workout

An Ab Workout For Every Level

The abdominal muscles are without a doubt one of the most difficult muscle groups to sculpt. Many perform crunch after crunch with no results. Instead of wasting your time on ab exercises that aren’t working for you, follow this ab workout guide, do cardiovascular exercise at least 4 times a week and eat a healthy diet, and you will begin to see definition in your abs over time. This ab workout will be worth your time! Remember to increase your reps or sets as the ab workouts become easier.

Beginner Ab Workout – Try 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise.

Basic Crunch – Lie on your back with your hands crossed across your chest or with your fingers on the sides of your head. Place your feet on the floor with legs bent. To begin the exercise, lift your torso, lifting shoulder blades off the floor and crunching your rib cage towards your lower belly. Hold for two counts, then lower slowly to the starting position.

Reverse Crunch – Lie on your back with knees bent, feet a few inches off the floor. Slowly contract the abdominals, focusing on rotating the pelvis up and bringing your knees towards your rib cage. Concentrate on letting your abs do the work. Hold at the top then slowly lower your knees to the starting position.

Intermediate Ab Workout -Try 3 sets of 8-10 reps for each exercise.

Toe Touchers – Lie on your back on the floor on a mat. Elevate your legs straight up into the air and point both of your arms straight up into the air as well having your body form a sort of giant “U.” Make sure you keep your lower back pressed flat into the ground. Exhale and crunch forward, touching your toes with your finger tips. Remember to let your abs do the work.

Scissor Kicks – Start by lying flat on your back on a mat with your arms by your sides and your palms down. Extend your legs fully with a slight bend in your knees. Lift your heels about 6 inches off the floor. Make small, rapid up and down scissor-like motions with your legs. The key is to focus on having your midsection do the work and to keep your abs constantly contracted throughout the exercise.

Advanced Ab Workout

Flat Bench Leg Pull Ins – Sit on a flat bench with your legs off the end. Place your hands to your sides, grasping the edge of the bench with each hand. Extend your legs straight out and lean your back at a 45 degree angle. Bring your knees in toward your midsection, making sure that your abs are doing the work in a slow and controlled fashion. Continue until muscle fatigue.

Side Bridge – Start by lying on a mat with your legs straight out. Turn sideways holding your body up with one bent arm parallel to the floor. Keep your abs tight until 30-60 seconds. A great sports specific exercise. Increasing your time as you gain strength.

Upper Ab Workout Tips

The image of pop icons and famous personalities has made the public want more than just a flat tummy. To get into the trimmed stomach group, you?re going to need to perform specific exercises to get those abs in shape. But that’s not all there is to it. The rectus abdominus is the single muscle that we know as the abs. To get that six-pack you always wanted, you?re going to need to target that. When it comes to toning the upper abs, the first word that you can think of will be ?crunches?.

Not all crunches works your entire ab for some of them focus only on one area. When working your retus abdominus, you have to balance your ab workouts by targeting both upper and lower abs. The good thing is that the tricks in doing these crunches are fairly simple. Crunches that require you to move your upper torso will target the upper abs, while those that will have you move your legs and hips will work the lower abs.

If you feel you need to tone your upper abs more than your lower abs, then you can do specific upper ab workouts. Crunches can be performed differently to achieve this. A few variations of the crunches are as follows:

UV Crunch: Compared to the name, sunshine is not required for this exercise. The UV crunch is a variation of the crunch that will require flexibility on your part since you will need to assume a letter V position, or U if you are more flexible. The starting position is done the same way you would do a basic crunch, only with your legs elevated either at a 45 degree angle or a 90 degree angle for the V and U crunch, respectively. Perform the crunch by lifting your head off the floor.

Frog Leg Crunch: This is done by lying on your back, feet together and knees apart. Perform the crunch by lifting your shoulders off the floor while your hands are behind your head. There are more difficult versions of this kind of crunch ? involving modified positions such as crossing your ankles or extending your arms above your head as opposed to your hands clasped behind your head.

Semi-Crunch: The difficulty level of this crunch is a notch higher than the others. You can incorporate this to all kinds of crunches; with the basic position be lying on your back with legs together, hands behind your head, knees bent and pointing upwards. Perform the crunch by lifting your head off the floor; when you come back down, your head and shoulders shouldn?t touch the floor.

To ensure that your abs are the focus, crunches are always the best option. The whole abdominal muscle is put to work with any kind of crunch you do. With slight modifications to these crunches, you can get the lower or upper ab workout that you need.