Abs Workout: The biggest mistake many people make when they do their abs workout is they spend too much time doing it. Spending any more than 10 minutes training your abs is a colossal error since it is extremely unnecessary to see results. Your abs respond best to hard, intense exercises are done for a short period of time but done consistently over the course of many days. In the following video, Jeff from AthleanX explains a 7-minute Ab Workout that proves all you need is intensity and not length for good abs.
This entire ab workout can be done on the floor without any equipment at all. It is going to cover all of the primary functions of the ab muscles and incorporate other muscles of the core as well such as the obliques. The key is that you are going to move from one exercise to the next without resting. You earn one 30 second rest at the midpoint of the workout, but that is it.
If you keep the exercises moving you never give your abs a chance to breathe, so to speak. You apply the intensity and then step on the gas throughout the rest of the workout. This allows the workout to stay difficult even if the individual ab exercises themselves are not the most challenging that you have performed.
This one starts with a bottom-up movement (that also tends to incorporate a lot of rotation as well), and this is the figure 8. For the figure 8, you are literally doing what it says and moving your legs in the shape of an 8 laying on its side. This forces you to not blend two of the more challenging movement patterns into one exercise but does so when you are freshest and most capable of doing it uncompromised.
Next you move onto the long leg windshield wipers. If this is too difficult for you, you can shorten the moment arm and bend the legs rather than keeping them straight. This essentially lightens the load felt by the abs and allows you to perform the exercise if the long leg variation is too difficult to maintain for the entire 60 seconds.
This moves onto the twisting piston exercise. This is a plank variation but much more effective because of the dynamic nature of it. You not only have to have the strength to stabilize your body to avoid excessive movement here but the plyometric aspect of the mini jumps turns your core into a shock absorber as well and allows it to be much more functional at the same time.
Finally, a well deserved 30-second rest break.
Come out of the break and go right into the Starfish Crunch. This one is no joke! Keep both your arms and legs out wide as you perform this six pack exercise and twist to one side as you come up. This will be both a midrange and top down rotational movement, with the added benefit of hitting the oblique muscles as well.
Finally, finish with 2 minutes of rotational ab circles. This one is the easiest to perform, but since we saved it for last in the ab workout, will feel much more difficult (and effective). Make sure you give this complete ab workout a try and see how much more you can do in just 7 minutes if you are applying your ab training principles properly.
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