Abs - Vertical Leg Crunch

This exercise triggers the upper abdominal muscles. There is no need of a machine or an exercise ball, enough space around you is quite enough

Lie on your back and straighten your legs up high, the body should form a 90 degree angle in the waist. Place your hands behind your head and then make a classic abs crunch towards the stomach. Make around 15 repetitions in 3 sets.

Abs - Leg Rises

Leg rises are simple to do and don’t require any assistance of a machine or weight. All you need is a reasonable space around you and a mat.

Lie on the mat on your back and position your body in a straight line, with a straight back and head looking up in the ceiling. This exercise is performed by lifting the lower body in the air with straight knees and upper body stationary. Place your palms on the floor to maintain the upper body straight and the lower body moving up. With that initial position, lift the lower body up with straight knees to about 70° degrees; then lower them back to initial position but don’t touch the floor. Then make another repetition.

Make the first set as much as you can, then the second set if you are capable make the same number of repetitions or make a few less. The key is to challenge the abs to contract strong, so do as many repetitions as you can in order to trigger that contraction. Exhale when lifting, inhale when lowering.
This is quite a strong exercise so don’t rush into many repetitions at once. Let the abs do their work one set at a time.

Abs - Plank

A plank is a simple exercise that delivers a hardcore workout for the body core itself. Simple because all you have to do is hold the initial push up position and keep a straight line. Don’t move as long as you can. The core muscles will start contracting which means you are doing it the right way. A normal plank exercise should take about 3 sets with aproximately 30 seconds per set. An easy variant of a plank is using the elbows to form “the table” instead of the arms. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Abs - Toe Touches/Crunches

Toe Crunches (or Toe Touches) is a workout very similar to the V-Up exercise. To perform this exercise you will require maximum free space around your body so you won’t hurt yourself during repetitions. The level of the toe Crunches is medium, but it can be quite challenging if you haven’t perform previous crunch exercises. Here is how to do it.

Lie on the floor flat on the back, legs straight and arms also straighten backwards as much as possible. Now, from that initial position move your upper body with the straighten arms and the legs towards the center of your body. Don’t bend your knees or your elbows. The tip of your fingers and toes should meet above your abs without bended knees or elbows.

It is probable that you won’t do The Touch at first, but don’t worry, return to initial position from the position of the maximum bend. After several sets you’ll reach the center with a contact between the toes and fingers.

Breathing is important for this exercise; exhale when you are moving toward the center and inhale when you move to initial position. In-between repetitions don’t touch the floor with the palms and feet; make sure they are a bit “in the air” before the start of every repetition.

Once you feel that the challenge of this exercise is getting too easy, take a dumbbell, a medicine ball or something else in your hands and do the exercise. The additional weight will put more tension on the abs and will make them work harder for a complete repetition.

Make 3 sets with as much as repetitions as possible. Have fun.

Abs - Stability Ball Roll

There are several workout machines that deliver the same movement as the Stability Ball Roll exercise, but many people don’t like to spend more money on exercising equipment since they seem to have enough in the home. The Stability ball Roll is an effective abs workout that delivers great results for your abs and paves the way to six-packs very effective. Here is how to do it.

First, kneel on the floor and straighten your body up. Place your hands on the Stability ball and roll forward. Once you reach a straight body position from the knees to the elbows (which are on the ball) roll back to initial position. This movement tends to be quite tricky so it is recommendable that you have previous ab workout experience before you take on this exercise.

Remember that the key for this exercise is a straight back at all times. Since you are doing this exercise with a stability ball, balancing the body in the right position is very important. Know that to maintain the balance of the body with the stability ball, the abs are those that do the work. So in a way, you get two abs workout in one – the balance maintenance and the workout itself.

After many times of performing this exercise, the core muscles will strengthen and ‘require’ from you more challenges. So, to make this exercise a more challenging than before, try doing the stability ball roll with your feet on the ground instead of the knees. The Roll movement will put more pressure on the abs as they try to maintain balance, stretch forward and contract back.

Abs - Hanging Knee Rise

A normal Abs workout is lying on the floor and doing crunches most of the time. So instead activating the upperboby for the abs workout as routine, move a step forward in when it comes to abs. Take a more challenging exercise and put the six-packs on a test. If this fails or is to difficult at this stage, try strenghting your abs with the other exercises first, which I will post.

To do the Hanging Knee Rise you don’t need a workout machine, dumbbells or barbells, to be exact. All you have to do is grab a chin-up bar, hanging with your hands with no contact to the floor. From that position contract the abs and raise your legs up and bring the knees as high as you can, than lower down to initial hanging position.

Make repetitions the first set as much as you can; so the second and the third set.
This is a great abs workout. It lets you control the lower body with your abs and you don’t have to limit the leg movement only in front of you. You can move them sideways and trigger the side abs.