Ab exercises

[TSDguy]

Anyone have any brutal, inhumane, painful ab exercises? I want something that kills me in like 20 reps instead of doing different kinds of crunches all day long. About the worst I have are:

"Morning Glories", where you do a combo crunch/leg lift

Some crazy Korean military exercise where you start on your back on the floor legs straight up and keeping your back flat and legs straight take your legs down to the left side, center, right side center (1)...

I also want a nice lookin six pack for the ladies . I have basically no fat on me so i have a small one, but I guess I need to build strength to make the bottles pop out. I have 2 30 lb dumbells with me. So any suggestions?

[Bill Glasheen]

You are right about one thing. To get a six pack, you must first lower your body fat. And you cannot "spot remove" fat with a specific exercise. You just need to burn more calories than you consume until the right body fat level is achieved.

To do the abs justice, you need to consider a number of different degrees of freedom of motion. They are:

* Contracting the upper abs via "crunches" or other similar exercise

* Working the hip flexors and lower abs via leg lifts or similar exercies.

* Working the obliques via side bends.

* Working the obliques via trunk rotation.

The most important thing to remember is first not hurting your back. That can happen when one does an exercise incorrectly. And even properly done ab exercises can hurt your back or neck if you are at risk. So start slowly and listen to your body.

By far the nastiest I know is hanging leg lifts. Hang on a bar and bring your straight legs up until your feet touch the bar. It requres both hip flexing and crunching.

Side bends are easy to do with dumbbells. Just start with a straight back (pelvis tucked under), and make sure you hold the weight only on one side. These concentrate on the obliques.

Be careful with trunk rotation exercises. Remember that if you have any compression forces on your spine when rotating, that you will exert sheer forces on the discs in your back that will accumulate damage with time. Never do rotations with a weight on your shoulder. Instead use the fancy machines.

Lie down with your back on a big exercise ball, and let your back conform to it with feet firmly on the ground. Hold a small weight straight up in the air with arms locked at the elbow. Then "reach" the weight to the sky with your crunch muscles.

A good plyometric exercise is to lie on your back while holding someone's ankles (standing above your head), and have them throw your legs down to the floor. Stop the legs before they touch the floor (while keeping lumbar area flat on floor) and bring them back up again.

While sitting up on an incline board, have someone bounce your stomach with a medicine ball.

Have fun!

- Bill

[TSDguy]

Great! Thanks! What do you think about crunches with dumbells behind your head? And if anyone else has any exercises, post those too. We all get bored with repetition.

[Sochin]

We crunch every class- each student counts out ten crunches. Big classes are a killer and when a visiting class comes in, lotsa FUN!

Sometimes we start at white belt and let each student actually call the type of crunch too, legs straight up, double crunch (ie a crunch and a pelvic lift at the same time) etc. Not any more strenuous but keeps crunches interesting.

[lookingglass]

yea that is alway the worst.
Jumping jaxs and pushups were also on the list.
There were times when we had 22 people in class.
I usually stopped during the push up session. We were not to hurt ourselves but expected to push ourselves.

[2Green]

Here's the most brutal I ever encountered; my first Sensei got us to do this each in turn, with him:
You lie on the floor face up, legs together. He stands with a foot on each side of your head; he's facing same as your legs.
You throw both feet together up at his chest; he throws them back down: straight, off to the side; each time you have to throw them back up, quick as you can
It's brutal!
See how many you can do.

NM

[Bill Glasheen]

2Green

If you check, you will see this is the plyometric exercise I spoke of above. This is more than strength development and tone. This gets into power development (involving neuromuscular efficiency).

***

As for the dumbbells behind the head... It works. I prefer holding weight plates on my forehead; that works the neck muscles too. And holding the dumbbells straight up (straight elbows) and reaching to sky is another good alternative.

As posted, crunching up with the pelvis is another spin on the upper abdominal exercise.

Variety is important here. Don't do the same exercise day after month after year. Get families of exercises that work on the same muscles. Then pick and choose from them on different days. Each has its specific emphasis and merit. Doing the same exercise time and again will cause you to plateau, get bored, and give up. Strive to find as many new and interesting ways to exercise the same muscles as possible while also keeping safety in mind.

And I must re-emphasize the safety thing here. I know people who have hurt both back and neck - one person permanently. Be careful. Listen to your body. Strive for good form while you push yourself.

- Bill

[lookingglass]

No most brutal was in a N shalion Kung fu class.

We were told to complete our push-ups before we could start practise.

we did 6 in 3 sets
6 regular push ups then three sets. The next 3 sets were to be done with our feet up in a chair.
Then the next three sets were to be done with our feet high about door handel level.

Then back to the floor and this time we did them wide and back up.

Then we did them in the diamond all the way up.

If you were good at it you could do them on the bricks to get that good stretch.

All at 162 push-ups and movement. 216 if you add the last set.

Then we did some of the other exercises, such as standing with one knee up for about 3 minutes. Then in the airplane, one leg out back and body horizontal to the floor as if you are flying with one leg to the floor.
Then we did the dragon stance which I never understood why are how to learn it.

Man Uechi is easy. compared to that stuff...
Ken.

[sarosenc]

For variety check out dragondoor.com and their publications about bullet-proof abs by Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel is a Russian Master of Sports and former Russian spetznaz trainer. Also check out the Russian Kettlebell workouts. Just food for thought.

[2Green]

You're right, Mr. Glasheen; I missed that one in your post.
Reading too fast, thinking too slow!

NM

[lookingglass]

Good thing that was not a punch or you would be thinking real s l o w !

[M. Keller]

Hello all,

I'm always experimenting with ab exercises, and I have a few favorites. I've got a few killers for you all:

Bicycles: While on your back, hold your legs straight out in front with your heels a few inches off of the floor. Bring your knee and opposite elbow together (crunch and rotate), and repeat on the other side.

@ss-kickers: Again, on your back, this time with knees raised, do a straight situp with elbows in front. Pause around 2/3rds of the way up, and throw a few jabs.

Both of these are pretty brutal, so don't do them cold. Also, if you want to gain mass, skip days in between hard ab sessions.

Enjoy!

Mike

[Bill Glasheen]

Mike

Hope Duke med school's going well. It's always great to hear from you.

Yea, those are both great exercises. While I am critical of many studies of ab exercises (because they don't select many common exercises, and they don't measure activity all the way around and up/down the trunk), one study released that measured EMG activity in the rectus abdominus muscles (the 6 pack) showed the bicycle exercise Mike mentioned to be tops.

The other one's great too!

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Here's the study I was talking about.


Best and Worst Abdominal Exercises

Pretty straight stuff.

I was looking for some other Webpages that would list some good exercises. I found one that...well... It's got some good exercises listed, and then a great "bottom line."

Abdominals

Sorry... Gotta appreciate a well-kept physique!

- Bill