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All About Abs 2 - The Best Abs Exercises

This is Part 2 of our four part series called All About Abs. This post will look at the best abs exercises that you should utilize if you want to develop some super sexy, firm and toned abs.

All about abs - the best abs exercises intro

The first part of this series took a look at all the essential basics of abdominal development. We established that the basics are the most important part of abdominal training so if you have not read it yet I strongly encourage you to go back and read it first. Without the basics they more advanced stuff is no where near as effective.

Once you know all about the basics, however, you need to expand your knowledge further and get yourself together an arsenal of the best possible exercises. This will make the process of developing some nice abs much faster.

You see there are good abs exercises and there are bad abs exercises. Some work the abs a lot better than other and it is these few that we are interested in. If we spend a lot of time on fancy abs exercises that aren’t quite as effective as the other then we are just wasting our own energy and time.

The best abs exercises target the abs really well to the exclusion of most other muscles. This should be your gauge.

You only need a couple of abs exercises

One important point I want to share with you all is that you really only need two or three super abs exercises. It is not necessary to do ten different exercises each workout, they are all targeting the same group of muscles.

I think many women fall into the trap of thinking that if they haven’t made much progress they need some new exercises to try out. Or, they may think that different abs exercises workout different areas of the abs. While both of these thoughts are true to some extent I find it much more effective to get my clients (and myself) to master three or four exercises and focus on them completely.

However, it is important to mix up your routine if you find it boring or ineffective. My point, however, is that you only need three or four exercises for success.

What makes a good abs exercise?

As aforementioned a good abs exercise should be one that targets the abdominal muscles well without brining any other muscles in to play.

One of the main problems with bad abdominal exercises is that they take the emphasis off of the abs by either tricking you into using too much motion or bringing other surrounding muscles into help. Both of these secnarios are bad and will not help your progress.

My goal with this series is not so much to lay out your entire path step by step for you but rather it is to give you some good solid information and facts so you can go about your abs training in an informed way. This means that you should be able to pick new abs exercises and diets by looking at them and asking yourself whether they meet the standards laid out in these posts.

An important part of the information I want to give you is to help you recognize a good abs exercise. It should use only the abs and not the hip flexors or obliques, it should be simple to do and it should involve the crunching action. That’s it.

The best abs exercises

Now that we have covered some basics points I want to give you three abs exercises that I consider to be most important. They are important because they target the abs perfectly and they also form the core and basis for many other abs exercises. By this I mean that if you master these three abs exercises then all other exercises will come pretty easily.

1. The reverse crunch

The reverse crunch is the exercise that you should master first of all. It is extremely good for working your abs with a good emphasis on the lower abdominal region.

How to do the reverse crunch:

a) Lay falt on your back and make sure your lower back is firmly pressed against the floor.

Place your hands under your lower back to form a “cradle” for you to rock on. Tense your abs and lift your feet slightly off of the ground. This is the starting position.

Make sure you get a feel for tensing your abs while you are stationary as it is important to be able to feel them and tense them throughout the entire motion. This is a very important aspect of abdominal training.

b) �Keeping your abs tense rock backwards on your hands by bending your knees and bringing them towards your chest. You should first bend your knees fully and then rock backwards so that your lower back lifts off of the ground.��You should be trying to get your hips towards your chest as if your were crushing your abs like an accordian.

c) Finally, bring your hips right back towards your chest and crunch your abs as hard as you can. Most people think this is the end of the exercise but this is incorrect. You must then lower your legs back down as slowly as possible. The decline part of abs exercises is extremely important and is where a lot of the progress is made. If you just rush through it to get to the next rep your abs get off lightly. Try to lower your legs to the starting point as slowly as possible.

This is how you should do the reverse crunch if you want to get the most out of it. It is a core abs exercise that you should make a regular part of your abs workout. Remember, as it targets the lower abs the most you should do it at the start of your workout before the lower abs get too tired.

2. The crunch
The next exercise in my top three is the basic crunch. When done correctly the crunch really is second to none. It target the abdominal muscles perfectly and doesn’t bring any other muscles into play.

How to do the crunch:

a) As before, lay flat on your back with your lower back firmly pressed against the floor.

Place your finger on your temples, not behind your head as this may tempt you to tugg on your head and hurt your neck.

You feet should be about shoulder width apart and flat on the floor. This gives you a good stable position and allows you to pull back with your feet which gives you a tighter crunch at the top of the motion.

b) From this position you should tense your abs and slowly start rolling your body up into the crunch position. Start by bringing your chin towards your chest and then rolling your shoulders down towards your abs. Remember, you are trying to imagine yourself as a giant newspaper being rolled up, not a see-saw going up and down.

Once you get to the top position where your are as crunched as you can get without lifting your lower back off the ground you should tense your abs again and slowly begin the decline movement.

3. The hanging leg raise
The hanging leg raise is basically an extension of the movement we covered in the reverse crunch. However, as you are hanging from a bar you have to fight against gravity and lift your whole legs. This makes it a much more intense exercise. Many professional fitness models attribute their firm abs to the hanging leg raise.

How to do the hanging leg raise:
The hanging leg raise really isn’t that hard to master in terms of the technique. Doing it, however, is a very different thing! I have a love/hate relationship with this exercise as it is so hard to do. It really takes it out of you.

a) Find a high bar or head over to the chin up bar if you go to the gym. Jump up and hang off it and let your body stretch out and relax. Try to feel the stretch in your abs and learn what it feels like to tense them whilst hanging from a bar.

b) Keeping your ankles and feet together tense your abs and lift your legs up towards your chest. You will reach a point where you cannot raise them any further and when you do your should rock back on your hips and lift the legs up even further. This requires that you use a little bit of motion and momentum but in this case it is ok. Once you get to the top of the raise lower your legs back down super slowly.

Try and keep your legs straight throughout the whole exercise. If you can stick to this exercise for a while you will find faster results than ever before.

Questions about abs? Ask us! Join the discussion at our Women's Fitness Forum. It's free to join and we can give you all the help you need!

Conclusion
These abs exercises are the basics and the best. Beginners and professionals alike use these three exercises and attain wonderful results. Make sure you always keep your technique perfect and if you do so then sexy abs are not too far away.

In the next article we will be looking at all the diet aspects of developing your abs.

The full series is: PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4.

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