Spring has arrived, and swimming season is not far behind. For those of us vain enough to care, that means it’s time to get serious about abdominal workouts. And besides trimming up the tummy area before spending days at the beach, strong abdominal muscles help stabilize the body’s core and avoid back pain. Here are some great ab exercises to get you started.

General tips

Many abdominal exercises fail to get the desired results because the effort going into the exercise is spread across a variety of muscles groups. Before you get started on whichever exercise you choose, lie on the floor with knees bent and feet flat and close to your buttocks. Relax your abdominal muscles (your lower back will be curved and your stomach may stick out). Then tense your abs by slightly pulling your rib cage toward your pelvis. This is the area on which you want to concentrate when exercising your front abdominal muscles.

Perform exercises slowly and deliberately. Don’t forget to concentrate during the “down” motion — otherwise you will miss the benefit of half the exercise.

What’s the best?

A study at the Biomechanics Lab at San Diego State University looked at a variety of common abdominal exercises in order to determine what really works. Researchers compared 13 abdominal exercises, ranging from the traditional crunch to more complicated activities, using at-home and gym equipment, and examined their effects on two major groups of abdominal muscles – the rectus abdominus, which stretches along the front of the abdomen, and the internal and external obliques, which extend along the sides of the torso.

Sadly for those of us who do our sit-ups, the traditional crunch ranked 11th out of 13. The top four exercises overall were:

Bicycle

Lie flat on the floor with your lower back pressed to the ground. Put your hands beside your head, so that you are touching your ears — do not lock your hands behind your neck as this will throw your motion off and you may injure your neck. Bring your knees up to about a 45-degree angle go through a bicycle pedal motion slowly. Touch your left elbow to your right knee, then your right elbow to your left knee. Breathe evenly throughout the exercise.

Captain’s chair (gym equipment)

This exercise involves a piece of gym equipment — it’s the one that looks like a frame with bicycle handles sticking out of it above one’s shoulders, and with no seat. Be sure to have the staff at your gym orient you to the equipment if you haven’t used it before. To do the exercise, start with legs dangling, and then slowly lift your knees in toward your chest. Make sure the motion is controlled and deliberate as you bring your knees up and return them back to the starting position.