Strengthening your stomach muscles helps improve your balance and stability. Many stomach-training exercises also train your stomach muscles to hold your body at just the right angle for good posture. According to the Mayo Clinic, having a strong core will make almost all physical activities easier, from sports to simply reaching up to get something from a shelf.
Stability Ball Crunch
According to a study commissioned by the American Council on Exercise, doing crunches on a stability ball is the best exercise for strengthening your rectus abdominus. Stability ball crunches recruit your hip flexors far less than other ab exercises, forcing your abs to do all the work.
Vertical Leg Crunch
If you don't have a stability ball handy, but still want to do more effective crunches, try doing them with your legs straight up in the air. The ACE study showed that this crunch variation produces significantly more activity in both the rectus abdominus and obliques than a standard crunch.
Captain's Chair
According to the American Council on Exercise, doing knee or leg lifts in a captain's chair, also known as a Roman chair, produces the most activity in your obliques of all the ab exercises tested.
Bicycle Crunches
Bicycle crunches rank extremely high in the American Council on Exercise's study on the best and worst ab exercises. Bicycle crunches rank second only to the captain's chair in terms of oblique activity, and actually produce more rectus abdominus activity than stability ball crunches. Their final ranking falls below stability ball crunches, however, because bicycle crunches also involve the hip flexors.
Squat and Reach
The squat and reach, in which you squat down and reach in various directions while holding a balance ball between your hands, trains your abs for real-world functionality because it closely resembles the types of movements you'll often make in everyday life.
Bridge
Bridges can be done on the floor, off a bench or using a stability ball. If done properly, this exercise tightens the hard-to-tone lower abdominals.
Reverse Crunch
Reverse crunches also target the lower abdominals, which often go neglected in the face of the many variations you're likely to encounter on the regular crunch. The American Council on Exercise ranks reverse crunches as the third-most effective exercise in terms of recruiting your oblique muscles.
Front Planks
Planks train your stomach muscles to hold your body in good posture position. Planks are an excellent at-work exercise because you don't have to actually lie or sit on the floor to do them.
Side Planks
Side planks are to your obliques what a regular front plank is to your rectus abdominus: training to hold your body in exactly the sort of good posture position you want to maintain as much as possible.
Stability Ball Balance
Kneeling on a stability ball is a significant core challenge in and of itself. Once you've mastered kneeling on the ball without toppling off, try doing a light set of your favorite seated weight exercise while kneeling on the ball.
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