Crunches may be good for your abs, but eventually they may get old. You can spice up your fitness routine by introducing a few unconventional ab exercises. Using a simple pull-up bar, wobble boards and medicine balls--and, above all, the undeniable force of gravity--is guaranteed to both challenge you and keep you entertained as you work for a chiseled midsection.
Body Slides
Front planks are a relatively standard way of working your core muscles. Body slides challenge your body in much the same way, with the added difficulty of stabilizing your spine against movement. As an added bonus, they also work your latissimus dorsi.
Assume a push-up position with your hands directly below your shoulders--this is a little narrower than usual. Support yourself on your fingertips if possible; if you're not strong enough to do this, consider using non-rotating pushup handles or hex dumbbells as impromptu pushup stands.
Focus on squeezing your core muscles to keep your body in a perfectly straight line from head to heels as you shift one hand forward a few inches. Keep your core tight as you activate your lats, dragging your entire body forward until your shoulders line up over the hand you advanced. If you have trouble imagining this, envision doing a pullover; you're using the same muscles to perform the same motion, albeit with a very small range of motion.
Advance the other hand and repeat. Once you're strong enough you can advance both hands at once, then pull. At no point during this exercise should your back arch, flex or hunch.
Curl Ups and Front Levers
Your body may be used to doing crunches, but curl ups introduce a whole new way of working your abs while defying gravity at the same time.
Grasp a pull-up bar and hang with your hips and knees bent at a 90-degree angle. Exhale as you curl your knees up toward the bar; you'll also work your lats as you imagine you're doing a pullover with your own body weight as the resistance. Your torso should end up parallel to the ground, still suspended below the bar. Slowly curl back down and repeat. If you practice holding your torso in the horizontal position, knees tucked close to your body, you'll eventually develop enough strength to extend first one, then both, legs in the horizontal plane (lined up with your body) as well. The end result will have your body suspended, perfectly straight and horizontal, beneath the bar.
Medicine Ball Throws
Both medicine balls and wobble boards help build dynamic stability and strength, and this translates to real-world core stability.
Stand on a wobble board (an upside-down Bosu trainer is ideal) or kneel on a balance ball. Hold a medicine ball in front of your chest and squeeze your abs to hold your body stable as you pass the ball as if it were a basketball, thrusting it away from you with your arms. Ideally you should be passing the ball to a partner, who then will pass it back to you, but if you have no partner, you can bounce the ball off a wall or a mini-trampoline set at an angle.
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