Category — Abdominal Exercises

1. For this exercise you will need to get into a pushup position, but instead of having your hands of the floor, you will be grabbing on to an Olympic barbell (loaded with 5-10 lbs on each side) instead. This will be your starting position.
2. While keeping a slight arch on your back, lift your hips and roll the barbell towards your feet as you exhale. Tip: As you perform the movement, your glutes should be coming up, you should be keeping the abs tight and should maintain your back posture at all times. Also your arms should be staying perpendicular to the floor throughout the movement. If you don’t, you will work out your shoulders and back more than the abs.
3. After a second contraction at the top, start to roll the barbell back forward to the starting position slowly as you inhale.
4. Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.

Caution: This is a challenging exercise for people with healthy backs.

Variation: This is an exercise that, just like the push-up, can also be done on the knees for less advanced athletes.

1. Lie on the floor with the knees bent and the feet on the floor around 18-24 inches apart. Your arms should be extended by your side. This will be your starting position.
2. Crunch over your torso forward and up about 3-4 inches to the right side and touch your right heel as you hold the contraction for a second. Exhale while performing this movement.
3. Now go back slowly to the starting position as you inhale.
4. Now crunch over your torso forward and up around 3-4 inches to the left side and touch your left heel as you hold the contraction for a second. Exhale while performing this movement and then go back to the starting position as you inhale. Now that both heels have been touched, that is considered 1 repetition.
5. Continue alternating sides in this manner until all prescribed repetitions are done.

Variations: None

1. Lie flat on the floor with your lower back pressed to the ground. For this exercise, you will need to put your hands beside your head. Be careful however to not strain with the neck as you perform it. Now lift your shoulders into the crunch position.
2. Bring knees up to where they are perpendicular to the floor, with your lower legs parallel to the floor. This will be your starting position.
3. Now simultaneously, slowly go through a cycle pedal motion kicking forward with the right leg and bringing in the knee of the left leg. Bring your right elbow close to your left knee by crunching to the side, as you breathe out.
4. Go back to the initial position as you breathe in.
5. Crunch to the opposite side as you cycle your legs and bring closer your left elbow to your right knee and exhale.
6. Continue alternating in this manner until all of the recommended repetitions for each side have been completed.

Notes: While you cannot add resistance to this exercise you can concentrate on perfect execution and slow speed.

1. Clean and press a kettlebell overhead with one arm.
2. Keeping the kettlebell locked out at all times, push your butt out in the direction of the locked out kettlebell. Keep the non-working arm behind your back and turn your feet out at a forty-five degree angle from the arm with the kettlebell.
3. Lower yourself as far as possible.
4. Pause for a second and reverse the motion back to the starting position.

1. Hold the Ab Roller with both hands and kneel on the floor.
2. Now place the ab roller on the floor in front of you so that you are on all your hands and knees (as in a kneeling push up position). This will be your starting position.
3. Slowly roll the ab roller straight forward, stretching your body into a straight position. Tip: Go down as far as you can without touching the floor with your body. Breathe in during this portion of the movement.
4. After a pause at the stretched position, start pulling yourself back to the starting position as you breathe out. Tip: Go slowly and keep your abs tight at all times.

Caution: This exercise is not advised for people with lower back problems or hernias.

Variations: If you are advanced you can perform the exercise moving the ab roller to the sides in a diagonal fashion as opposed to straight forward. This version places more emphasis on the obliques.

1. Select a light resistance and sit down on the ab machine placing your feet under the pads provided and grabbing the top handles. Your arms should be bent at a 90 degree angle as you rest the triceps on the pads provided. This will be your starting position.
2. At the same time, begin to lift the legs up as you crunch your upper torso. Breathe out as you perform this movement. Tip: Be sure to use a slow and controlled motion. Concentrate on using your abs to move the weight while relaxing your legs and feet.
3. After a second pause, slowly return to the starting position as you breathe in.
4. Repeat the movement for the prescribed amount of repetitions.

Caution:

• For this exercise, always select a weight that you can easily handle as using too much weight can easily lead to injury.

1 Train the abs like a muscle

The biggest mistake people make with the abs is that they forget it’s just like any other muscle.  To build your abs, do ten to 15 reps and increase the intensity by adding more sets. Leave one day in between abs sessions to allow the muscles to recover.

2 Do static holds for core stability

Muscles have slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibres but when you hold a weight in a static position you use both sets of fibres.  This means you can improve the overall strength of all the muscles used to stabilise the lower back and hips in one exercise, such as the plank, as long as you remember to hold the position for at least five seconds.

3 Add resistance to crunchesto build muscle

Use resistance you can handle, so start with a dumb-bell or medicine ball across your chest and keep the weight close to your body.  As you progress, you can extend your arms or raise them above your head to create a longer lever and make the exercise harder.  If you get into trouble then you can bring the weight back towards you and all of a sudden it will seem lighter.

4 Do more than crunch

Start with a flexion exercise such as a crunch, then do something with extension like a superman. After that introduce lateral flexion with a side bend, then do a rotational exercise. Finally do a static hold like a plank or a bridge.

5 Use a Swiss ball

When you train in an unstable environment you recruit a lot more muscle tissue, putting microscopic tears into it and when it repairs itself this leads to muscle growth.  You can also use a wobble board or Swiss ball to progress a core exercise and make it harder, preparing your muscles for adding resistance later on.

6 Target your lower abs

The lower section of the abs is the one that’s most difficult to hit and you will need some specific exercises.  Most people can reveal a four-pack at the top but it’s getting the six-pack that’s hard.  Try a reverse crunch with your legs up on a Swiss ball or just straight up into the air.

7 Do core stretches

Flexibility training is important to recovery because if you stretch the muscle you lengthen its range of motion and open it up so that your blood can re-supply it fully.  Lie face down on the floor with your hands just underneath your shoulders, then push up with your arms to bring your chest off the floor and push your hips into the floor. For your obliques, stand upright with feet apart and go over to one side. For your back, sit on your lower legs and bend forwards, stretching your arms across the floor.

8 Get your diet right

To build muscle you need to eat between 1.5g and 2g of lean protein per kilo of bodyweight every day.  Then you’ll get a six-pack by doing exercises – but you may not see it.  To see it, a man has to get down to ten per cent body fat, and to lose fat you’ve got to burn more calories than you take in. Increase the amount of exercise you do combined with a sensible diet.

9 Prioritise your training

If you want to get a six-pack you’ll need to devote separate sessions to train your abs so that you hit them when you’re still full of energy. Never try to do an abs session before a heavy lifting workout because you can exhaust the muscles in your core, which could be dangerous. However, it’s OK to do an abs session before a run if you need to.

10 Slow down your reps

Muscle will grow only if it spends time under tension.  If someone does 30 reps in 30 seconds he’s actually putting the muscles under tension for only 30 seconds. If you get someone else to do three sets of ten reps but each rep lasts ten seconds, they triple the time under tension and get the better strength gains. Try to count to three on the way up, hold for a count of two, then count to three again on the way down.

11 Train standing up

If you do all your abs and lower back workouts on an exercise mat, you are switching one side of your body off while you work the other. If you then try to use your core as a single unit during sport or hard cardio effort, it will not have been trained to do this and you risk injuring yourself. So do standing abs exercises that involve rotation using a medicine ball or cable machine, such as the woodchop.

12 Do short cardio intervals

Steady-state training will burn fat but only very slowly over a mammoth session.  If you want to get a good body by losing fat and keeping lean muscle mass then do intervals.  By doing ten minute-long runs flat out with one minute’s rest in between, you work for less time at a higher intensity to burn more calories. You also boost your metabolic rate so that you’ll still be burning calories four hours later when you’re sitting watching TV.