I'm trying to figure out what I should do for my ab workout, but I don't really have any ideas other than doing crunches/bicycles/similar exercises hundreds of times, which seems really time-consuming.

What do you do for your ab workout?

Bodybuilding.com - Josh Henkin - Better Abs Without Crunches!

I have felt my abs shiver during 'power cleans.' and squats seem to make them swell up some. when I doo front and side planks it seems like the valley between the muscles opens up some.

FF

Two words:

Ab Wheel

Thanks! Even though this isnt my thread, I just learned something new.. It is an excellent and very interesting article. BTW im a noobie at working out lol

I realize, that's why I'm asking
Should I take the abs part of my workout regiment out? That seems really counter-intuitive; I mean, back when I ran cross country that was more or less the only workout we did.

FF and DEF, do you guys just use compound lifts that also incorporate the abs?

when i came to this forum I was looking for appearance- hence my journal is "Performance is nto enough." i was able to revocer from my accident, and i am back to performance driven efforts.

SO- even though this is the first time I have ever had abs, they are simply a by-product. They are just starting to come thru now. I believe it is the olympic lifts, some beautiful genius taught me, and the swimming, some most precious lovely got me into.

I think the winning formula is to forget about results, and try to impress the winners on this board, and you can have everything you want.

oh,, and another thing,, try and burn more calories than you eat over an extended period of time

FF

Not always. I'm no stranger to the swiss ball crunch and barbell rollouts.

oh geeez!
ok.

I do some weighted crunches, big on planks, and I spend about 2 hours a day in the mirror trying to pretend they ar there... an voila--- they are coming.

DEF is sooo serious..........

maybe our next fitness challenge could be crunches.

Hahaha. Rarely. I'll give ya planks, though. Love 'em, though I opted out of the plank challenge. Seriously, that was a challenge.

Ha. Just got your note, FF. I think it's the other way around

Dragon Flags

One of the best abs exercise

dragon flags are awsome, but very hard! I can't even do one! It's important to keep straight though. A lot of people just do a leg raise followed by a reverse crunch.
A good way to progress is actually doing a leg raise then a reverse crunch then lower yourself straight, making a the eccentric movement the eccentric portion of the dragon flag.

Hah, those dragon flags look like fun actually... I'll try them next time I'm working out, I wonder if I can even do one

Another great abs exercise gymnasts do are L sit holds

L sit holds

What I do for these is if your good do them off the floor, if you need a little more height then grab a couple dumbells and use those to give you the extra height to keep your legs off the ground. Then for as long as you can. Keep going till you have a total of 60 secs of hold time. If both feet out is too hard try the other variations:

One leg tuck sits
Tuck sits