About Denise Austin Ab Exercises

Building strong, toned abs depends on finding what motivates you and sticking with it long-term. Fitness instructor Denise Austin's ab exercises vary by workout and incorporate variations on traditional crunches, ab curls, side plank and front plank, with some of her routines requiring a stability ball. In keeping with Austin's advice that you can build a strong healthy body even if you have a tight schedule, most of her ab workouts take less than 15 minutes to complete.

Background

Denise Austin has served on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports since 2002. Austin helped develop the current food pyramid guidelines and has authored numerous fitness and nutrition columns and books. Austin includes ab toning workouts in several of her DVDs, with some workouts focusing exclusively on the abs.

Exercise Videos

Austin has produced a large number of fitness videos over the years. Some of the most recent additions that emphasize ab work include "Get Fit Daily Dozen," "Best Belly Fat Blasters," "Power Zone," "Hit the Spot: 10 Five-Minute Target Toners," "Pilates for Every Body" and "3 Week Boot Camp." In come cases, ab work is incorporated into a full body workout, while other videos offer five to 15 minute workouts devoted primarily to stronger, toned abs.

Using Austin's Exercises

Austin's ab exercises go beyond typical crunches to work the core muscles in the abdomen, obliques and lower back. The American Council on Exercise stresses that form is important when it comes to ab work, ranking captain's chair, bicycle crunches, reverse crunches and stability ball crunches high on the effectiveness scale. Austin's ab exercises incorporate these moves, as well as other variations on traditional moves. To get the most effective workout and prevent injury, follow Austin's advice for posture, neck position, back position and breathing patterns.

Considerations

Building your core muscles can improve your balance and posture, while toning and strengthening the muscles in your abdomen, according to MayoClinic.com. In addition to performing crunches and other ab-specific moves, Austin shows how to target and strengthen abs with her Pilates videos. As of January 2011, you can see Denise Austin on the Lifetime channel in "Balancing Act."