I've had a lot of requests for home abs workouts recently due to the amount of time we're having to spend inside, especially those having to either work from home or been made a furlough worker and have to find things to entertain themselves during the day time.
I have been posting some abs workouts on my Instagram account and across other social media platforms to help you guys out. Here I thought I would give you the tools to create these yourselves, mainly aimed if you are beginning to write programs, or if you are wanting a new challenge and haven't been used to training your abdominal muscles frequently.
Abdominal anatomy
First of all a quick, basic anatomy lesson for the abdominal muscles. The ab muscles support the trunk, they allow movement and they also hold organs in place by regulating internal abdominal pressure.
They are located between the ribs and the pelvis on the front of the body.
There are four main abdominal muscle groups that combine and completely cover the internal organs. Transverse abdominis; the deepest muscle layer helps to stabilise the trunk. Rectus abdominis; between the ribs and the pubic bone at the front of the pelvis. This is what you'll commonly refer to as the 'six pack'. The external oblique muscles; these are on each side of the rectus abdominis. These allow the trunk to twist, but to the opposite side of whichever external oblique is contracting. EG. your right external oblique contracts when your body turns left. Internal oblique muscles; these are located just inside the hip bones. The work in the opposite way to the external oblique muscles.
Core muscles
Your core is a strong column linking your upper and lower body. A solid core provides a foundation for all activities. Every movement is powered from here - the abdominals and back work together to support the spine when we sit, stand, bend over, pick things up, exercise and everything else.
Effective abdominal exercises
Now we've established the muscles that make up the coveted 'six pack' and supporting features, we need to train them so that we can see them 'pop' when our body fat is low enough.
Good nutrition and low body fat levels are absolutely paramount in seeing your hard work pay off. However there are various effective exercises that we can do also to train these muscles.
Including a range of exercises that hit different areas is useful. Exercises such as crunches, sit ups and v-ups to hit those upper abs. The leg raises, flutter kicks to hit those lower abdominal muscles. Add in some oblique twists, planks and you're well on the way.
Check out a few examples below to see some I've put together already for you guys.
Beginner abs workout
1 Crunches 3x15
2 Oblique twists 3x15
3 V-ups 3x15
4 60-second plank
Intermediate abs workout
1 Bicycle crunches 4x15
2 Leg raises 4x15
3 V-ups 4x15
4 60-second plank
5 Cross crunches 4x15
Advanced abs workout
1a Leg raises 4x15
1b Flutter kicks 4x15
2 Bicycle crunches 4x20
3a Oblique twists 4x15
3b V-ups 4x15
4 60-second plank