Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Ab Exercises to Lose Belly Fat

Many times, the best ab exercises aren’t the type of exercise you’d expect, nor are they always performed lying on your back. Are you ready for 3 of the top abs exercises that’d you’d never expect? Here goes:

1) High Dumbell Squats

2) Cradle Stiff Leg Deadlifts

3) Dumbbell Shadow Boxer

High Dumbell Squats- The purpose of this exercise is to use fairly heavy dumbbells and old them at shoulder height. The dumbbells serve 2 purposes: 1) to through off stabilization during the squat 2) engage your abs and obliques to work extra in order to provide balance. If you use a nice heavy dumbbell, this will activate your abs like no other exercise. Once you have the dumbbells at shoulder height, perform a regular squat.

Cradle Stiff Leg Deadlift – This exercise is much like a regular stiff leg dead lift, except you will be “cradling” the bar in front of your body within the creases of your elbows. Make sure you keep your back straight, knees slightly bent, and your abs tight at all times. Begin with a moderate weight and increase the poundage as necessary. This is a Killer ab exercise.

Shadow Boxer – This is very similar to shadow boxing, except you will be holding a dumbbell in each hand. Use a moderately light weight as it is very taxing on your arms. Aim for a point directly in front of your nose, and begin “boxing” by alternating each arm. Try to keep your hips locked squarely facing forward.

The rep schemes for the High Dumbell squats should be in the 8-12 range. I’d recommend doing this particular exercise as a stand alone, while the other 2 can be grouped together with other abs exercises.

For the Cradle Leg Deadlift, keep the reps around 8-10, and the Shadow Boxer, you should perform for time intervals of 20-45 seconds. Make sure you use a light weight to ensure you’re able to isolate your abs during this exercise.

After finishing each exercise, you can move immediately into the next, or rest for 20-30 seconds and repeat for 3-4 sets total.

This will give you one of the best ab workouts there is without having to get on the floor. You can use these as your main program, or throw them in with your current ab routine to spice things up!


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