Does anyone not want to have shredded abs or a nice tight stomach? No? Okay, that’s what I thought, now that we got that out of the way I can help you on your journey to a stronger, tighter core. I tend to see the same ab workouts floating around as the most effective and some of them definitely are, don’t get me wrong! What I don’t really see much of is an explanation on how to properly execute some of these movements. Contrary to popular belief (and what we all wish for) doing 100’s of crunches or hours of planks isn’t going to do much unless we have a proper diet down. The diet aside – we are shown these movements and think it’s the proper way to do them, I promise you’re missing a few components that make these exercises effective. Read what you need to do differently here and let me show you some excellent (frequently done improperly) movements down below!

1. Floating table top

But this one looks like nothing it looks so… shhhhhhh… just trust me. Start in a table top position and lift your knees off the ground about an inch, you can either hover there or you can do reps by gently tapping the floor and coming back up to that hover. Make sure your abs are super contracted and that everything is crunched in! If you don’t know what I mean by that go to the post I mentioned above where I talk all about how to properly contract those abs and check out my positioning here!

2. Planks (properly)

Now I want you to know that I am aware these look entirely ridiculous, allow me to justify. The two planks on the left are normally what people would do when doing a plank hence the name of the movement (a plank is quite flat). We are always told to keep our backs flat, don’t let our hips dip and don’t lift up too high which is all gravy. The issue is that in this position you are not getting maximum engagement — sure, you may feel it in your abs a bit but usually your arms and your shoulders will start to hurt before your abs. This is where the gymnastics plank will come in. Like I already said, yes, they look silly and exaggerated and I would recommend you play around with what position works for you, what works for me may not entirely be the right thing for your body. I (and most others) find that with the gymnastics plank you get maximum use out of your abdominals because of how engaged they have to be throughout the movement to keep your body in that lifted position, Always remember to continue breathing, keep squeezing and your body is stronger than your mind (push through it damnit).

3. One-legged isometric bicycles

If you can come up with a better name for this I will love you forever. I for one am sick of doing bicycles, anyone else? They feel like a copout ab exercise to me, it’s pretty easy to half ass them and make it look like you’re working hard but at the end of the day all I’m really doing is flailing my legs around and twisting my shoulder blades off the ground a bit. The goal of a bicycle crunch is not to get your knee to your elbow but to lift your torso enough to get your elbow to your knee so your core is actually engaged. We are going to take it one step further and just take our entire torso off the ground. The leg movement is staying the same as a bicycle but instead of straining at our neck we are going to keep our torso lifted the entire time, keeping your back as straight as possible and, as you can see in these photos, moving our torso minimally forcing our abs to hold us up and keep contraction… see a theme here?

4. Russian Twists (properly)

The above pictures are the WRONG way to complete this movement, it may look exaggerated but take a look at yourself in the mirror and see if you start with a curve in your back and try to twist too far. I’m telling you I’m so sick of people doing Russian twists fast with their back hunched over with the heaviest medicine ball, trying to touch the ground every time… just stop, please. I’ve never heard someone say they were sore after a few sets of Russian twists and it’s probably because you haven’t been doing them the proper way. When you start doing them correctly they’re actually incredibly difficult and even after a couple (like I did for these pictures) here’s what your face will look like… you’re welcome.

Start sitting up straight and proceed to lean back until you feel your abs start to engage then go justttt a little further. Keep your elbows flared out so you’re forced to just tap the ground with your elbow instead of twisting to the point of disengagement and trying to tap with your hand. I like to stop in the middle and do a little crunch up to seated and then lean back down just to ensure I’m not arching my back and not losing that abdominal engagement. If you do Russian twists right you can ditch the medicine ball as they will be super effective on their own!

5. Dead Bugs

Yet again, a strange name for such a great workout. These don’t need much of an explanation, opposite leg and opposite arm go down at the same time while keep your shoulders lifted slightly off the ground in order to keep that spine pressed into the floor, we wouldn’t want a curve in our back. Try these with just your body first and if you find them to be too easy you’re either doing them wrong or you need to add a yoga ball, foam roller, or bar to balance on your thighs (this forces you to keep the engagement so whatever equipment you put there does not fall).

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