Top 10 Ab Exercises
Here are my Top 10 Ab exercises to make sure you have your beach body ready for summer!
Crunches
Bending your knees with your feet flat, hold your fingertips to your temples. From here crunch your ribs towards your pelvis, but make sure you keep your lower back on the floor, focusing on only using your abs.
Reverse Crunches
With the legs outstretched, crunch the upper body as above while at the same time bringing the knees in towards the chest.
Leg Raises
With the back flat against the floor, keeping the legs straight raise them from just above touching the floor to as close to verticle as you can.
Plank
With your feet and your elbows on the floor, keep your body firm in the same posture you would have if you were standing upright. Be sure to tense your abs hard throughout.
Plank Reach
In the above plank position, reach one arm forwards until it is fully outstretched, then return it to the starting position and repeat with the other arm.
Plank With Knee Unders
Again starting in the plank position, this time bring your knee up and twist until your hip almost touches the ground, then return to the start position and repeat with the other leg.
Side Plank Reach Unders
Holding a side plank, reach your arm down and under the body, before returning back to the start position. Repeat for reps, then swap to the other side.
Knee Tucks Hands Down
Holding your back off the ground at around a 45 degree angle, let your hands touch the floor either side of your torso. Then keeping your feet a few inches off the floor at all times, stretch your legs out as far as you can, from there tuck the knees up to the chest.
Knee Tucks Hands Up
An advancement on the above exercise, make the same movement but this time keep your hands off the floor. This will work your core much harder.
Russian Twists
Holding your body at the 45 degree angle again with the feet off the floor, twist your shoulders as far around to either side as you can. The aim being if you can get each shoulder round to your belly button for a full range of motion.
Bicycles
In the 45 degree position, bring one leg in while you stretch the other out, to imitate the leg movement when on a bike. When you bring the knee up, touch your hands under the knee to emphasise the core activation on each rep.
