9 Flat Stomach Pilates Exercises to Tone Your Core and Abs

Flat stomach pilates exercises are designed to focus on the core area, including your abs, but are they effective for trimming the fat around your stomach? 

Yes, they are. Combined with a healthy diet, calorie deficit, and other workouts, 9 flat stomach Pilates exercises to tone your core and abs can make a difference to your physique. We’ll briefly discuss the efficacy of Pilates in flattening your stomach and top moves to add to your training schedule today.

Remember that spot reduction of fat is not possible, so in order to truly flatten your stomach, you’ll need to lose fat throughout your entire body. Intensifying your Pilates sessions at home may be as effective as lifting weights at the gym. It’s all about consistency, discipline, proper food, and progress in your exercises. 

What Is the Best Flat Stomach Pilates Workout?

Flat stomach Pilates at home is a terrific activity that everyone can take advantage of. Previous fitness experience does not matter at all. The moves we’re going to discuss further are suitable for newcomers. However, we decided to satisfy both intermediate and advanced users with more difficult exercises as well. 

Check out 9 flat stomach Pilates exercises to work your core and abs:

1. Leg circle
2. Double leg stretch
3. Pendulum
4. Plank rock
5. Corkscrew
6. Slow-paced mountain climber
7. Toe tap
8. The gymnast
9. Double leg teaser

Leg Circle

How to perform the exercise: 

• Lie face up with your arms by your sides, palms down.
• Bend your right knee placing your right foot flat on the floor. Extend your left leg up and circle it out to the side, down toward the ground, and return to your starting position.
• While making a circle with your left leg, keep your lower back on the floor.
• Reverse the circle.
• Complete all reps on one leg, then switch to the other.

Double Leg Stretch

How to perform the exercise: 

• Lie face up, bringing both knees in toward your chest. Curl your head up and place your hands on your knees.
• Extend both legs out in front of you and reach both arms overhead. Focus on keeping your lower back on the floor and your legs straight throughout the movement.
• Pull your knees back in toward your chest and place your hands around them again.
• Repeat the move at least 10 times.

Pendulum

How to perform the exercise: 

• Lie face up, extending your arms out to your sides. Bend your knees over your hips and lift your feet off the mat.
• Let both knees fall to the left while keeping your lower back on the floor.
• Return to the starting position, and then let your knees fall to the right.

Plank Rock

How to perform the exercise: 

• Start in a high plank position with your hands directly under your shoulders.
• Rock your body forward a couple of inches toward your hands and then backward toward your heels.
• Ensure your core, butt, and quads are engaged the entire time.

Corkscrew

How to perform the exercise: 

• Rest on your forearms, lift your legs to the tabletop position, and keep your lower back tight to the floor.
• With your upper body still, start rotating your hips and knees to one side, then extend your legs straight.
• Keeping your legs extended and stacked, circle them down and around to the other side.
• Bend your knees back to a tabletop at the center.
• Repeat 15-20 times, switching sides.

Slow-Paced Mountain Climber

How to perform the exercise: 

• Assume a high plank position with your hands directly under your shoulders.
• Bring one knee toward your chest at a time in a marching fashion.
• Your core, butt, and quads should be engaged throughout the entire movement.
• The slower pace will allow you to control the movement even more which can help with muscle engagement.
• Do this for 30-40 seconds.

Toe Tap

Perform the exercise: 

• Lie on your back with your feet on the floor and your arms extended at your sides. Keep your back flat on the floor.
• Bring your knees up to a 90-degree angle.
• Slowly bring your feet down to tap the floor with your toes.
• Return to the starting position. This is one rep.
• Repeat for 12-18 reps.

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The Gymnast

How to perform the exercise: 

• Get in a reverse tabletop position with your wrists under your shoulders and your feet under your knees. Keep your hips lifted in line with your ribs.
• Drawing your hips back, straighten your legs and hover your butt off the ground while squeezing your lower abs.
• Bend your knees to return to the starting position.
• Repeat 10 times.

Double Leg Teaser

How to perform the exercise: 

• Lie on your back with your legs in a tabletop position and your arms by your sides.
• Exhale and curl your head and shoulders off the floor, extending your arms by your sides.
• Inhale reaching your arms and legs in opposite directions to create a V shape.
• Exhale, circling your arms and reaching up for your toes.
• Gently roll back to the tabletop position and repeat the cycle 8-10 times.

You can also work your core and abs by doing low-impact wall exercises for a flat stomach. Generally, you should start with simpler moves and gradually proceed to more difficult ones. You’re under no obligation to complete all the aforementioned flat stomach exercises in one session. 

Perform as many moves as you can and through time you’ll gain strength and improve your flexibility for more complicated movements. 

Read more: Wall Pilates for Stomach Fat: Your Comprehensive Guide

Will Pilates Give Me a Flat Stomach?

Pilates on its own cannot give you a flat stomach. 2021 research highlighted that Pilates alone is not effective for overall weight loss, but it can help you achieve your weight loss goals when combined with a weight-loss diet (1).

This means you need to focus on eating proper foods that are packed with protein, fiber, and healthy fats. It’s essential to exclude or reduce the intake of processed products, saturated fats, and sweets. 

Alcohol and other sweet beverages should be either eliminated or reduced from your eating schedule as well. Replace them with green tea, simple water, or sugar free drinks. Pro tip: adding cut up fruit to your water can help give plain water flavor and may work to curb sweet cravings.  

Does this mean that a Pilates core workout is a waste of time for trimming your tummy fat? No, because ultimately Pilates will work to increase your daily calorie burn, which is one of the main factors for fat loss. In addition, Pilates workouts can offer a number of other benefits that can help improve your daily functional movements.  

Pilates is good for your:

• Flexibility
• Posture
• Balance and coordination
• Breath control
• Core strength (2)

Adding an ab and glute workout to your workouts together with resistance training or cardio sessions can help you speed up this process.

How to Get Rid of Belly Fat with Pilates

Getting rid of belly fat is often regarded as difficult and something that takes time. For starters, you can’t spot-reduce fat in any area you like. It doesn’t work like that. You need to focus on losing fat in your whole body in order to see visible changes in your stomach fat. 

But is it possible to do it with just Pilates? Simply put, no. Although Pilates is effective for overall calorie burning, it loses its edge if you continue eating more calories you burn. This is true for any form of exercise. You need to make sure your calorie intake is in the right spot for you as an individual.

In addition, Pilates typically doesn’t burn a decent number of calories, so it’s recommended to add resistance training or forms of exercise that get your heart rate up and keep it there for an extended period of time. When your heart rate is elevated, more calories are being burned.  

A study suggested that resistance training could be a great strategy for fat mass loss (3). You can either perform body weight workouts or incorporate exercises with weights to spice up your intensity and burn more calories. 

Getting rid of belly fat with Pilates is only possible if you follow the proper diet, perform other workouts, and keep to a calorie deficit. Another study suggested that the most fundamental strategy for reducing overall weight lies in calorie deficit. Simultaneous reduction of calorie intake and workout may boost your chances of shedding pounds and toning up (4).

And as we mentioned already, the food you eat matters too. 

Check out the list of foods that promote your belly fat reduction: 

1. Fruits
2. Vegetables
3. Oats
4. Legumes
5. Barley
6. Fish
7. Lean meats
8. Beans
9. Eggs
10. Nuts and seeds

Finally, the quality of your sleep matters when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight. As referenced by the Mayo Clinic, a lack of sleep increases unhealthy abdominal fat in adults (5). Therefore, you shouldn’t only eat better, stay hydrated, and exercise – you also need to sleep enough to stay energetic, allow your muscles to recover, and maintain a healthy weight.

Managing your mood is also important for your weight loss goals. Negative situations can spike your cortisol levels, which may lead to weight gain. Meditation, mindfulness techniques, and relaxation practices could be effective remedies for your “cortisol belly” (6).

Which Exercise Is Best for a Flat Tummy?

There are lots of workouts that focus on the core and tummy. Generally, Pilates exercises are designed to engage your core to the fullest and you may start with them as a beginner.

If you’re looking for a specific exercise that’s a combination of cardio and body weight training, burpees are a great option. 

This whole-body exercise is ideal for avid trainees who want to burn more calories through one specific movement. This exercise ramps up your heart and engages your entire body, including your core.

The instructions are as follows:

• Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.
• Jump up toward the sky with your hands overhead.
• Control your landing to bring yourself into a squat position while leaning forward with your arms extended.
• Then, plant your hands on the floor and kick your feet back to get into a high plank position.
• Perform a quick push-up.
• Jump the legs forward to resume a squatting position and to load your body for another jump to the sky with your arms overhead.

Why burpees, you may ask?

A burpee is a cardio exercise that combines a plank, a push-up, and squatting, which leads to a great calorie burn and engages the entire body.  

However, it’s important to remember that no exercise is effective if you eat unhealthy foods all the time, fail to sleep enough, get stressed out often, lead a mostly sedentary lifestyle, and eat more calories than you burn. 

Reasons why BetterMe is a safe bet: a wide range of calorie-blasting workouts, finger-licking recipes, 24/7 support, challenges that’ll keep you on your best game, and that just scratches the surface! Start using our app and watch the magic happen.

Is 20 Minutes of Pilates a Day Enough to Lose Weight?

A daily 20-minute Pilates workout may seem like a small challenge, but generally, it’s enough to contribute to overall weight loss due to its ability to increase the total amount of calories you are burning each day. In addition, it all depends on the intensity of the exercise: some of them require more energy burn while others are more of a warm-up move.  

As previously mentioned, the best strategy is a mixture of Pilates, resistance training, and cardio. The following fitness combo is a way to lose more pounds faster. Add a proper diet and a calorie deficit, and you’ll be even closer to achieving your weight goals.

A calorie deficit will positively impact your results. The Mayo Clinic states that cutting back 500 calories daily equals losing ½ to 1 pound of weight a week. However, this may vary based on your starting weight, your body, and gender (7).

Most importantly, individuals should not strive for fast results as they may get frustrated. Instead, building a well-structured Pilates and eating plan, improving your daily schedule, and working on your bad habits are necessities that may guarantee positive changes in both your physique and mental well-being. 

Read more: Pilates Exercises for Weight Loss: Transform Your Body with Every Move

Why Am I Losing Weight but My Stomach Is Still Big?

So, you’ve tried everything: you ate good food, had a calorie deficit, incorporated Pilates, resistance training, and cardio into your routine, and even started sleeping enough. You lost weight in your body, except for your tummy – the area that bugged you the most.

What’s the problem here? We assume that there could be additional factors that impair your process of reducing stomach fat. One of them is genetics. Some individuals are unfortunately inclined to have more fatty tissue and store fat around their midsection.

It’s recommended to talk to your healthcare provider if tummy fat is your big concern. A professional doctor can help you find additional reasons and provide other effective ways to satisfy your expectations. 

Just in case, check out this list of the main reasons that could prevent you from losing weight in your stomach: 

• You drink alcohol
• You smoke cigarettes
• You don’t drink enough water
• You’re not sleeping well
• You consume too many energy drinks
• You have a sedentary lifestyle
• You consume the wrong foods
• You eat more calories than you burn

Frequently Asked Questions

• Will Pilates change my body shape?

Pilates may affect your body shape a bit by toning your whole body, including your core. You may start to notice visible muscles in your legs, arms, and abs. In addition, your posture might become better. However, you need to ensure you move a lot during the day, drink enough water, and eat good food so your results will last longer. 

• How quickly will Pilates change my body?

When combined with a proper diet, calorie deficit, and exercise, Pilates can make initial changes to your body within a few months. However, it all depends on the individual, their lifestyle, and genetics.  

• How can I flatten my belly in 7 days?

It’s impossible and unhealthy to try to flatten your belly in 7 days. If you have this goal, you need to have active days, full of physical exercises with rest days in between. Complement it with flat stomach Pilates moves, proper dieting, and calorie deficit to accelerate the results.  

• Can a flabby belly be toned?

Yes, it’s possible to tone a flabby belly by combining a healthy diet, calorie deficit, enough sleep, and an overall active lifestyle. The timing will depend on each individual. Most importantly, people should avoid fast-paced strategies and choose discipline-based steps to achieve their goals.  

The Bottom Line

Here, we focused on 9 flat stomach Pilates exercises for toning your core and abs. We also discussed that Pilates alone is not effective for losing belly fat. This process requires the combination of an active lifestyle, a healthy diet, calorie deficit, and enough sleep. 

Taking care of your mental health is also essential for getting a sculpted body.