Not Just a Man's World » Abs

Core workouts (Part 3)

Ammi — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:00:30 +0000

2 years ago I was still working away at my abs with little success. I was trying every exercise I came across but my abs were so weak that anything that was too hard for them gave me lower back ache. Lying on my back on a bench or the floor could even cause my lower back to ‘click out’ so that I would be unable to sit up again without assistance.

I could spend months working away at an exercise getting little or no improvement because I didn’t even have a basic level of strength. I’ve found that most sites that recommend abs exercises don’t mention how much basic strength you need to be able to get some benefit from their exercises so I was often trying to run before I could walk and frequently finding my face plastered in metaphorical mud.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve set out the exercises that I have tried and I’ve also provided a suggested progression order based on my experience so far. The areas I’m covering are:

Part 1: Entry level abs exercises
Part 2: Building functional ab strength
Part 3: Advanced abs exercises

This is the final week and as you’ll see, some of today’s photos show Chris doing the exercises. I’m still working towards straight leg raises so my feeble early attempts wouldn’t be good instruction on what the correct final position should look like!

Hanging leg raises

As with the hanging knee raise, hang down from a pull up bar and grip the bar tightly. Keeping your legs straight (and pulling down on the bar), bring your straight legs up in the air in front of you. Eventually you are aiming to get your feet straight up in the air above your head, but to start with you may only be able to get them out in front of you. If this is the case hold this position before lowering your legs slowly so that you get maximum workout from the move.

Hanging leg raise - halfway up (Photo courtesy of Chris)

Hanging leg raise - final position (Photo courtesy of Chris)

This move is very much like dragon flags with the only key differences being that you are vertical and there is no bench behind you to stop you from swinging backwards away from your legs. It’s therefore a good idea to keep working on weighted dragon flags alongside this exercise until you have got to the point where you can do a couple of complete straight leg raises. That way you can continue building ab strength through the dragon flags.

Side bends with barbell

Put weights on one end of a barbell. Put the bar across your shoulders as you would for a back squat but off centre so that you are at the end without any weight. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Breathe in, tighten your abs and bend sideways towards the weighted side. Don’t twist forwards or backwards as you go down.

Once you’ve bent over a decent amount (I aim to get the dumbbell near my knees) straighten up again. This is when your abs do the work. Repeat on the other side.

Barbell side bend - start/end position

Barbell side bend - bottom position, trying hard not to twist round

It’s difficult to recreate this exercise so that it is completely identical for several sets. The laws of physics (moments) mean that you only need to be in a slightly different place along the bar for the same weight to feel heavier or lighter, so if you can find some way to mark the bar so you get the same place each time then I recommend doing so.

A little weight also goes a long way – notice how tiny the dumbbell plate is that I’ve racked on the end of the bar in the photos above!

Weighted hanging leg raises

This is the same exercise as hanging leg raises, but attach a small weight to your feet. This can then become a progressive exercise by slowly increasing the weight.

A way of attaching weight to your feet with a climbing sling threaded through a dumbbell plate (Photo courtesy of Chris)

Just as weighted dragon flags can be significantly impacted by only a small increase to the weight, I’m assured that this is even more true for weighted straight leg raises. I’m still working to the point where I find it out for myself!

I hope this series has been helpful and has given you plenty of ideas for different abs exercises that you can include in your workout routines to build up core strength. I’m always on the lookout for new exercises. If you have other exercises that you’ve found work for you and which you recommend I would really like to know.

Core workouts (Part 2)

Ammi — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:00:32 +0000

Over three weeks, I’m setting out the exercises that I have tried and providing a suggested progression order based on my experience so far. The areas I’m covering are:

Part 1: Entry level abs exercises
Part 2: Building functional ab strength
Part 3: Advanced abs exercises

So let’s talk about building some functional ab strength (with some photos from a below-freezing temperature garage gym).

Decline bench sit ups

Personally I’m not a fan of sit ups and crunches. However if you are determined to do them then you’ll find that this variant gives you a lot of bang for your buck due to the increased range of motion. Just be careful to not use your lower back to do the exercise.

Lie on the decline bench with your head below your knees and legs hanging off the end of the bench (you’ll probably want to hook them round the bench leg). Sit up using your abs and keeping your lower back flat.

Decline bench sit up - starting position

Decline bench sit up - halfway up

Decline bench sit up - final position (and the hat's gone squiffy...)

To progress this, hold a weights plate or dumbbell to your chest.

Dragon flags

I love these due to the enormous range of motion you can get. Incline a bench so that you can lie straight on the bench with your feet on the floor and your head raised up. Hold onto the bench behind your head – a lot of the power for this comes from the death grip on the bench!

Keeping your legs straight raise them up in the air until your glutes have left the bench and then lower back down again, continuing to keep your legs straight. By doing both directions of movement slowly you can get as much benefit from the lowering phase as you can from the raising part.

Dragon flag - starting position

Dragon flag - halfway up

Dragon flag - final position

Include this as part of your normal workout until you can do several sets of eight or ten repetitions.

Hanging knee raises

I tried to introduce this exercise into my program far too soon and found that despite months of perseverance I didn’t progress. As with pull ups, if you can’t do one or two repetitions it’s difficult to get any training effect to develop further. However, if you can do several sets of multiple dragon flags then you should find you can do a couple of good repetitions of this.

Hang down from a pull up bar, grip the bar tightly and bring your knees to your chest. It sounds easy enough but you can’t count a rep if your knees don’t both come up past horizontal and you may well find that one leg lags behind the other and you need to concentrate to get it to come up as far.

Hanging knee raise

Weighted dragon flags

Once you can do dragon flags without any trouble, attach a small weight to your feet to do them. I do this by threading a dumbbell plate onto a climbing sling and looping the sling over my feet. You can then make this into a progressive exercise by slowly increasing the weight.

A way of attaching weight to your feet with a climbing sling threaded through a dumbbell plate (Photo from Chris)

Be warned that a tiny change in weight on your feet can make a big difference to the difficulty of the exercise.

Side bends with dumbbells

Personally, I don’t recommend doing side bends until you’ve got some really good functional ab strength. The problem I had was that it was very easy to twist my upper body round slightly as I did them, especially on the barbell version that I will describe next week. While the purpose of the exercise is partly to stop this from happening, it can be difficult to progress and increase the weight without developing poor form unless the basic strength is there to begin with.

Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and with a dumbbell in one hand. Ensure your shoulders are in a good position, with your shoulder blades tucked back. Breathe in, tighten your abs and bend sideways towards the dumbbell. Don’t twist forwards or backwards as you go down.

Once you’ve bent over a decent amount (I aim to get the dumbbell near my knees) straighten up again. This is when your abs do the work. Repeat on the other side.

Dumbbell side bend - start/end position

Dumbbell side bend - Bent over ready to pull it up again.

Next week, I’ll cover the exercises that I am still working towards at the moment.

Core workouts (Part 1)

Ammi — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:00:02 +0000

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to set out the exercises that I tried and provide a suggested progression order based on my experience so far. The areas I’ll cover are:

Part 1: Entry level abs exercises
Part 2: Building functional ab strength
Part 3: Advanced abs exercises

So let’s kick off with the entry level abs exercises!

Connecting with your abs

Lie on your back on the floor with your legs bent up in the air. Tighten your abs and push your lower back into the floor (removing the natural arch). Hold for as long as possible, up to a maximum of 30 seconds, and then relax. Repeat 3-5 times each day for a week.

Connecting with your abs

Leg lowering – single leg

As with the first exercise, lie on your back on the floor with your legs bent up in the air. Tighten your abs so that you push your lower back into the floor (removing the natural arch and getting a sensation that someone has super-glued your back to the floor). Slowly straighten out one leg until your lower back starts to pull away from the floor.

Hold the position for as long as possible, up to a maximum of 30 seconds, and then slowly bring your leg back to the original position. Repeat with the other leg.

Leg lowering - single leg

Do this three times with each leg once a day, trying to get your leg a bit further each day until you can hold each leg straight out a couple of inches above the floor for 30 seconds for all three repetitions.

If you do this exercise every morning, you should find you have mastered the necessary strength within 2-3 weeks.

If you are really pushing the boundaries of your strength you may well find that you are shaking with the effort of keeping your legs where they are and your back on the floor. This is a good sign!

Leg lowering – full exercise

This is the same as the single leg version but lowering both legs simultaneously.

When you first move onto this, I would recommend starting with a single repetition of this followed by two repetitions of the single leg version and slowly build up until you can do three repetitions of the full exercise, holding your feet a couple of inches above the floor with straight legs for the full 30 seconds..

Leg lowering - full exercise

Don’t be surprised if you can’t get your legs very far out the first time before your entire upper body (as well as your lower back) start to pull away from the floor in a see-saw motion. Hold the position at the point where you are starting to lift off the ground and the strength will rapidly build up.

I loved this leg lowering progression, starting with single leg and building up to the full exercise. It’s the exercise that finally cracked the riddle of my super-weak abs.

Planks

I found I couldn’t introduce until I had almost mastered the full leg lowering exercise – when I tried to introduce it earlier my lower back would collapse and take the strain. Other people find that they can introduce the plank sooner.

Lie on your front with your arms bent, elbows close into the body and palms on the floor. Tuck your toes under, lock your abs out imagining that you are like a straight plank of wood and raise yourself up off the floor, resting on your lower arms and toes. You should be almost “parallel” to the floor.

Hold this position for as long as possible, up to a minute, concentrating on getting that same sensation of pushing the lower back outwards using your abs (imagine there is a plank resting on your back and you are trying to glue your lower back to the floor). Do three repetitions.

Planks

Planks with raised leg

Once you can hold the plank for a minute try mixing it up with raising one straight leg up off the floor. Perhaps do a one minute plank holding one leg up for the first 20 seconds and the other leg for the second 20 seconds before returning to a normal plank for the final 20 seconds.

Plank with raised leg

Next week, I’ll cover the exercises that you can progress to once you’ve got a good base strength from leg lowering and planks.