1. Swiss Ball Crunches (Upper Abs)
Lie on a Swiss ball with your lower back on the center-top of the ball. With your hands behind your head and your elbows pointed outward, keep your eyes on the ceiling above you and contract your abs, pulling your upper body toward the ceiling, until your stomach is completely contracted. Slowly return to the starting position, but be sure to keep your abs contracted throughout.
2. Hanging Leg Raises (Lower Abs)
Grasp a chin-up bar with both hands and hang straight down from it. Keeping your torso as still as possible, slowly lift your knees up toward your chest. When you lift your knees, concentrate on "pulling" with the lower abs, and press your calves tightly against the backs of your things as your legs come up. This will force the abs to bear the brunt of the movement.
3. Plank-Body Side Twists (Obliques)
Lie on your side on the floor. Prop your upper body on the elbow of your floor-side arm so that your body forms an incline. Your feet should be together, your torso straight and your hips pushed forward. Focus on keeping your body in a straight line (this, alone, should become difficult), and with your ceiling-side hand behind your head and your elbow pointed up, slowly twist at the waist until your torso makes a 90-degree turn and your elbow touches the floor.
4. Twisting Floor Crunches
Lie on the floor with your legs bent at 45-degrees and your feet at shoulder-width flat on the floor. With one hand behind your head and your elbow pointed outward, place your other arm perpendicular to your body on the floor. Keep your eyes on the ceiling above you, and contract your abs until your stomach is completely flexed. As you come up, slowly twist your outstretched elbow toward the opposite knee. Concentrate on keeping your hips flat on the floor. Slowly return to the starting position, but be sure to keep your abs contracted throughout. Switch arms, and repeat on the other side.
5. Don't Forget to Breathe
When you reach the peak contraction during your ab exercises, breathe in and out slowly a few times. This breathing in and out will intensify the contraction, and as some studies show, might actually help decrease your waist size. The ab muscles are positioned in layers across your midsection, similar to the layers of an onion. When you squeeze the "rectus abdominus" (the outer-most and highest layer of your abs--the visible layer known as the six-pack), the deeper abdominal muscle fibers remain relaxed. That is, during ab exercises, it's likely you're only working a small portion of the whole ab region. Breathing fixes this by forcing the other layers to contract, too.
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