If you don’t overuse crunches, they can still be an effective ab exercise. Vary your ab workout just like you vary your cardio and strength training exercise. There are plenty of safe and effective ab exercises for conditioning and strengthening your abs, which many people are not aware of. They include total body exercises that work the abs and swiss ball workout.

Believe it or not, you can develop amazing abs without ever doing a single sit-up!

According to one study conducted by the Biomechanics Lab at San Diego State University, the bicycle maneuver was the top rated abdominal exercise with the traditional ab crunch coming in at the bottom three.

This study used specialized equipment to measure the activity in the abdominal muscles to determine the best ab exercises. There were 30 men and women who participated in this study ranging in age from 20 to 45. Each participant performed 10 to 12 reps of 13 common abdominal exercises. Each exercise was given to the participants randomly and the participants were allowed to practice each exercise.

The study also included some popular abdominal exercise equipment in this study including the ab roller, ab rocker and an exercise ball. Each abdominal exercise was measured for effectiveness in the rectus abdominus muscle and the oblique muscles. The data was gathered and analyzed.

Best Ab Exercises

Topping the list for the most effective in the rectus abdominus was the bicycle maneuver, captain’s chair and coming in third was the exercise ball crunch. The best ab exercises for the oblique muscles were the captain’s chair, bicycle maneuver and the reverse crunch.

Coming in close behind the top 3 for the rectus abdominus were the vertical leg crunch, torso track and the long arm crunch. The number 4 through 6 spots for effectiveness in the oblique muscles were the hover, vertical leg crunch and the exercise ball crunch.

Worst Ab Exercises

The bottom 3 abdominal exercises for both the rectus abdominus and oblique muscles were the Ab Rocker coming in last then the exercise tubing pull and coming in 11th was the traditional crunch.

This study did state that all the abdominal exercises studied showed some effectiveness in the ab muscles, however some were more effective than others.

Getting Flat Abs

Although there are probably 100 abdominal exercises for you to try, in order to flatten your stomach you must also focus on reducing belly fat. The best exercise to lose belly fat is not an abdominal exercise. Rather it is aerobics. That’s right. You must do aerobic or fat burning exercises in order to eliminate and reduce fat. If all you do is abdominal exercises then all you accomplish are rock hard abs hidden under a layer of fat.

Your weekly exercise routines should consist of both aerobics and strength training. By including both in your workout routines you will not only be burning calories and fat but building lean muscle. The more lean muscle you have the more calories you burn.

But of course all this exercising doesn’t give you free reign to eat what ever you want. You still have to incorporate a healthy eating plan to help reduce fat and build muscle.

To really get flat abs and that treasured six pack abs be sure to eat right, do aerobic exercises and focus on the best ab exercises to get the most out of your abdominal exercise routine.

In the scheme of things, it is difficult to think of quality ab exercises without working out lower ab exercises first. Working out from upper abs and then proceeding to lower abs will be useless as abs muscles will be already under stress subjected to sever fatigue. So, it’s a good idea to start with lower ab exercises and then proceed from there.

A good routine to your lower ab exercises must include reverse curls and leg raises in the core as they are specific to lower ab muscles. Beginning with these makes sure that you have begun on a positive note.

Reverse Curls

The first workout you need to fit into your lower abs workout is none other than reverse curls. Reverse curls entails lifting up your legs both bent at knees almost till they touch your stomach while holding your hands by your side. Repeat this from 10 to 20 times.

Leg Raises

The next exercise you will build in into your lower ab exercises is leg raises. A good practice to do leg raises is by first lying down on the back on the floor and then resting both of your hands by your side. Lift both of your legs simultaneously off of the floor to about 45 degrees taking care not to bend the legs at knee joints. Another thing to keep in mind is not to lower the legs so much as to touch the ground when you lower your legs. Repeat this from 10 to 20 times.

Make it a point to repeat these lower ab exercises 4-5 times a week.

At first, you may feel that lower ab exercises are hard because the muscles respond slowly as they are not strong. And eventually you may feel tiresome to do because the stubborn layer of fat around there makes it appear that the progress is slow. In view of this, it is important to do the lower ab exercises correctly as there are chances to cheat by incorporating other muscles into the workout (like hip flexors and lower back muscles). Nevertheless, even the highly targeted lower ab exercises do require some effort from the upper abs. This emphasizes the importance of the need to concentrate during the routine.

Tips To Do Lower Ab Exercises

Lower ab muscles are the foundation of your core and are thus critical to overall strength and stability. Excessive momentum has the potential to negate the intended effect of the exercise and you’ll begin working out those muscles other than you want to. The e4xercises for lower ab in my website are aimed at training the two specific muscle groups that constitute the lower abdomen while minimizing the involvement of other abs muscles.

Don’t forget that abs are endurance muscles, so treat them like they are and keep the momentum going until you can’t do any more.

Inhale while your muscles are relaxing, lengthening, stretching out and exhale when you are contracting, shortening, tightening or crunching. So the abs exercises you do will work the entire set of muscles in some form.