If you believe the late-night info-mercials, you can have amazing abs simply by phoning an 800-number. The only thing that will hurt is your credit card bill. But before you invest in home exercise equipment that will become a toe-banger or a clothes hanger, consider less expensive and more versatile alternatives.
Sensational Stability
Perhaps the most versatile, effective and least expensive abdominal equipment, a stability ball is well worth the investment. Available at your local discount retailer for a mere $10 to $15, you get an abdominal trainer, exercise bench and ergonomic chair rolled into one. From simple crunches and leg raises to more advanced exercises like yoga planks and pikes, the ball's exercise options are endless. According to MayoClinic.com, a stability ball is a great tool for training the core muscles that protect your low back. When selecting your ball choose a size that, when fully inflated, enables you to sit upright with your feet flat on the floor and your knees at 90 degrees.
Washboard Wonders
Despite brilliant design and engineering in the growing repertoire of abdominal exercise machines, some of your best options for awe-inspiring abs are simple benches with no moving parts. An adjustable incline bench with roller pads for the knees and ankles allows you to increase your resistance by increasing the angle as you grow stronger, using your body weight to train your abs in a functional way that may come handy in real life. Basic crunches, cross-over crunches, Pilates roll-ups, reverse crunches, medicine ball rotations, facilitated medicine ball tosses, dumbbell pull-over crunches and a variety of other fusion exercises make an incline bench a must-have in your abdominal equipment arsenal.
Torso Turn-Ons
Your internal and external oblique muscles attach along the back of your rib cage and run diagonally across your trunk and abdomen, causing your trunk to rotate. Equipment that provides resistance against diagonal rotation targets the obliques, zeroing in on the site of your love handles. A roman chair used in a side-lying position with your bottom ankle under the forward pad and your top angle under the rear pad is one of the best pieces for oblique training. As you lift the trunk, rotate slightly from your rib cage to work along the grain of the muscle. As you get stronger, hold a medicine ball or weight plate across your chest to increase resistance.
Get Suspended
A simple chin-up bar and some straps will provide the ultimate challenge to your abs as you hang suspended. Vertical knee raises, commonly known as "hanging abs" involve hanging from a chin-up bar, by your hands or with the help of straps, and curling your hips upward toward your ribs. The TRX training system uses simple but highly effective straps that enable you to work your abs in a pike with your weight suspended from your feet. The American Council on Exercise categorizes exercises such as the TRX pike as "advanced," and cautions that being able to stabilize the low back with strong core muscles is a safety prerequisite.
Member Comments