Home Ab Workouts & Obliques

Stop Wasting Time on Side Bends, Torso Twists & Other Oblique Exercises... Try These Killer Oblique Ab Workouts!

by Craig Ballantyne, Men's Health Magazine Fitness Expert, Author of the Best Home Abdominal Workouts Program

Most ab training programs neglect one of the most important muscles in your “core”. Sure, you can do tons of crunches and sit-ups, but if you aren’t properly working your oblique muscles, then you won’t have the complete 6-pack package.

And while your first thoughts of oblique exercises are dumbbell side bends or bicycle crunches, I’ve got 3 killer ab & core exercises for you today that are just as effective and safer for your low back.

If you do all 3 of these abs exercises once per week along with one other ab workout later in the week, you’ll double the effectiveness of your ab workouts.

Plus, you can do this ab workout anytime, anywhere. You don’t have to do it just at the end of a regular workout. You can do it in the morning before work, in your office (if you have privacy), in the park at lunch, or while watching your kids or TV at home. It’s so simple and effective, yet doesn’t require any equipment. It’s the perfect three-exercise ab routine for building a sharp set of oblique muscles to compliment your 6-pack abs.

Do each exercise back to back with no rest between exercises. At the end of the circuit, take a 1 minute rest before repeating the circuit 2 more times. If you are a beginner, make the beginner modifications to each exercise and do the circuit only 1 time for the first week. In the second week, you can bump it up to 2 circuits, and finally to 3 circuits in week 3.

Follow this program for 4 weeks, and then add in some new exercises, remove some of the old exercises, and change the order and repetition scheme of the exercises. You need to change every aspect of your workout every 4-6 weeks so that you don’t get bored and so that your program stays as effective as possible. Don't forget that your main focus should still be full body workouts and not just ab workouts if you really want to have lean six pack abs.

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Here’s the 3-exercise abs oblique obliteration circuit:

1) Cross-Body Mountain Climber – 10 reps per side
2) Side Plank – 30 second hold per side
3) Spiderman Pushup – 8 reps per side

Here are detailed descriptions of how to do each exercise:

Cross-Body Mountain Climber

• Start in the top of the push-up position.
• Keep your abs braced, pick one foot up off the floor, and slowly bring your knee up to your opposite elbow.
• Do not let your hips sag or hike up in the air. Keep your body in a straight line.
• Keep your abs braced and slowly return your leg to the start position.
• Alternate sides until you complete all of the required repetitions.
• Beginner Modification: Do the standard Mountain Climber bringing your knee straight ahead and do not try to cross your body with it.
  

Side Plank

• Lie on a mat on your side.
• Support your bodyweight with your feet and on your elbow.
• Raise your body in a straight line so that your body hovers over the mat.
• Keep your back straight and your hips up. Hold your abs and entire core tight. Contract them as if someone was about to punch you in the stomach, but breath normally.
• Hold this position for the recommended amount of time then SWITCH sides.
• Increase the duration of the hold each workout.
• Beginner Modification: Do the exercise from your knees. Hold for 10 seconds.

Spiderman Push-up

• Keep your abs braced and body in a straight line from toes to shoulders.
• Place your hands on the floor slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
• Slowly lower yourself down until you are an inch off the ground.
• As you lower yourself, slowly bring your knee up to your elbow, but keep your foot off the ground as you do so.
• Push through your chest, shoulders and triceps to return to the start position, and return your leg to the start position. Alternate sides until you complete all repetitions.
• Keep your body in a straight line at all times and try not to twist your hips.
• Intermediate Modification: If you can’t do all 8 Spiderman Pushups per side, do as many as you can and then finish the set with regular pushups.
• Beginner Modification: Do the Spiderman Pushup from a kneeling position, or just do regular Kneeling Pushups.

Try adding these abs and obliques exercise circuits into your regular workouts or on alternate days. Give it some time and dedication and you'll have razor sharp obliques and rock hard abs in just a couple cycles.

Make Better Choices When Forced to Eat Fast-Food

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

I was out recently with some friends and we stopped at a fast food joint. I hate fast food joints, but sometimes everybody else wants to go there, so you just have to make the best of it and find something at least somewhat healthy.

If you're forced to eat fast-food, here's a tip to make sure that you're not doing much damage to your body...

ALWAYS AVOID the soda and anything deep fried including french fries, hash browns, and anything breaded like chicken nuggets, chicken patties, or breaded fish sandwiches. These are all absolutely soaked in deadly trans fats from the industrial hydrogenated vegetable oils they use to fry all of these items.

Note: Even though some fast food restaurants have vowed to not use hydrogenated oils loaded with trans fats any more, they are still using highly refined processed oils, which are still inflammatory and negatively affect your health (and waistline).

Remember, as I've said before, I've seen studies indicating that as little as 1 gram of artificial trans fat per day can have serious degenerative internal effects in your body such as inflammation, clogging and hardening of the arteries, heart disease, various forms of cancer...not to mention packing on the ab flab. That's as little as 1 gram!

Consider that a typical fast-food meal of a breaded chicken sandwich (or fish sandwich), along with an order of fries can contain as much as 10 grams of trans fat! Add on a cookie or small piece of pie for dessert (which are usually made with deadly margarine or shortening), and now you're up to about 13 grams of trans fat with that entire meal.

If 1 gram a day is slowly killing you, imagine what 13 grams is doing! And that was only one meal that you ate. Some people are consuming 20-30 grams of artificial trans fat per day, and not even realizing what they're doing to themselves internally. Please realize that nobody, I mean NOBODY, is looking out for your health, except for YOU.

Anyway, back to the topic of how to avoid this stuff and eat a reasonably healthy meal on the rare occasion that you're forced to eat fast-food. As for drinks, avoid the sodas...they're nothing but heavily processed high fructose corn syrup which will surely end up as extra belly fat. And yes, that mean NO DIET SODA either! This stuff is pure evil to your body. Here's an article I did about why diet soda makes you fat.

Your best bets for drinks are always water or unsweetened iced tea. You get the added benefit of the antioxidants in the unsweetened iced tea (but stay away from any sweeteners).

At breakfast, the best choice is an egg, ham, and cheese on an english muffin (not on a croissant, which is full of nasty trans fats!), or a fruit & nut salad.

At lunch or dinner, the best choices are a grilled chicken sandwich, the chili, a grilled chicken salad without croutons (again...croutons = more trans), or even just a plain cheeseburger. This doesn't mean these fast-food items are truly healthy and organic, but they're the best options you have at most fast food places.

The main take-away point from this little fast-food article is that the nastiest stuff at these fast food joints are the sodas and fries, and any other deep fried items. If you stay completely away from those items, you're at least making better choices than 95% of most people.

For any of you that have seen the movie "Super-Size Me", you saw how eating fast food every day absolutely destroyed that guy's health, but did you happen to notice the one guy that was the king of eating big macs (or some kind of burger)? I don't remember what kind of burger it was, but basically this guy has eaten these fast food burgers almost every day of his life for the past 30 years or something like that.

Did you notice that he stated that he almost never eats the fries or soda, even though he eats the burgers every day? And he's not necessarily overweight. Now I'm not saying that fast-food burgers made with their refined white bread and low quality beef and cheese are the healthiest thing, but the point is... it's the fries and sodas that are the real health disaster.

Alright, so next time you're out at one of these places, remember these tips and choose smart!

Personally, I can't remember the last time I ate at a fast food joint like mickey D's or BK. If at all possible, I'll try to find some corner deli with fresh salads or sandwiches instead of fast food.

By the way, if you haven't heard yet, McD's has added a nutrition label to all of their food wrappers now. Remember that as little as one gram of trans may cause some internal harm and now you can actually see how many grams of trans fat you're eating right on the food wrapper. That might change your mind about finishing it.

For a fully comprehensive program on losing as much body fat as you want by following a smart, scientifically designed training and nutrition program, check out The Truth about Six Pack Abs.

Related article: Healthy Food or Junk Food, Simple Choices

return to Reduce Abdominal Fat Fast home page

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Don' Waste Your Time with Treadmill and Machine Workouts!

Have you ever considered if treadmill or elliptical workouts are actually that effective?

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist

If you truly enjoy mindlessly pumping away on a treadmill or elliptical (or exercise bike for that matter too), then by all means, keep doing what you enjoy, because enjoying your exercise is one of the most important aspects to sticking with any exercise program...

However, don't say that I didn't warn you that you were wasting your time with all that mindless cardio machine boredom.

If I haven't mentioned it before, I don't believe in cardio machines, and to be quite honest, I don't think I've personally used a treadmill, elliptical, or exercise bike for at least the last 7-8 years or so.

As a matter of fact, I don't even use cardio machines anymore for warmups before a workout (did before occasionally)... Nowadays, I prefer to do dumbbell or kettlebell snatches and swings mixed with bodyweight exercises as the perfect full body warmup at the beginning of my workouts.

So why do I have such hatred for cardio machines? Well, here goes:

1) Treadmills, ellipticals, and exercise bikes are mind-blowingly BOOOORING!

2) Mindless steady state cardio exercise while watching tv or reading creates a mind / body disconnect resulting in poor results from your exercise routine

3) I've seen studies that indicated that treadmill running may be less effective than outdoor running for various reasons such as stride abnormalities on treadmills vs natural running, slightly less caloric burn compared to outdoor running, etc. (although I never recommend just "jogging" anyway... variable intensity walks / runs or sprints are so much more effective, training your heart rate in a much wider range instead of just the same pace during the entire workout).

4) Treadmills and ellipticals are ridiculously expensive and a waste of money for people that workout at home... there's so many better options for home workouts you could have spent your money on rather than wasting it on a treadmill, bike, or elliptical.

5) Treadmills and elliptical machines are just a very ineffective way to workout compared to other options. Why should you do treadmill or elliptical workouts when you can get better results by doing more interesting forms of training that actually stimulate a fat-burning hormonal response and stimulate your metabolism to a greater extent.

The perfect home gym setup is MUCH cheaper... there's no reason you need anything other than a jump rope, bodyweight exercises, a few dumbbells, stability ball, maybe a few kettlebells (if you want to get fancy), and perhaps high tension bands for some more variety. And of course... the great outdoors has some of the best workout options of all... hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, skiing, sports, and more!

So what are the alternatives to treadmills and elliptical trainers? Here are some of my favorite types of alternative exercises:
* jumping rope - great mind / body connection (try speed jumping, crosses, double jumps once you get skilled at it)
* bodyweight training - bodyweight squats, pushups, lunges, jumps, bear crawls, mountain climbers and jumpers, planks, and the list goes on and on
* kettlebell training - nothing will get your heart pounding like high repetition KB swings and snatches or clean & presses (can be done with dumbbells too, but I prefer KBs)
* outdoor wind sprinting (the ultimate for a rock hard ripped body... just look at the chiseled powerful bodies of world class sprinters, and compare that to the weakling withered physique of a typical marathoner... nuff said!)
* hill sprinting (yet another classic for a rock hard powerful body)
* rowing machine (ok, I don't really lump this in as a "cardio" machine like treadmills and ellipticals... I think the rowing machine is actually a great full body workout that actually uses resistance)
* sprint style swimming workouts (a more muscular workout than steady state distance swimming... I actually love the upper body pump I get from sprint style swimming) - this is the same concept as sprinting vs jogging but in a pool instead
* heavy bag punching / kicking workout, speed bag, rebound bag... all great forms of training and much more interesting than boring cardio machines (requires an intense mind / body connection)
* shadow boxing... awesome workout, but if you're shy, this is best done at home since you'll get some crazy stares doing this at a typical gym from people who think they're "too cool" for stuff like that.

Well, I hope that helps give you ideas on how you can get away from all of these mindless and ineffective treadmill and elliptical trainer machines (and exercise bike) workouts that are just wasting your time and energy that could be better spent on more effective workouts.

Don't be lazy, be lean.