Infinite Ideas - Instant Ab Workouts: Secrets of Six-Pack Success

Instant ab workouts

Secrets of six-pack success

Infinite Ideas

Swiss balls 2

Some exercises that dont give your abs much of a workout on the floor take on a whole different dimension when you try them on the ball. One such exercise is push-ups. Adopt your standard face-down push-up position except with your knees on top of a ball. Now bend your elbows and lower your face to the floor and straighten to get back up all slowly and with control. Repeat as often as you would a normal push-up but notice the change of emphasis in terms of where you feel the effects. By raising your feet above the level of the floor you put more of you bodyweight on your arms so you work them more but in addition to this the effort of balancing on the ball and correcting the wobbles leads you to tense your abdominals, giving them a workout too. Once you are able to keep the ball stable try moving it further down your legs towards your ankles youll have to use even more effort to keep steady and work your abs still further.

The jack-knife

Heres an exercise to try on the Swiss balls, once youve got the hang of balancing. It looks like a distorted push-up but is really an upside-down reverse crunch (where you bring knees to chest instead of chest to knees) and because you are upside down its going to take even more effort to control your abs as youll be fighting gravity too. Assume a push-up position, with your feet together on the ball. Keeping your arms straight, bend your knees and gently roll the ball towards you, using your stomach muscles to control the movement. Now straighten out your legs to get the ball back to its starting position. Control is the key here youll know if youre doing the exercise right as it will quickly become obvious that most of the effort is coming from your midsection.

You complete plank

One of the most effective abdominal exercises involves keeping still, which probably comes as a surprise if youre used to thrashing around on the mat doing crunches. So meet the plank. This exercise and its variants work all of the abdominal muscles together. Lie face down on a mat with your forearms on the floor and your elbows directly below your shoulders. Pull your navel towards your spine and lift up onto your toes so that you are balanced on your forearms and toes. If you find this too difficult to begin with then try keeping your knees on the floor too. Your back should be straight so if your bum is sticking up pull it in and if your hips or belly are sagging, pull your abs in tighter. Now hold your position absolutely rigidly, increasing the time you hold for as your abs get stronger remember not to relax your stomach or back. Once youve got the hang of this try ramping it up a notch by slowly lifting your left leg and lowering it and then repeating with your right leg this will require yet more effort on the part of your abs in order to stop you from wobbling to one side.

The side plank

This exercise is no less fearsome than its face down relative but places more emphasis on the oblique abdominal muscles. Lie on your right side so that your body forms a completely straight line from head to toe with your legs stacked one on top of the other, your knees bent and your left arm resting on your left side. Your right forearm should be on the mat pointing out in front of you with your elbow directly below your shoulder so your upper body will be raised off the floor. Now, engaging your abs, raise your lower body off the mat so that only your right knee and forearm are in contact with the floor. You need to keep your body completely straight so pull in your abs to make sure you dont sag towards the floor. Hold the position for as long as you can and then repeat on the other side. Once youve got to grips with the basic position try taking your free arm and holding it out straight above you, pointing directly at the ceiling this will add an extra destabilising factor meaning youll have to work your abs harder to hold the position.

The advanced side plank

If youve got to grips with the side plank youll probably be looking for a way to make it more challenging. Well, youll be pleased to know you can make it progressively more difficult just by changing your leg position. Remember to make sure you can maintain that stable, rigid torso in each position before you take it up to the next level. Stage 1 is to straighten the legs, with your top leg just in front of your bottom leg (effectively crossed over it) so if youre lying on your right side your left leg will be in front. Both legs will still be supporting you and the crossed legs give you a wider and therefore more stable base. Once you can manage this with ease move onto stage 2, which is stacked legs, where your top leg rests on your bottom leg, meaning that the bottom leg is having to do all the supporting work. Finally once youre a side-plank expert try lifting your top leg as you lift your body. When you lift your free arm as well youll be in a very unstable position unless you have great ab strength and control so if you try to do this without working up through all the stages youll probably end up making a prat of yourself you have been warned!

The side plank that bends

Once youre happy with the side plank you can build on the exercise to challenge your abs more. So once youre in side plank position with your free arm pointing at the ceiling add a stretch to the position by reaching your arm over your head. Imagine there is a string pulling your midsection towards the ceiling youll look a bit like a ballerina whos fallen over sideways in mid-pirouette. Hold the position for as long as you can: you should be feel a contraction in the oblique muscle on the side facing the floor and a stretch in the oblique facing the ceiling. When youre confident in both this exercise and the basic side plank try developing them into a side crunch start off in basic plank position and then pull yourself up using the imaginary string and stretching your ballerina arm over your head before returning to the basic side plank position. Repeat. Slow, precise and controlled are the watchwords here doing loads of fast (and probably inaccurate) reps will be far less effective.

Back to basics

If youre working on your abs you need to keep your back strong too or you risk doing some serious damage to your back. You may be tempted to avoid exercises focusing on the back because they dont seem to be working you hard or you cant see the results but you may regret it if you ignore them. If it makes it more appealing this exercise is called superman. Lie flat on your front on a mat with your arms out in front of you. Smoothly lift both your arms and your feet off the mat as if you were trying to curl your whole body into a bow shape with only your stomach, ribs and hips left on the mat. Keep it steady, hold for a moment and then return to your starting position. Now add an extra element by slowly raising your right arm and left leg and then your left arm and right leg. This should feel comfortable enough to do between 10 and 20 times. If you fancy an extra challenge try doing the exercise on a Swiss ball by lying face down with your stomach and ribs in contact with the ball and, keeping your feet on the floor, raising just your upper body.

Roman revenge

There are some ab exercises you can do on the piece of gym/torture equipment known as the Roman chair. Not sure which piece of kit that is? Well, although different manufacturers models vary all versions feature a padded bar to tuck your lower legs under and a second larger pad to take the weight of your lower body. Now that youve found the right machine if youre bored of doing your crunches on the mat try doing them on the chair. Sit on the larger pad and tuck your feet under the smaller padded bar. Now crunch as normal. Not so easy is it? The difference is that because theres no floor under your back you have to keep tense all the time with no respite. Increase the difficulty by folding your arms across your chest and if youre really hard try holding a (smallish) weight there too. Remember that its best to start off with the easy version dont wade straight in there with a 50 kg weight held across your chest as at best youll humiliate yourself in front of the whole gym and at worst youll injure yourself.