No Gym Required: Abs Exercises

So your quest for fitness continues and like me, you’re lazy. That’s good, after you’ve read this you can lay down and do abdominal exercise without feeling guilty. You remember sit-ups and how much you hated doing them — me too. The reason you hated doing them was that you had to do so many to accomplish so little.

I’ve studied this problem because studying is easier than doing sit-ups. My studies have led me to some conclusions. First, there are ordinary people and high performance athletes. These two groups are very different due to where they need to start from in a new exercise programme. However, much of the fitness advice is more appropriate for the athlete rather than the ordinary office worker. The levels of intensity, resistance, and complexity are very different.

Second, most abdominal exercises are quite useless. Only five exercises are needed to get you to the core strength level that the high performance athlete needs before he or she begins sport-specific training.

Like the neck exercise, treat the five exercises as individual goals. Once you can easily do 3 sets of 12 repetitions, add the next exercise to the workout.

Do these exercises deliberately and with proper form – you are not doing sit-ups. How many you do is less important than how you do them.

As always, I will start with the easiest and move to the most difficult, and you should too, even if you can do the exercise easily.

Transversus Abdominis (TVA)

We’ll start with the Transversus Abdominis (TVA) exercise. The transvers abs run from the sides to the front and its fibers running horizontally (transverse). The lateral beginnings of the muscle run from the front of the inside part of the hip bone to the last rib of the rib cage. The muscle is the deepest of the major abdominal muscles. In other words this holds your abs together.

It is important to maintain a neutral lumbar spine (don’t try pushing the back all the way into the floor). The back is most often in a neutral spine position, so it makes less sense to strengthen the back in a flexed or extended position.

Lie on one’s back with the knees bent. Knees and feet should be shoulder width apart. Draw the belly button toward the spine while maintaining a neutral spine. Upon exhalation, reach toward the ceiling as if trying to grab something overhead. Then raise the head and shoulders until the shoulder blades are just off the floor, and hold it for a couple of seconds. Inhale upon return and repeat at the end of the next exhalation. Continue until it is impossible to maintain a neutral spine or 12 reps which ever comes first.