Barbell · intermediate · waist
Barbell ab roll workout
Also called Ab rollout, Barbell rollout, Ab wheel rollout, Kneeling rollout, Barbell ab rollout.
You kneel, hold a loaded barbell or an ab wheel under your shoulders, and roll it away from you until your body is almost flat, then pull it back. Your abs are what the movement is for, and their job here is not to bend you but to stop you unbending. The further the bar travels, the more of your bodyweight is hanging off the front of your trunk with nothing else to hold it.
How to do it
- Step oneKneel on the floor and grip an ab wheel or barbell with both hands, shoulder-width apart.
- Step twoPosition the wheel directly beneath your shoulders with your arms fully extended.
- Step threeSlowly roll the wheel forward, extending your body towards the ground while keeping your core tight.
- Step fourPause when your body is nearly parallel to the floor, then engage your abs to roll back to the starting position.
What usually goes wrong
Each starts with what you would notice.
You feel it in your lower back on the way out, and your abs afterward feel like they did nothing.
WhyYour hips have dropped and your back has arched. That is what happens when the bar has gone further than the front of your trunk can hold, and the position collapses into the one place it can.
FixStop rolling at the point your hips are still under control, wherever that is. On this movement the useful range is not how far the bar can go, it is how far you can go without your middle giving way.
You roll a long way out and it feels easy.
WhyYour hips have stayed folded, so your backside is traveling back as your hands travel forward and your trunk never has to hold anything.
FixGet your hips roughly in line with your shoulders and knees before you start, and keep that line as you roll. If the range collapses once you do, that is your real starting range.
You get out fine and cannot get back.
WhyYou went to a position you can reach but cannot reverse. Getting there is only half of the rep.
FixGo out as far as you can come back from and no further. If that is barely past your knees for now, that is the exercise. Rolling out toward a wall gives you a stop you can set and move a little further away each week.
What it is for
The ab roll workout is a barbell or ab wheel exercise targeting the abdominal muscles, with secondary emphasis on the obliques, lower back, and shoulders. It involves rolling forward from a kneeling position to challenge core stability and strength.
Questions people ask
- What muscles does the ab rollout work?
- The abs, with the obliques alongside them, and the shoulders holding your arms out in front of you. Their job is to stop your back extending as the bar travels away, rather than to bend you the way a sit-up does.
- How far should you roll out?
- As far as you can go while keeping your hips in line and still get back. That is the whole rule. Distance you cannot reverse is not range, it is a fall you interrupted.
- Why does my lower back hurt doing rollouts?
- Usually because the hips are dropping and the back is arching as the bar goes out, which means the position has already failed. Shorten the range until it holds. If something hurts and keeps hurting, that is a question for a physiotherapist.
- Can you use a barbell instead of an ab wheel?
- Yes. A bar loaded with two round plates rolls the same way. The plates need to be the same size and free to spin, and a bar rolls more readily on a hard floor than on a thick mat.
- Is a rollout better than a sit-up?
- They ask for different things. A sit-up bends your spine against resistance. A rollout asks your trunk to stop your spine straightening while your bodyweight pulls on it. We have not found a study comparing them that we could read, so we are not going to rank them.