribute to overall strength development.

Enhanced Athletic Performance: A strong core is vital for many athletic movements, such as running, jumping, and lifting. Improving core strength through exercises like the ab rollout can contribute to better athletic performance and have good transference of strength to other lifts such as the Squat, Deadlift and Pull-up.

Injury Prevention: Strengthening the core muscles helps to stabilise and support the spine, and improve overall posture, reducing the risk of lower back pain and injury.

Minimal Equipment Required: Ab Rollouts are performed with minimal equipment, either an Ab Wheel, a stability ball, or even a TRX, meaning they can easily be done in the gym or at home.

How to perform the Ab Wheel Rollout

When performed correctly, Ab Wheel Rollouts are one of the best exercises for building core stability.

Unfortunately, the movement is often performed incorrectly with people setting up in a box position with hips directly above the knees, rolling forwards and then pulling the hips backwards into the box shape. When performed like this, the load is transferred ouIf you’re doing it like this then essentially you’re transferring the load into the lower body, resulting in minimal core activation.

Instead, you want to make sure you set your body up in a triangle shape, so hips forward with the pelvis tucked in and wrists below shoulders. Roll forwards  from here, keeping the core tight and the back completely flat. Your lower back should never collapse in – if you start to feel a pinching in your lower back then you’ve gone further than your current core strength can support.

Ab Wheel Rollout Regressions

The Ab Wheel Rollout is an advanced exercise that does require good core strength before starting. Make sure you can hold a strongly braced plank before attempting to add movement to the position with an Ab Rollout.

Incorporating plank variations that involve movement or instability into your workouts, such as Planks with arm/ leg lifts, Spider Planks, Marching Planks, or the Copenhagen Plank, are also a great way to build up your strength before moving to Ab Rollouts.

We would then recommend starting with a stability ball variation and progress onto an ab wheel when you’ve built some more strength.

If you’re feeling any pain the lower back as you go through the movement, this indicates you core lost it’s braced position and you went further than your current strength limit. Reduce the range of movement and focus on building strength up before extending further forwards again.

More from The Fitting Rooms Gym

If you liked this, why not check out other core workout ideas from TFR, like this Core Strengthening Ab Circuit, or the Gorilla Row exercise.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR A FREE TASTER SESSION AT THE FITTING ROOMS GYM IN LONDON BRIDGE