You are no longer a beginner and want to start adding more abdominal exercises to your routine: first of all, congratulations are in order because you have shown the commitment to get to this point without giving up. You may not be seeing all of the visible results yet but you are most likely feeling better, sleeping better and approaching each day with a more vigorous outlook. Now, pat yourself on the back a few times before taking a look at these new exercises that you can add to your abdominal routine. Are you done? Good. Then let’s jump right in.
In a previous article, you became acquainted with crunches, reverse crunches and the pulling in maneuver. Now you are going to add one or two more exercises to make the workout a bit more challenging and varied. After reviewing these new choices, try to stick with four or five abdominal exercises each time you work out. Remember to do three sets of each exercise with 12-15 repetitions per set before moving on to the next exercise. You can vary which ones you choose for each workout so that boredom doesn’t become an issue.
Do you look like this?
Let’s take a look at ab exercises that still have no need for additional equipment and can be done from the comfort and privacy of your own home:
- Bicycle Crunches – The bicycle crunch is one of the best abdominal exercises that you can do because it works all areas of your stomach and since you no longer are a beginner, you have sufficient strength for this maneuver. Remember: control your movements and your breathing to get the maximum effect. Begin by laying on your floor with your hands interlaced behind your head. As you start to curl forward, bring your right knee towards your left elbow and extend your left leg. Now repeat with the other leg to your other elbow. The key here is to keep your shoulder blades off the floor as you execute each repetition.
- Leg Lifts – Let’s bring a little variety to your abdominal exercises. This is a simple exercise to do but works both your abdominal muscles and helps strengthen your back. Once again, you’ll use the floor. Lay down with your back pressed against floor, arms at your sides and your knees slightly bent. To start the exercise, bring you legs straight up in the air fully extended. To complete the maneuver, keeping your legs extended, slowly lower them towards the floor but not all the way! Hold for a count of 2 and bring them back up. This exercise can be adapted in a variety of ways as you progress, by varying the hold counts and by adding ankle weights to even further challenge you.
- Half Plank – This is one of the abdominal exercises that uses no motion but strengthens not only your stomach muscles but the muscles of your back as well. It is done on the floor but now you get to roll over. From a kneeling position, lean forward to balance yourself on your elbows and knees keeping your body as straight as possible. What you want to do now is pull your abdominal muscles in and try and touch your belly button to your spine. Hold for 10 seconds to start and then release. Don’t hesitate to use pads for your knees and elbows if your surface is too hard or uncomfortable. As you become even stronger, you may consider using what is known as a Full Plank, the only difference being that you balance on your elbows and toes.
As stated above, keep your routine varied with different abdominal exercises but also learn to challenge yourself with the more difficult ones (again: only once you are 100% ready). That was the main purpose of introducing you to all of these new exercises. As start becoming more and more successful, your motivation will increase and you will probably want to do more. If you have been making these abdominal exercises just a small portion of an overall fitness plan to tone and burn away your body fat, rest assured, your visible results are not that far away. So again, pat yourself on the back: it’s definitely allowed!
