What Are The Best Ab Exercises?
Everybody is always asking what are the best exercises for this muscle, and what are the best ones for that muscle? I’ve been an Austin personal trainer for over 22 years now, and if someone posed the question of what are the best chest exercises, I could easily pull 3 random chest exercises out of the air, and tell them they are the 3 best pectoral exercises in the world, but are they really? If you were to inquire as to which are the best ab exercises, is the answer what you frequently see people doing, what some personal trainer tells you, sight unseen, or is it which ones suite your particular body to include your current development, as well as your imbalances? This essay will not contain a comprehensive list of every abdominal exercise ever thought of, as that is very easy to find with a basic internet search. The point of this writing, rather, is to be a guide to show you, the reader, how to select what will ultimately be the best ab exercises for you individually.
One common theme to all of my essays and blog posts, is that I stress how much everything in the health and fitness world must be individualized if it is to be truly effective for you. Obviously, there’s generalizations that can be made such as the fact that we all need to eat, sleep, drink water, etc, but even the parameters on those topics will fluctuate based upon individual needs.
The best ab exercises are going to be the ones that work the best for you. Thankfully, there are a great many to choose from. For example, there’s the classic crunch. It is a staple of many exercise routines, but the reality of it is that those with excessively tight hips and weak abdominal areas will find themselves using momentum, and having poor posture throughout the range of motion which results in not engaging the targeted muscles effectively. As mentioned there are many, many exercises to select from, and in this case, a hanging leg raise would be a better option. As that particular client progresses and gets stronger abdominal muscles, as well as loosens up the hip and gluteal complex sufficiently, they can select from a far greater array of ab exercises.
When selecting the best ab exercises for you, you’ll need to factor in several factors. They should include any tightness in the hips, as the best ab exercises for folks with tight hips will vary as opposed from the best options for those with relatively normal hip imbalances. The fact that the strength of your abdominal muscles has so much to do with how your pelvis sits is a testament to that. Another factor to consider when searching for the best ab exercises, is how difficult is the exercise? You want to be sure to start with the basics, such as a plank, which also targets the core muscles as well. If you start with an exercise that is overly ambitious, you won’t be able to do it cleanly, and will ultimately shortchange the effects of it as you won’t be able to consistently perform it properly. You’ll have to consider logistics as well, in the sense of are you going to be performing these exercises at home, in the gym, or both? If you’re truly serious about strengthening your abs, you’ll want to have several ab exercises in your arsenal that you can perform without having to rely upon gym equipment. In other words, exercises you can do at home. Inverted leg raises, for example, would be such an exercise, as all you’ll need to perform them is a space on the floor. Lastly, you’ll want to consider how much time you want to dedicate to building your abdominals. They, like the calf muscles, can be worked more frequently, especially in an aerobic context than many other skeletal muscles without the fear of over training or over using them, but they sure as heck won’t be developed in a 5 minute a day workout like you see on tv. Consider all of these questions, and when you can answer them honestly to yourself, presto! You now have the best ab exercises.
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Andy
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