Best ab exercise

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i was wondering what the most effective ab exercises are. any help?

[EmptyneSs]

ab machine at gym(hi reps) and lots of leg lifts

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thats the problem got a bad back at the moment cant do them.

[pittbulldog]

7 minute abs

I ordered one of the 7 minute ab videos and it is awesome. It has seven exercise.
Start from lying on your back.
1. Bring your knees to your chest, and straighten them back out
2. Leg lifts
3. Bicycle
4. Crunches straight up to the middle (Hold all crunches for just a second)
5. Crunches up to the left side
6. Crunches up the the right side
7. Back to the knees to the chest, but this time, you also try to lift your head up to meet also. (almost like doing V's)
Do each of these for 30 seconds, and then repeat. For a harder workout, on all but the crunches, don't let your feet touch the floor.

[martialartist88]

Best Ab Workout

Ab Machine? Im afraid not...

To gain strong, natural abs, you are required to excersise them in a way of unfixed motion. When on an Ab machine, you are in a constant fixed motion. The fixed motion disables your muscles to be naturally, and fully worked out. I'm not saying Ab machines don't work. They can supplement a good ab routine very well.
A great way to work your abs would be the all time famous crunches, sit-ups, and leg raises; As they become easier, hold plates to weight you down. If you are looking for bulky ripped abs, stick with 10 rep, and hold more weighted plates. Doing numerous ab workouts shoudlnt be a frequent routine. You shoudl add them into your workout, but not every time. Theres a saying when it comes to working on abs: "1000sloppy crunches does not compare to 10."

Ab Workout Routine:
-10/20 perfected crunches
-10/20 perfected side crunches
-10/20 perfected sit ups
-the bicycle. Do it slowly to perfection.
-10/20 leg raises
-10/20 side leg raises

and sometimes.. use the ab machine, and numerous quick crunches

The workout plan stated above is a basic ab routine. Do them twice a week. Doing them too frequently disallows your mucles to grow in time.

Hope it works out for you..

Good Luck!

-JON

[koto_ryu]

ab machine at gym(hi reps) and lots of leg lifts

If I ever hear anything about an ab machine from somebody on here again, you'll get slapped. Machines will never be as nearly effective as actual bodyweight training, or even with a barbell plate on your gut.

As for most effective, try incline crunches (where your feet are hooked in the bench high at the top where you have to go alllll the way up) with or without weights, V-ups, jackknives, bicycles, leg lifts, and vaccuums.

[EmptyneSs]

ab machine aint too bad. there are a few diff kinds. the one i use at the gym aint bad though. i dont put alot of weight on it, i put low weight and do high reps. it gets my abbs sore as **** cause i can hit my midsection well. and yeah, ab machine alone aint that great, but it compliments other ab exercises well.

[HtTKar]

If you have a bad back, It might be hard to excercise your abs. Maybe you should be excercising you back to get that back in shape first.
The basics do work great. Another one that I found by accident when working a heavy bag.
Stand next to your heavybag and push forward with your knuckles on both hands. Move your feet to where the bag used to be (so your back is straight) and continue pushing the bag at arms reach for as long as possible. I dont know if i'm explaining this right, but it will really work your abs.

[Kamui8899]

I'm sorry but can you please explain to me on exactly what grounds you can disregard an ab machine as not giving you full motion. You are performing the exact same motion (at least on the machines i know of) except that there is weight attatched. It is akin to saying that a bicep machine doesn't help you as much as free weights, i'm sorry but if its the same motion and done properly it will work the same muscles. Please refer me to an article done by a physician (preferably a study) that says otherwise. Also can someone please inform me why higher repititions are better for abs? I'm assuming that you intend to gain muscle (presumably something along the lines of a six pack/more muscular abs), the way to do this is use lower reps with higher weights.

I'm not entirely sure why an unfixed motion is required to build abs... More info would be much appreciated... If you are insinuating that the fixed motion disables certain muscles from being used, thats exactly what the machine intends to do, prevent you from using muscles that you should not be using when doing an ab routine, you still recieve a full range of motion using the machine, thus still work all your abdominal muscles.... if I have misunderstood please feel free to correct me...

[HtTKar]

It is akin to saying that a bicep machine doesn't help you as much as free weights

A bicep machine doesn't help as much as free weights.

[Broadsword2004]

You are all forgetting one of the greatest abdominal exercises in existence!!!!! It should form the core of your ab workouts; everything else should be centered around it. I am talking about the HANGING LEG RAISE. This exercise just does so much. Semi-quoting Pavel (what he said, but not his exact words), the hanging leg raise builds a strong grip since you are hanging, it works the ENTIRE abdominal wall, since you must lift your legs from the bottom all the way upwards and try to touch the bar you are hanging from, it builds (or makes you have to develop) flexibility in the hamstrings and lower back since you can't lift your legs all the way up to touch the bar if your hammies aren't flexible enough, and it also decompresses the spine after heavy squats and pulls.

It builds real strength of the abdominal wall; don't expect to get a burn from doing it though, as most people who are good at it can only manage 5-10 repetitions. For beginners, you will do it, not have a burn at all (and a burn does nothing anyhow, it is just lactid acid buildup), but the next day your whole abdominal wall will be tight and sore. As you keep doing them, this will disappear.

But no exercise works the abs the way the hanging leg raise will. And no other exercise does this while also helping with flexibility, grip strength, and giving the lower back a nice, good, relaxing stretch as well.

According to Pavel, this exercise was the favorite utilized by Soviet weight lifters in the old Soviet weight-training days.

Hang from a pullup bar, and LIFT your legs up (don't swing), with the knees straight, not locked, but straight, as high as possible, then lower back down, SLOWLY; don't lift up, then drop or lower fast; do it slowly, to build strength. Then repeat. If you are mildly flexible and strong in the ab area, you should make at elast 3-4 reps; if you are very weak, you may make none (which may then require some other ab work to build more strength). Otherwise, do 5 sets of 5 of these, and work on your hamstring flexibility too, so that as your abs get stronger, you will eventually be able to hang from the bar and lift your legs straight up and have your toes touch the very bar you are hanging from.

As said, you develop good flexibility, good grip strength, get a nice stretch, and really strong, functional ab strength. And you also get lots of stares from people looking at you in the gym, with the, "How the $%$#^# is he/she doing that!?" type of look

Another great abdominal exercise can be found here: http://www.dragondoor.com/cgi-bin/ar...&articleid=229 scroll down, and look at the gymnastic pullups. They work the back of course, but also the abs, since you must hold the position. Another great thing is the pullups themselves. Doing standard pullups works the back great, but the exercise itself doesn't hit everything. You need a machine to do pulls with, to work your back from that angle as well, to completely work all the muscles. However, if you can do these pullups, you'll have not only a super strong back, workable from all angles, but also super-strong abs as well.

One thing I am unsure of though is in terms of ab endurance. Personally I think this exercise more works pure ab strength, but in terms of endurance, I am not sure, so do crunches too. Not that they help too much in terms fo strength, but it just doesn't look right if you have such ab strength, yet say have a much weaker person beat you in a crunches just because their abs have more endurance for the exercise.

As for leg raises while lying on your back, be careful with those. They will strain your lower back if it is too weak, so first make sure you have a strong lower back. And crunches are fine for meeting the standards for the military and such, but otherwise, they're kind of useless.

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somebody at the gym once told me that for the first two weeks of training in the gym use the machines so youre body gets used to weights, but after this forget about them and use free weights. and also another question how is the vaccum properly done

[Tee Sok]

You'll find everything about vacuums here: http://www.defend.net/deluxeforums/s...ad.php?t=14094

[koto_ryu]

You are performing the exact same motion (at least on the machines i know of) except that there is weight attatched.

You can only do that one range of motion and since it's all concentrated on that particular range, it's inferior to doing with just say a regular situp clutching a barbell to your chest.

It is akin to saying that a bicep machine doesn't help you as much as free weights, i'm sorry but if its the same motion and done properly it will work the same muscles.

It may get them just as big, but nowhere near as strong. Free weights hit many of the stabilizer muscles and build tendon strength, whereas machines are limited to the one range of motion. Any machine was originally designed for physical therapy and for those recovering from injury, NOT for a healthy individual. Free weights are what any healthy man or woman should be using.

Please refer me to an article done by a physician (preferably a study) that says otherwise.

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/strengthening/a/aa050702a.htm

^ I don't agree with everything she says, but she does say that free weights help your overall development and that machines should only be used for beginners and those recuperating from injury.

http://www.naturalstrength.com/features/detail2.asp?AuthorID=67&ArticleID=477

^This one is better. It states how machines are mostly used for rehabilitative purposes or for isolation exercises. As we know, isolation exercises are just good for pumpers and bodybuilders: size gain without strength. You don't use your arm independently from your shoulder, chest, and back when you punch, why train it individually from everything else?

Also can someone please inform me why higher repititions are better for abs? I'm assuming that you intend to gain muscle (presumably something along the lines of a six pack/more muscular abs), the way to do this is use lower reps with higher weights.

Only a few people mentioned actual rep counts. Most of my ab exercises don't even go over 20 reps (save vaccuums).

I'm not entirely sure why an unfixed motion is required to build abs...

You're working on your overall core strength, and whenever you go about your day to day activities (not to mention martial arts training, sparring, etc.) your abs are going to be going in many different directions. If it's only strong in one direction, you're going to be significantly weaker.

If you are insinuating that the fixed motion disables certain muscles from being used, thats exactly what the machine intends to do, prevent you from using muscles that you should not be using when doing an ab routine, you still recieve a full range of motion using the machine, thus still work all your abdominal muscles

As I said before, however, it's best to train your whole body as a unit as much as possible. Isolation exercises are for gym rats and pumpers, people who don't mind going to the gym five times a week for two hours a day. The only truly strong people that do that kind of exercise aside from combat athletes are powerlifters and strongmen, but they concentrate on basic compound exercises and, in the case of the strongmen, on their specialty lifts.

[Broadsword2004]

The bottom line is train for function first, and form will always follow; and if it doesn't, you sculpt it.

Even Arnold Schwarzeneggar, when he first started, he built up a whole huge amount of muscle, but then used isolation exercises to sculpt it.

People make them istake of thinking you make a bodybuilder physique by using solely isolation exercises, which isn't true. You use compound exercises to build up real true muscle and strength, then you sculpt it with isolation exercises.