Article: best abdominal exercises

MrNuked

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/conditioning/a/aa020402a.htm

"Bicycle maneuver
Lie flat on the floor with your lower back pressed to the ground. Put your hands beside your head. Bring your knees up to about a 45-degree angle and slowly go through a bicycle pedal motion. Touch your left elbow to your right knee, then your right elbow to your left knee. Breath evenly throughout the exercise.

Captain's chair
This was one of the few on the "most effective" list that involves gym equipment. Start with legs dangling and slowly lift your knees in toward your chest. The motion should be controlled and deliberate as you bring your knees up and return them back to the starting position.

Crunch on an exercise ball
Sit on the exercise ball with your feet flat on the floor. Let the ball roll back slowly and lie back until your thighs and torso are parallel with the floor. Contract your abdominals raising your torso to no more than 45 degrees. To work the oblique muscles, make the exercise less stable by moving your feet closer together. "

Instead of doing my usual load of sit-ups, I tried doing these exercises. I was still feeling it 5 days later, so I was definitely using muscles that don't get exercised much.

BrianD3

I tried doing those bicycle crunches before - found they did me no good at all. I think part of the problem with these (and lots of other exercises on that list) is that they don't provide enough resistance for even a moderately fit person. The result is that people are able to do 30+ reps quite easily which is far from ideal if hypertrophy is the goal.

BrianD3

MrNuked

You could hold a weight while doing the swiss ball cruches. Shouldn't be too hard to attach weights to the feet for the captain's chair also. You could probably hold a small dumb bell in each hand while doing the bicycle crunch even.
I had been doing two sets of 90 sit ups. Instead of that I rotated sets of 20 of each of these twice, and it was far more difficult.
You have a point about the volume. I think I'll try using a weight with at least the crunches tomorrow. (weights kept in different room in the gym to swiss balls is only thing.)

BrianD3

Shouldn't be too hard to attach weights to the feet for the captain's chair also.

Yeah you could use some 2.5 kg ankle weights. JJB sports sell them. I have 4 of these and they go around the legs and ankles no probs. 10kg extra would make a significant difference for a captains chair or hanging knee raise exercise.

Most of the time I just do weighted crunches with low reps. I either hold a plate above my head or put a dumbbell on my chest. Neither method is ideal because when you're using reasonably heavy weights things can get awkward and dangerous and it can be difficult to use good form and isolate the abs. At the mo I'm using a 72 kg dumbbell on my chest or a 25 kg plate held above my head. The latter is more difficult (due to the distance between the weight and the muscle) but is slightly less awkward.

Remember too that if you do a deadlift or squat your abs are heavily involved in stabilisation. I have heard that a lot of "serious lifters" don't do any actual ab work, their abs are "taken care of" by other exercises. Anyone know if this is correct?

BrianD3

Naos

30 reps... do them FAR slower then.

The Bicycle is good, dont lie flat on ur back, come up off the ground a bit tell u can feel stomach muscles tensed THEN start 'cycling' .. tough.

Also a thing im doing now is a normal situp but im dropping a medicine ball on my stomach when its tensed. tis good.

MrNuked

Have been reading about the effects of exercising at different speeds. Studies show that doing exercises very slowly is significantly less effective than doing them quickly or at a natural speed. (Super slow exercises shown to be considerably less effective than regular speed in one. Slow exercises shown not to increase the strength of the muscle while moving at speed in another.)

GreeBo

Personally I would have thought the goal with crunches would be tone rather than strength.

Also, if you are able to do more than 20-25 reps you aint doin em right, you need to be really contracting your abs, squeeze them and hold for 5 secs.

Adding weight when doing crunches has a terrible habit of building a "big" ab muscle which is a pain in the ass as you end up looking fat!