Hi, I'm configuring another gym routine, and I need some idea's on good excercises for the lower abdominals. Possibly something you've seen results with.

9/24/2006 7:47:31 PM

i saw some celeb work out thing on tv

she sat on one of those exercise balls and held her arms out and rolled her hips around slowly in a cirlce to work the abs

i havent tried it but i bet if you gave it a try you would be able to tell if your abs were working or not

seemed pretty simple and easy-- but prob isnt as easy as it looks after a few min

9/24/2006 7:49:08 PM

Do some pilates.

The main goal in pilates is to strengthen your core, which are your abs. You will find out about muscles you never knew you had after doing a pilates workout! There are tons of tapes/DVDs for cheap at places like Target.

9/24/2006 7:56:35 PM

Front Squats

9/24/2006 8:00:34 PM

kick downs torso twist and six inches

kickdowns: lay down flat on ur back, have someone stand at ur head put your hands on their ankles, bring ur legs up locked as high as u can towards the partners head and let them throw your feet down as hard as they can towards the ground but DO NOT let your feet touch the ground, keep bringin then up as fast as u can, the key here is fighting through the pain and holding on

torso twist: sit in a office chair that can move, put a broomstick on ur shoulders and twist side to side

six inches: bring ur feet off the ground 6 inches, leave them there for 20 seconds, then tuck ur knees into ur chest as HARD as u can and bring ur feet back out to 6 inches from the ground again

9/24/2006 8:10:33 PM

YOU CANNOT TARGET CERTAIN PARTS OF YOUR ABDOMINALS, IT'S ONE MUSCLE


weighted decline sit ups, 3 sets of 8 1-2 times a week

if you're doing squats, overhead pressing, etc. your core should be getting a decent workout

9/24/2006 9:11:19 PM

dont forget to work out your lower back

9/24/2006 9:12:59 PM

there are 6 muscles that form your abdomin

transverse abdominal
the internal obliques (l and r)
the external obliques (l and r)
rectus abdominis

9/24/2006 10:18:27 PM

pwnt

9/24/2006 10:19:26 PM

no pwnt


that may be true, but the abs all contract together, NOT as an upper or lower unit

9/24/2006 10:23:15 PM

^^^^
how do you do that?

my lower back is killing me after my golf lesson yesterday and i'm pretty sure its bc of my weak lower back

9/24/2006 10:26:29 PM

^hyperextensions, deadlifts, rack pulls


http://www.exrx.net

9/24/2006 10:27:07 PM

for the obliques you can do side bends or the twisting variations of situps/crunchs and leg raises

In addition to weighted situps,I like to do hanging leg raises for my abdomin because it has the added benifit of grip work.

What are rack pulls?

9/24/2006 10:36:25 PM

you set the pins on a powerrack just below your knees and basically deadlift from there...it takes out the bottom of the lift and puts all the emphasis on your lower back

http://paws.wcu.edu/tjacobi/Weight%20Lifting%20Descriptions/Ground%20Based%20Explosive%20Movements/rack%20pull.htm



[Edited on September 24, 2006 at 10:40 PM. Reason : ]

9/24/2006 10:38:00 PM

I've seen people doing them, just didn't know the name.

Goodmornings are also a good one for the lower back.

9/24/2006 10:42:36 PM

GOODMORNINGS

damn, I can't believe I forgot those

9/24/2006 10:43:27 PM

what are goodmornings?

9/24/2006 11:18:58 PM

9/24/2006 11:21:34 PM

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Hamstrings/BBGoodMorning.html



[Edited on September 24, 2006 at 11:24 PM. Reason : ]

9/24/2006 11:22:58 PM

Holy shit

9/24/2006 11:30:20 PM

Turkish get-ups, side presses, bent presses, overhead squats, front squats, back squats......don't waste your time with isolation.

9/25/2006 12:25:04 AM

Quote :

"don't waste your time with isolation. "

Holy dumb.

9/25/2006 7:35:13 AM

Rack Pulls are a great ME lift but I wouldn't waste your time unless you deadlift alot. But its a really grood lift if you are weak in your lockout.

Good mornings are also great but again, don't waste your time unless you can keep excellent form. Do reps untill your form breaks down, don't try to pump out a few extra reps or you can really get hurt. The thinking with GM's was that you could go heavy for light reps, but there has been more of a shift to lighter weight w/ higher reps.

9/25/2006 8:21:05 AM

V-crunch or V-up. Sit on a bench or the floor. Try to go down, lay staight on the floor and crunch up, bring your upper body and legs together in a crunch. Try to go slow going down, but crunch fast going up. An advanced version of this is a V-up, same move, just extend your feet and hands, and touch them when you crunch up, that is keep your arms and legs straight when you bring them up.

Standing oblique crunches with or without weight are good. Stand straight up and hold a weight in one hand, bend to the side, and staighten up. Alternate sides one at a time.

Reverse crunches, like kickdowns, but if you don't have the luxury of working out with someone else. Lay flat on the floor, and read behind you to hold on to a piece of equipment for support, keep at arms lenght from the equipment. Hold your legs straight and bring them up to 90 degress with the floor. For more intensity, when your legs are vertical, you can contract your abs further and "press" your feet toward the ceiling, crunch your "upper" abs.

All these assume that your abs are already pretty strong to begin with. Good luck.

9/26/2006 11:09:19 AM

Decline situps. You can do all types of variations. You can do them without weight, with weight (I like to use a medicine ball), you can work your obliques while doing them by bringing your right elbow to the left side and vice versa. I'm a big fan of decline situps. I usually do at least three sets to start off my ab workout...with different variations every time. But they work the lower abdominals very well.

I also like to lay on my back, grab a bar or a put a large dumbell behind my head and grab that...and raise my legs and touch the wall behind me with my toes....I like to alternate swiveling to my right and them to my left...targeting the obliques again. I do about 3 sets of 20 reps with this. In between these sets I'll do a variation of "6 inches"...which is keeping your feet about 6 inches off the ground and criss-crossing your feet or moving them up and down in a slightly fast motion. Then doing about 30 or so crunches followed by some bicycle crunches situps. Combine all of these things to make up 3 full sets...should take you about 15 minutes.

I like to finish off with some crunches on an ab-ball, switching out doing regular crunches and left-and-right oblique crunches. In between these sets I'll get a medicine ball and sit down with my knees bent up and feet slightly off the ground and go back and forth with the medicine ball on each side of my torso. Another good oblique workout.

I'm a big fan of doing exercises that are heavy on the obliques, because that's a difficult muscle to target...and when you do oblique exercises, you're hitting your abs pretty hard at the same time, so it's like killing two birds with one stone. And a lot of the exerices I do are really good for the lower portion of the abs, which I also think are the tough part of the abs to get definition in.

9/26/2006 12:07:31 PM

8 minute abs works pretty well

9/26/2006 12:10:28 PM

Quote :

"YOU CANNOT TARGET CERTAIN PARTS OF YOUR ABDOMINALS, IT'S ONE MUSCLE"

While you can't not contract the uppers while concentrating the lowers, there have been studies that shown the different exercises activating them differently and that doing ab exercises in a certain order does more for you than in some certain other order.

Particularly, if you work the lowers first (leg raises from the dip rack) then the uppers (with just a basic crunch) showed better results in one particular study I read (or maybe it was just some magazine bullshit). Nonetheless, it's pretty stupid for anyone outside of a pro body builder to be concerned with this level of detail anyway.

[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 12:12 PM. Reason : a]

9/26/2006 12:11:46 PM

God mornings are pretty damn hard to keep straight.

9/26/2006 4:25:30 PM

Deadlifts for every body part.

And Guinness for strength.

9/26/2006 4:33:04 PM

PLANKS (and SIDE-PLANKS) are great for core-muscle strength.

If you have never done them before, you should.

You will wake up the next morning with a DELCIOUS SORENESS in your deep muscles, RIGHT IN YOUR CORE, between your abdominals and lower back.

9/26/2006 5:22:58 PM

sorry, but soreness is not a good indicator of how well a muscle was worked




[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 5:28 PM. Reason : ]

9/26/2006 5:27:12 PM

I do russian cable twists w/ two plates and my feet in air while doing horizontal gaze nystagmus tests.

9/26/2006 5:38:52 PM

ab slide = the wins for your entire abs. no joke.

9/26/2006 8:10:02 PM

Wtf is an abslide

9/26/2006 9:41:39 PM

eat a whole lot then make yourself throw it up. no fat no calories and one hell of an abdominal workout as you spew all over yourself.

9/26/2006 9:48:21 PM

Quote :

"ab slide = the wins for your entire abs. no joke."

please tell me you're fucking kidding...none of those things work, they make you feel the "burn" which is in no way related to muscle growth


do yourself a favor and get rid of it...then do weighted decline situps

9/26/2006 10:52:18 PM

Dave Tate swears by the Pro Ab Wheel

9/26/2006 10:57:33 PM

^^^^google or amazon, search.

^^no, i'm not fucking kidding. you have obviously never tried the ab slide. most ab products are gimmicks, but this one is not.

9/26/2006 11:04:12 PM

aight, post up some pics of your abs

let's see the spectacular results!

9/26/2006 11:21:39 PM

i would but i dont want to intimidate tww

9/26/2006 11:26:53 PM

Quote :

"do yourself a favor and get rid of it...then do weighted decline situps"

This is not always the best idea....depending on how much weight you use.

I think it's better to do 30 to 40 decline situps with little to no weight than 10 or 12 reps with heavy weight...unless you're body building and want bulky abs that stick out. More reps and less weight will give you a more cut look with definition.

9/26/2006 11:28:16 PM

that "cut look" and definition is merely a factor of having a low enough body fat %

put it this way...would you bench press just the bar over and over...no, that'd be pointless after a while so why would you do tons and tons of situps when you can just do a few sets of weighted ones and get better results

9/26/2006 11:30:22 PM

Quote :

"put it this way...would you bench press just the bar over and over...no, that'd be pointless after a while so why would you do tons and tons of situps when you can just do a few sets of weighted ones and get better results"

I bench to get a big chest...I don't do situps to get big abs. I run and do about 35 minutes of different ab exercises with little to no weight most of the time to get defined abs.

My abs look A LOT better with my new ab routine then when I use to grab a plate and do 5 sets of decline sit-ups.

9/26/2006 11:34:50 PM

Oh, those abslide things with the infomercials yah, gtfo of the thread.

And many reps with low weight gives you definition, this is true for any excercise.

[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 11:39 PM. Reason : goodmornings are so tough]

9/26/2006 11:39:21 PM

many reps + low weight = endurance

the bottom line for definition is DIET though, 5 reps, 6, 10, 12, 20 whatever...without a low enough bodyfat it won't matter

9/26/2006 11:46:15 PM

Not Getting Involved

[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 11:48 PM. Reason : fdafsdfsdfadsfsdfsd]

9/26/2006 11:46:29 PM

9/26/2006 11:48:38 PM

look dude, you asked us what we've seen results with (although i haven't had it long and i've only been able to feel results so far). i havent talked to or read about a single person who has used the ab slide that did not feel it was effective. stop being so blatantly ignorant and closeminded.

9/26/2006 11:50:17 PM

Best Ab Exercise Ever....

9/26/2006 11:54:50 PM

I know there are a lot of shitty ab products out there....but I'm sure some of them work pretty good.

All you have to do is make a contraption that gives you some resistance. I haven't used the ab-slide before, so I'll take this guy's word that it might work pretty well.

9/26/2006 11:55:01 PM