Abdominal Exercise Workout

A how to exercise workout example to tone and strengthen your abs

Here is an example of a complete abdominal workout that I like to do. It should only take you about 15 minutes and I like to do it 3 times per week. Of course you can shorten it to say 10 minutes per session by eliminating an exercise or two. It acts like a warm-up for my weight training workout to follow from a physical, mental and breathing point of view because I do not do the cardio thing. For cardio exercise I prefer rollerblading outdoors between the months of May to October.

Here are the types of ab exercises that I like to do and how I like to vary them up.

Day One

I like to start with the ab crunch. I’ll begin by doing about 16- 24 repetitions of the ab crunch. The slower you do it, the better. Watch my ab crunch video. I like to add a little variation to this exercise by doing 12 to 16 repetitions of an oblique crunch. Same as the ab crunch, except I put one leg over the opposite knees and I do the crunch that way.

In summary, I’ll do the ab crunch in the middle, then the oblique crunch on the right side, return to the ab crunch in the middle, do the left side for the oblique muscles and finally finish off in the middle with the ab crunch. Again, the slower you do this exercise the more effective it will be!

Next I like to do the bicycle crunch. I do about 40 repetitions on each side and at a quick pace. It’s sort of a cardio-type and ab exercise combined. At the end of the exercise, I like to hold for about 10 seconds on each side.

The final exercise is a variation of the abdominal crunch with a leg extension. I like to do about 24 of these and then hold for about 10 seconds at the end of the movement.

Day Two

I begin with the ab crunch. The same exercise as on Day One.

Next, I do a variation of the ab crunch and an oblique crunch exercise. I do about 16 repetitions of these. For the ab crunch I bend one knee, place the other leg over that knee, hands behind my head and I raise my legs and upper body using my abs, simultaneously. For the oblique crunch, I bend my legs to one side, hands behind my head and crunch using my abs. I do the same for each side for each exercise combination.

The final exercise I do is the All-in-one ab crunch. I do about 12 repetitions very, very slowly. Watch my how to video for performing this exercise. I find that this is an excellent overall abdominal exercise when performed correctly.

Day Three

This is a much shortened abdominal day workout. I begin with the ab crunch. The same exercise as on Day One.

Then I do 3-4 sets of say 12 to 16 repetitions of the standing oblique bend using a dumbbell. Basically you grab a free weight, hold it at one side and you bend. You then repeat the same motion for the other side. You can read more about how to do the standing oblique bend.

This complete abdominal exercise workout along with proper nutrition and cardio exercise should help you to tone and strengthen your abdominal muscles.

Most of these exercises I have videos and text instructions for. For those exercises that I don’t, I will be adding more information in the near future.