15 Minute Dumbbell Ab Workout (At Home!)
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Our most popular at home workout routines are undeniably any of our ab workouts. One of the main advantages of doing core and ab workouts at home is that they often require very little space and no equipment to get a killer burn throughout your midsection.
This week, we’re focusing on an ab workout with dumbbells. These weighted ab exercises help to increase the resistance during the abdominal exercises and allow you to strengthen the muscles of the core without doing endless sets of crunches. In fact, many of the most effective ab exercises are those that are performed without high repetitions. Instead, they focus on engaging the center core and moving through each movement in a slow and controlled manner. Not only does this help to strength your core, it helps to prevent injury from overuse or incorrect form.
Even though we are performing these ab exercises with dumbbells for this workout, it can be easily modified to bodyweight only if dumbbells or weights are unavailable to you.
How to Engage the Core and Abdominals?
Perhaps one of the important parts of any ab workout is making sure to correctly engage all of the muscles of the core. Poor form or lack of engagement will cause your body to compensate with other (often stronger) muscles of the body, specifically the lower back. This is often one of the most common mistakes when performing any ab workout.
While we are dividing this workout into upper abs, lower abs, and obliques, it is important to note that the muscles of the abdominals and core are not actually separate muscles. When people refer to “six pack abs,” they are actually referring to the muscle known as the rectus abdominis. This muscle runs from the base of your sternum to your pelvis and is responsible for keeping your organs in place, breathing, flexion of the spine and more. Since this muscle runs vertically in your body, isolating the upper or lower abs is not as simple as working opposing muscle groups, such as the biceps and triceps.
However, by engaging the core and with proper technique, you can focus on isolating portions of the rectus abdominus by causing one portion of the muscle to contract more strongly than another. Working the “lower abs” also involves engaging and strengthening the transverse abdominus, which is the deepest layer of abdominals and supports much of the stabilization of your body, especially the hips and back.
This ab circuit routine is divided into three rounds, each round focusing on one particular portion of the core. However, each of these movements is critical in strengthening the core as a whole, making sure that no one area is stronger than another.
3 Ab Activation Movements For an Easy Ab Warmup Routine
Before you get started with any ab exercises, it is important to warm up the abs to ensure that you are performing safe abdominal exercises. This helps to prevent muscle strain or over stretching “cold” muscles. These simple abdominal exercises are meant to be used as a warmup to help you connect with your body and the muscles of the core and become aware of what ab activation should feel like.
Holding these positions will teach you bodily cues to help you prevent injury as you continue on in future workouts and can help you utilize tools to ensure that you have proper form and technique in all workout movements.
Deep Belly Breathes
Perform 10 reps
Lie on your back with your feet into the floor, body relaxed, one hand on your chest and the other hand resting on your belly. Take a deep inhale and feel as your belly pulls into your spine and the abs contract. Hold your breath for 1-2 seconds at the top of your inhale and then slowly exhale, pushing the air out from your core. You should be able to feel the hand on your belly lift, as the muscles of your core expand and press outwards.
This inward contraction of the core muscles is the “vacuum” in which you want to create and maintain while performing all ab exercises. While you don’t want to hold your breath,—in fact, you want to take long, slow breaths during any abdominal exercise—you do want to hold on to this contraction. This vacuum holds the abdominal muscles to the spine, helping protect it during each exercise.
Pelvic Tilts
Perform 10 reps
In the same position as the belly breaths, allow your core to relax and your back to arch from the floor. This is your resting or starting position. On your next exhale, rock the pelvis upwards, pressing the small of your back into the mat. Hold for 1-2 seconds and, as you inhale, release the contraction of the abs and pelvis, returning to the resting position.
Dead Bugs
Perform 10 reps total (left and right sides count as one)
Now that you have learned how to engage the muscles of the core and breathe deeply to maintain the contraction, put it together into this activation exercise. Lie on the floor, with knees at a tabletop position, arms raised directly above your chest. Tilt the pelvis upwards until you press the lower back into the mat. Taking a deep breath, blow out the air from your lungs while still holding onto that vacuum. Then, extend your opposite arm and leg, trying to find the lowest point that you can while still maintaining that engagement. Slowly lift both arm and leg to center and repeat on the other side.
Once you have finished your activations, you’re ready to tackle this 15 minute dumbbell ab workout. We recommend using a light set of dumbbells, approximately 2-3lbs, to allow you to focus on activation of the muscles and prevent any injury.
Find other workouts by subscribing to our YouTube channel for 15-minute and 30-minute home workout options. They include a variety of bodyweight and equipment options, with modifications and challenges for all levels of fitness.
For more workouts with dumbbells, check out our full fitness page for more at home workouts.
See our full workout series here.
We Recommend: Neoprene Dumbbell Set
15 Minute Dumbbell Ab Workout (At Home!)
Suggested:
5-10 Minute warmup (such as the ab activation exercises above) and cool down of your choice.
Modification:
If at any point the weighted ab movements feel like too much, drop the weights and use your body weight only.
Weighted Dumbbell Workout in 15 Minutes
Do one set of each round, spending 1:00 on each exercise. Rest one minute between sets if necessary.
Upper Ab Exercises:
Bird Dogs
How-to: Start in a quadruped position, with hips stacked directly over knees and shoulders over wrists. Engage through the core and extend the opposite leg and arm. Bring back to center and repeat on the other side.
Form tip: As you extend, keep your core as still as possible and avoid tipping through the hips or arching the back.
Modification: Drop the weights if you cannot extend your arm without tipping or losing your balance.
Toe Touches
How-to: Lie back on your mat, with your legs raised, making an L-shape with your body. Extend your arms with the weights directly over your chest, palms facing away. Reach towards your toes, curling your upper abs as you reach your fingertips towards your toes. Slowly lower down with control.
Form tip: Avoid swinging through the movement and using the momentum to reach upwards. Avoid resting your chin on your chest. To keep your breathing open, keep your chin level and your face angled towards the ceiling.
Modification: Place your hands behind your head if you need additional support for your neck.
Challenge: Never let your body fully touch the mat. Hover the shoulders above the mat and reach up to the toes from this raised position.
Frog Reaches
How-to: Lie on your back, opening the hips and pressing the bottoms of the feet together, letting your knees rest on the mat. Take the weights in each hand and curl up through your upper abs, reaching towards your toes. Slowly lower back down.
Form tip: Like the toe touches, avoid swinging to gain momentum and keep the movement slow and controlled as you reach and lower.
Challenge: For additional chest workout, lower the dumbbells to the mat behind your head between each rep.
Hundreds
How-to: Place your feet into the mat, knees to the sky. Roll up through the upper core and extend your arms with the weights by your sides, hovering just above the mat, palms facing down. Keeping the core engaged and the head, neck, and shoulders lifted, pulse the arms.
Form tip: Make sure to not hold your breath here. Keep the activation in the abs as you pulse and take long, slow breaths.
Modification: If you need additional support for your neck, place your hands behind your head and pulse in tiny movements upwards quickly.
Oblique Exercises:
Side Plank Lifts
How-to: Lie on your side, pressing your forearm into the ground, elbow directly underneath the shoulder, hips, knees, and ankles stacked. Using the muscles in your obliques (your sides), lift your hips up to lift the side body from the mat. Hold for 1-2 seconds at the top and slowly lower down. Switch sides after 1:00.
Form tip: Avoid letting your hips twist forward or back. Keep them completely stacked throughout the movement.
Modification: Drop the bottom knee to give your body more stabilization.
Challenge: At the top of the side plank, lift the top leg for a balance challenge.
Side Plank Crunches
How-to: Keep the same positioning as the side plank lifts. At the top of the side lift, bring the top knee to meet the top elbow to do an oblique crunch. Keep the hips lifted throughout the entire movement and switch sides after 1:00.
Form tip: Do not let your hips tip in either direction as you crunch. Press up through the side body to maintain space between you chest and the mat.
Modification: Drop the bottom knee if you need more support.
Seated Chop
How-to: In a seated position, feet into the mat, knees pointed towards the ceiling, sit back, keeping your back straight, arms extended out in front of you, palms facing towards each other. Keeping the arms straight, twist to one side, reaching behind the hips to complete the twist. Come back to center and switch to the opposite side.
Form tip: Don’t let your shoulders slump and your back round. Your chest should pull upwards, as though a string is keeping you attached to the ceiling.
Challenge: Lift your feet from the mat. For an even harder challenge, extend the legs long, bringing your body into a V-sit position.
Bicycle Crunch
How-to: Lie on your back, knees bent, stacked directly over the hips. Hold the dumbbells at your chest, elbows wide. Sit up, touching the opposite elbow to knee. Hold for 1-2 seconds before slowly lowering down and switching sides.
Form tip: Avoid rocking through this movement. After each twist, come back to the mat fully before twisting to the opposite side.
Lower Ab Exercises:
Weighted Leg Lowers
How-to: Place the weight in between the feet and squeeze. With the back on the mat, hands pressing down into your sides, extend your legs out long, creating an L-shape with your body. Create the vacuum with your abs and slowly lower down, finding the lowest point that you can go without losing the core contraction.
Form tip: Don’t go so low in your leg lower that your back arches from the mat. Exhale as you lower the legs down and inhale to bring the legs back to the top. Don’t hold your breath.
Modification: Drop the weight if it is too heavy or difficult to perform the movement with a full range of motion.
Challenge: Place the hands behind the head and curl the upper body up towards the ceiling for extra ab work.
Weighted Push Aways
How-to: Keep the same position in the above weighted leg exercise, but bring your knees to stack over your hips, hands pressed into the mat at your sides, weight in between the feet. On your exhale, press the legs out and away, finding the lowest position with your legs that you can maintain the engagement through the core. Slowly bring back to center.
Form tip: The press should be coming from your lower abs, not simply extending your knees. Press out and away with each rep.
Modification: Drop the weight if you need.
Challenge: Lift the head neck and shoulders to engage the upper abs in this exercise.
Mountain Climbers + Twist
How-to: Start in a pushup position, shoulders stacked over wrists, a dumbbell in each hand. Bring each knee into the chest, without rounding through the back and alternate twisting one arm towards the ceiling. Return to your plank position, alternate bringing each knee into the chest and twist from the opposite side.
Form tip: Don’t round the back as you bring the knees into the chest and keep the weight directly over the wrists. As you twist the arm towards the ceiling, make sure that you are twisting through the core and bringing your chest towards the sky as well, not just lifting your arm.
Modification: Take out the twist.
Plank Reach Back + Knee Bend Add On
How-to: Start in a pushup position with a dumbbell in each hand. Press the hips upwards as you alternate reaching each hand back between your feet. Come back to center, keeping the core straight and bend both knees. Each time you complete one repetition of the reach backs, increase the number of knee bends. Try to move quickly but with good form, trying to see how high you can get in the knee bends in one minute.
Form tip: Always come back to center between each reach back, bringing the hips back down to level before reaching back with the opposite side.
Modification: Don’t increase the knee bends between each set of reach backs.