Dancing & Ab Exercises

All forms of dance require major core strength for body isolations, jumping, balance and stability, which makes dancing a great workout for toning the abs. Not only does dancing tone the abdominals, but it is a cardiovascular exercise, which will help you burn off excess body fat. Many health, fitness and dance studios offer dance technique based fitness classes, making taking a dance class a convenient and fun way to sculpt your abs.

Hip-Hop Abs

Hip-hop dance isolates and engages the entire core for all of its moves, making it an extremely challenging and effective abdominal workout. This form of dance often combines multiple body isolations into one move, making it necessary to constantly contract your muscles from your ribcage to your hips. Hip-hop is also a high-intensity fat-burning cardio workout that can help you to melt off any excess fat around your stomach, notes the Fitness Magazine article, "The Britney Spears Workout: How She Got Her Body Back." Many health, fitness and dance studios offer hip-hop dance fitness classes, or there are many hip-hop DVDs to choose from. Some facilities and DVDs even have specialty hip-hop classes that focus on the abdominals.

Shimmy Belly Dance

Belly dancing works every muscle in your core, even the deep transverse abdominals, which are very hard to target, notes Rania Androniki Bossonis, author of "Belly Dancing For Fitness." Belly dancing teaches you how to control, isolate and relax your abdominal muscles, which helps you get a more effective overall stomach workout. Hip circles, rib slides, horizontal and vertical figure eights, camels and belly rolls are just some of the fun moves you will find in a belly dancing class. There are belly dancing workout DVDs that can help you to learn properly.

Ballet Workout

Ballet dance is centered and extends out from the core to create movements that flow in long lines. To create these lines, a ballet dancer must have a strong core. Basic ballet exercises lift and engage the core and are a fun way to work your abs. Ballet and ballet fitness style classes focus on correct posture, your shoulders upright over your hips, abs and gluteals tight. Visualize a string that runs through the center of your body, up through your head to the ceiling and your tailbone slightly tilted forward and your belly button drawn toward your back. This posture should stay solid through the entire class for the most effective stomach workout.