A Quick Workout For Honeymoon Worthy Abs

Written with love, by Jennifer Dene

Welcome back for our final week of fitness variations to take your workout from blah to babe!

Today we are elevating the humble abdominal crunch into a thing of fitness magnificence. Are you ready?

I’ve written before that I don’t always isolate my abdominal muscles during workouts, as too much targeted ab work can lead to injury. Over the last two week’s you have been strengthening your core with squats and planks, which are both terrific to do on a regular basis. The crunch variations below will be the perfect addition to your workout once or twice a week.

How To Do The Basic Crunch

Step One: Start by laying on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Take your hands behind your head and relax your head into your palms.

Step Two: Keeping your low back still against the ground flex through your upper torso to lift your head and chest away from the floor and direct your gaze to your navel.

Step Three: Lower back down to the starting position. On a crunch you exhale when you lift the chest and inhale to return.

The Variations

Rope Climber

This move targets your six-pack muscles as you slowly roll the spine up and down from the floor. Try to keep your feet still and not use any momentum!

Reverse Crunch

The six-pack is still engaged as you hold a static upper ab curl, but then you recruit your deep belly muscles to lift the hips and bring the knees to the nose. Often women forget to train the lower half of their abs so you will be thanking me for this one come the honeymoon!

Side Glides

This move flexes the spine from side to side to tone those oblique muscles in a different way than the normal bicycle twist. Keep your knees as still as possible as you reach towards your heels.

I recommend starting with 5 repetitions for each of these new moves and adding on once you feel confident. Press play for the quick video tutorial to see exactly how to do these moves, and then let me know which one is your favorite and why by leaving a comment below!

I can’t wait to workout with you!
      
       Jennifer Dene

Power Your Core (While Toning Your Legs)

Written with love, by Nikki Lian

Last week I shared some simple exercises to target your abdominal area while using the exercise ball.  Again, an exercise or stability ball helps improve your core strength during your workouts.  And to recap, your “core” muscles include the muscles of your abdominals, back and around your pelvis. 

Although a workout on the exercise ball targets your core, who says that’s the only thing we can target?  It’s not!  I love having my clients use this simple piece of equipment to work and tone their legs as well.  Here are a few exercises you can add to last week’s routine to strengthen your bottom half:

Wall Squats

Find a nice, flat wall you can use for this exercise.  Place the ball at the curve of your back, and don’t be afraid to lean into the ball.  Your feet should be shoulder width apart, with your back straight and your hands on your hips. 

Proceed to do a low squat, like you’re aiming to sit on a chair.  Leaning into the stability ball allows you to go lower than you would by doing a standing squat.  Make sure your knees are not passing your toes—you want your weight to go into your quads and glutes.  Once in a squat come back up to starting position. 

You can make this exercise harder by holding your squat for ten seconds each rep and then coming back up.  You can also alter this exercise to work your inner thighs by widening your stance and turning your feet out.

Walking Lunges with Ball Extensions

With the exercise ball in both hands, step into a forward lunge and extend the ball opposite of the leg you’ve stepped out with up to the sky.  You should feel a nice stretch in your abdominal area.  At the same time you step into starting position, lower the ball.  Then alternate, extending the ball to the opposite side of each leg you lunge with, bringing the ball back down when you’re in standing position.

Exercise Ball Extensions

Lay flat on your back, with your hands at your sides for balance.  Starting with your knees pulled in and both of your heels on the ball, push your legs out straight and pop your hips up as if you were doing a bridge.  Bring your torso back down to the ground and then pull the ball into starting position, and repeat.  To make this exercise a bit more challenging you can hold your bridge for ten seconds during each repetition.

So there you have it.   Each of these stability ball exercises stayed true to the core, but added a workout to the thighs, glutes, and hamstrings.  Who needs a gym?  All you need is a large, air filled ball to get a good workout in!  Exercise balls can be found at a variety of stores, including Target, Walmart and any sporting good store. 

fABulous ABs

Written with love, by Kim Riegel

Amongst all the craziness of planning a wedding is the desire to feel and look your best on your wedding day. I am going to give you the "skinny" on what it realistically takes to get flat, fABulous abs!

Bad news first ladies...

There is a little bit of a genetic component that can influence how to get flat abs. For the most part, women usually fit into one of two body types:

1. Some women are apple-shaped, which means they carry more weight in their upper body, chest, and stomach area.

2. Other women are pear-shaped, which means they are smaller in the upper body and waist area, with more weight in the hips, buttocks, and thighs.

A pear shape is usually more genetically predisposed to a flatter stomach. Jennifer Lopez is a good example of a pear shape, with a flat stomach and a little more weight in the hips and butt area.

Now the good news...

That does not mean that you cannot get flat abs if you are more like an apple shape. It just means that you may have to work harder with all of the other components that are required to get flat abs. So let's talk about what those are!

Flat abs will not appear just by doing abdominal exercises.

I want to clear up a few items...you have muscle underneath with fat and skin on top. While you may work very hard to strengthen the muscles, if there is a thick layer of fat on top of the muscle, the abs will never be seen. This transitions us into the first component which is DIET.

Diet

Getting flat abs requires eating a good, healthy diet. If you don't shed the skin and fat above the muscle, they will never be seen. It can be done! I had a baby and was also on bed rest during my pregnancy. Yet with a healthy diet, overall strength training exercises and cardiovascular training combined with the right abdominal exercises, was able to get my flat, toned stomach back and you can too!

Which leads me to component number 2...

Strength Training + Cardio

Spot reducing unfortunately does not exist, so doing 1,000 crunches alone is not the answer. You should incorporate a program with overall total body strengthening along with cardio to help burn fat quicker and increase your lean muscle. This will, in turn, speed up your metabolism. When you begin to lose weight, the muscle on your body will begin to be seen.

Abdominal Training

Finally, the abdominal exercises themselves. Without getting too technical, the core is made up of different types of muscles. Some pelvic muscles are deep and help with pelvic alignment, the spine, and balance, while superficial muscles are the ones that can be seen and are on top. The ones that run up and down are the rectus abdominals, and the ones that run at an angle are your obliques.

Here are a few examples of abdominal exercises that you can do to strengthen and flatten those abs!

1. Plank

This exercise is good for the deep core muscles. You can either start on your elbows and toes, or on your hands and toes in a push-up position. Keep your body straight like a board and pull your belly button in toward your spine.

Try to hold each repetition anywhere between 30 and 60 seconds. Try shifting your body weight so your core is holding you up more than your upper body. Your abs should be shaking.

A way to step up the intensity is to alternate one leg up in the air for 10 seconds and then switch to the other leg.

2. Plank on a stability ball

This is an advanced step up from a plank on the floor. Get an appropriate size stability ball. Roll out face down on the ball to a push-up position with the ball underneath your shins. Keep your body straight like a board with your belly button drawn in toward your spine. Adding the ball now gives you an instability factor which, in turn, causes your abs to work harder to stay in position and hold the ball still.

You can even advance this one to a leg up, hip extension with one leg on the ball for 10 seconds, alternating legs.

3. Oblique twists with a medicine ball

Grab a medicine ball anywhere from 4 to 8 pounds. If you do not have one, anything that is small and has some weight will do. Get a mat or something with cushion and sit on the floor with both legs out in front of you with your knees slightly bent. Clutch the medicine ball to your chest and lean back just a little bit. Contract your abs to hold you in place and begin rotating and tapping the medicine ball from side to side on the ground, close to your body. This exercise should fatigue your abs rather quickly and does not need a lot of repetition.

4. Long Lever Crunches

These are crunches with your legs extended out in front and knees slightly bent with your toes pointing to the ceiling. Place your hands behind your head and begin to curl up and down.

I like these crunches because they change your center of gravity while doing the abdominal crunch. When your knees are very bent, you may tend to feel it up higher in your abs. But when you extend your knees out in front of you, your center of gravity changes to a lower position, causing you to feel your abs working harder and more in the lower abdominal region.

While there is no magic number of how many reps and sets to do, do as many as you can to feel the burn in multiple sets.

Happy Ab Training!