Benefits of Using an Ab Roller

For most fitness enthusiasts, an ab roller is often the last piece of workout equipment they think to use at the gym. However, despite the different opinions people might have about an ab roller, the benefits of using an ab roller make it one of the best exercise tools to help strengthen your core.

Benefits of Using an Ab Roller

Using an ab roller comes with significant benefits like boosting your overall strength, minimizing your back pain, engaging several other muscles at the same time and increasing your core stability.

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Person using an ab roller

Boosting Your Overall Strength

The greatest advantage of using an ab roller is that it gets to work on your core and your whole body at the same time. The movements of the ab roller help in developing your overall muscle strength. This means that your ab muscles get strong as much as your upper and lower back, shoulders, arms, thighs, and hips do.

Minimizing Your Back Pain

The muscles around your abdomen and spine can sometimes contribute to some of the lower back health conditions people experience. Your abdominal muscles work together with your back muscles when lifting, bending, or straightening.

With this connection, weak abdominal muscles can cause your lower back pain, as it encourages you to lean forward a lot. One of the best ways to minimize your back pain is by strengthening your abdominal muscles using exercise. 

Using an ab roller helps you to strengthen your core. This, in turn, helps align your spine and reduces your back pain frequency. With strong abdominal muscles, you can perform different activities without fear of injury.

Engaging Different Muscles

Working out with an ab roller engages an approximate number of 20 muscles. The primary muscles ab roller exercises work is your abdominal muscles. It also works your obliques, hip flexors along with other muscles located in different parts of your body.

Core Stability

Being the central link between your lower body and upper body, your core muscles play a significant role in helping stabilize your pelvis and spine. This, in turn, allows you to stretch, bend, move, or lift things with ease. Using an ab roller enables you to strengthen your abdominal muscles; thus making your core muscles stable.

With a stable core, you can improve your strength and prevent your back from developing any further injuries.

Do Ab Rollers Burn Belly Fat?

No, ab rollers alone can’t burn belly fat. All the ab roller does is help build the muscles underneath the belly fat. One of the most effective and efficient ways to burn belly fat is by eating a healthy diet regularly combining them with other fat-burning exercises. Make sure you drink water regularly and have green leafy vegetables in almost every meal.

Once your diet is healthy, your body fat including belly fat starts reducing significantly. With a decrease in belly fat, your abs can start showing.

Does an Ab Roller Work Lower Abs?

Yes, an ab roller does work lower abs. The primary muscles an ab roller exercise targets are your core muscles. Your core is divided into your upper and lower abs. Ab rollers help you do exercises that allow you to move your lower body towards your upper body. This, in turn, helps work on your lower abs.

Close up of an ab roller

What Muscles Does an Ab Roller Work?

The ab roller works on different muscle groups among them are your triceps, your core, and lats. It also works your shoulders, hips, and latissimus dorsi. All these muscles help stabilize your body starting from your shoulders to the tailbone. This is what makes an ab roller effective.

How Often Should You Use an Ab Roller?

How often you use an ab roller depends on your workout intensity and fitness level. However, despite the urge to use an ab roller every day; experts advise using this exercise equipment at most two to three times a week.

This prevents you from overworking your muscles. Overworking your muscles can lead to muscular imbalances, as some muscles tend to become stronger than others. Using an ab roller every day can also cause postural problems if your core muscles become stronger than your shoulder and back muscles.

Conclusion

While an ab roller may look like a piece of simple workout equipment, it has more to offer than most workout equipment. Just like the best dumbbell sets and kettlebell workout exercises, one of the greatest benefits of using an ab roller to exercise is that it strengthens different parts of your body including your back, shoulders, and chest at the same time. If you have any six-pack goals you want to achieve; try using an ab roller.

Robert Lemus has been a natural competitor for 6 years, starting in Men’s Physique, then Bodybuilding, and then into Classic Physique. He is the Orange County Bodybuilding champion in 2016 for the Musclemania Organization. In 2018, he received his Pro Card with the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) in Classic Physique.