Here’s How to Strengthen Your Transverse Abdominis Muscle at Home
Rehabilitation Exercises

Here’s How to Strengthen Your Transverse Abdominis Muscle at Home

November 15, 2025
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Key Takeaways

  • Engaging your transverse abdominis strengthens the core, flattens the belly, and enhances stability, reducing back pain and injury risk.

  • Simple, at-home exercises like bird dogs and planks can help activate and strengthen this deep abdominal muscle.

  • Focus on the mind-body connection by “thinking” the muscle into action without needing strenuous movements.

Having a six-pack isn’t always synonymous with having a strong core. Strengthening your rectus abdominis (the superficial outer ab muscles lovingly known as the six-pack) is important, but it’s far from the only ab workout to focus on—it’s also so beneficial to do transverse abdominis exercises.

Just because the transverse abdominis is hard to see and reach doesn’t mean it’s not crucial to keeping you strong, toned, and pain-free. The good news is that you don’t have to work up a sweat or hit the gym to engage this muscle.

  • Ali Handley, founder of Bodylove Pilates in New York City
  • Mary E. Holtschneider, MEd, RN, NCPT, Certified Pilates Instructor with Club Pilates

What Is the TVA Muscle?

“The transverse abdominis, or TVA muscle, is the deepest ab muscle, attaching to the anterior lumbar spine and wrapping around the midsection from back to front like a corset or pair of Spanx,” says Ali Handley, founder of Bodylove Pilates in New York City. “When correctly engaged, the TVA cinches the waist, lengthens the torso, flattens the belly, and supports the spine and pelvis.”

What Does the TVA Muscle Do?

This super-deep muscle often referred to as the corset muscle, does everything from stabilizing your lumbar spine to holding your organs in place. That’s a huge job. And according to Handley, if you have a weak or disengaged transverse abdominis, back pain likely isn’t far behind.

“A strong TVA supports the pelvis in a neutral position, which lets you correctly target and strengthen your lower body,” she says. “Therefore, someone with a weak TVA will likely have weak butt and leg muscles too.”

Unlike the rectus abdominis (or visible six-pack muscles), the TVA muscle fibers run horizontally, Handley says. A strong transverse abdominis compresses and flattens the belly, whereas the rectus muscle fibers run vertically and grow outward. Good news if you’re sick of crunches: Forget about them—they won’t help strengthen your TVA. “If you have a weak TVA, you may have a low belly pooch, and no matter how many crunches you do, it won’t go away,” Handley says.

Benefits of a Strong TVA Muscle

  • Helps to reduce lower back pain
  • Can make your waist look slimmer (and your stomach flatter)
  • Provides core stability, which can lower risk of injury
  • Aid in postpartum recovery
  • Improve athletic performance

Exercises to Work the Transverse Abdominis Muscle

Credit: Getty Images

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about breaking a sweat to work the transverse abdominis muscle. “The TVA is a thinking muscle, which means you don’t have to move to activate it,” Handley says. “Instead you have to find a mind-body connection to the action of the muscle. Just by breathing and thinking about how it wraps around your body will engage it.”

Here are some of the best ab workouts you can do at home (or literally in your chair at work) to engage the transverse abdominis muscle.

Bird Dogs

1. Start on all fours with your spine in a neutral position.

2. Inhale through your nose, allowing your belly to fill up with air and your stomach muscles to relax completely.

3. Exhale a long, slow, even breath through your mouth as you imagine your TVA wrapping around your midsection, pulling your belly button in all the way to the spine, and knitting the two sides of the abs together.

4. Keeping your abs engaged and spine completely neutral, reach your left arm and right leg out away from the body. Inhale through your nose again and bring the arm and leg back to the start position.

5. Exhale through your mouth again and extend the opposite arm and leg. Aim for eight reps on each side.

TVA Counting

1. Sit comfortably on a physioball, yoga block, or chair with a neutral spine and weight evenly distributed between both sitting bones.

2. Inhale through your nose, allowing your belly to fill up with air and your stomach muscles to relax completely.

3. Exhale a long, slow, even breath through your mouth and imagine your TVA wrapping around your midsection, pulling your belly button in all the way to the spine.

4. Keep your belly button on your spine and begin to count out loud. Start by holding and counting to 10 and build to 25.

Knee Hovers

1. Start on all fours with your spine in a neutral position.

2. Inhale through your nose, allowing your belly to fill up with air and your stomach muscles to relax completely.

3. Exhale a long, slow, even breath through your mouth as you imagine you’re zipping a pair of high-waisted jeans up and over your belly button.

4. Keeping your abs engaged and spine completely neutral, hold this connection as you lift and hover both knees up off of the mat.

5. Inhale as you lower the knees with control. Aim for eight reps.

Core challenge: Hold the connection and hover the knees for one minute.

Plank

  1. Start with your forearms pressed on the ground (hands clasped together) and lift your body up.
  2. Align your elbows directly under your shoulders. Widen your shoulder blades to engage your back muscles.
  3. Keep your body in a straight line from your head to your heels.
  4. Exhale and hollow out your stomach to engage your core. Breathe normally while keeping your muscles engaged.
  5. Hold for as long as you can and release.

If you are just beginning to strengthen your core and TVA, you can modify the plank, and all exercises until you are comfortable doing them in full.

Toe Taps

  1. Lie on your back with your arms to the side and knees bent in a 90-degree angle.
  2. Keep your knee bent and exhale as you lower your left toes to tap the ground. Make sure your core is engaged and that your back remains flat as your foot lowers.
  3. Inhale and return your left leg to the starting position.
  4. Repeat the exercise with your right leg.
  5. Alternate sides for 30–60 seconds and then rest.

Walking

  1. Walking at a normal pace (or speed walking), gently draw in your belly button towards the waist.
  2. Continue to pull in and lift your rib cage away from the pelvis.
  3. Hold for 10 to 15 seconds and release. Repeat throughout the duration of your walk.

Pilates 100

  1. Bring your legs into a tabletop position with your knees directly above your hips, says Mary E. Holtschneider, MEd, RN, NCPT, Certified Pilates Instructor with Club Pilates.
  2. Then, lift your head, neck, and shoulders off the floor, says Holtschneider.
  3. Reach your arms straight at your side, keeping them next to your hips, and contract your abdominal muscles.
  4. Pump your arms up and down from the shoulders, breathing in for five seconds and out for five seconds until you reach 100. 

Legs and Arms Reach

  1. Lift your legs straight up to the ceiling and reach your arms towards your feet by lifting your head, neck, and shoulders, Holtschneider says.
  2. Slowly lower your straight legs toward the floor and lower your arms towards your head, focusing on keeping them straight and your elbows towards your ears, Holtschneider says.
  3. Lift your legs and arms towards each other, repeating this motion several times to feel the engagement of the deepest layer of your core. 
  4. Keep your head, neck, and shoulders lifted the entire time, concentrating on only moving the arms and legs, Holtschneider says.
  5. Repeat this movement several times.

Frequently Asked Questions


  • Why do I struggle to engage my core?

    If you’ve ever been told to engage your core but didn’t know where to begin, you’ll beli relieved to know this is a common complaint. “There are often several reasons that people feel like they can’t engage their core, and often it is because they have not focused on developing their core during their fitness activities in the past,” Holtschneider says. For example, maybe you are an avid walker or runner, which certainly works your core, but you never focused on training your core for optimal efficiency and effectiveness, Holtschneider explains. “In Pilates, we emphasize the principles of centering (meaning all power comes from the core), control (all movement is deliberate), and concentration (the mind controls the body),” she says. Employing all three principles can help you better engage your core, she says.


  • How do I engage my core?

    To engage the transverse abdominus, you need to first identify and isolate your core, Holtschneider explains. After that, think about what you need to do to make a movement, such as a plank or a pushup, happen. “Using concentration, focus on precisely making the movement using the power from your core with no momentum or extraneous motions,” Holtschneider says. “The more you can concentrate on activating your core, the more you will be able to engage it appropriately and intentionally.”


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