After some time the common abs exercises become dull, monotone and lose their effectiveness. At the beginning doing 50 or 100 sit ups or crunches causes muscle strain, but then slowly that pain disappears from your midsection.
Here I’m going to show you a few advanced abs exercises for athletes that are far more challenging and help you to get rock hard abs.
Sit Up With Weight Plate
The good old sit up is maybe the most popular exercise for abs, and it if it is performed correctly it is a perfect move to strengthen your core.
To make your sit ups tougher, grab a weight plate and do the exercise with that. Of course, do not use heavy weight at the beginning, but as you get better, you can increase the resistance slowly.
You can put the plate on your chest this is the easier version. But, if you want to make this exercises even harder you can hold the plate in front of you, and when you sit up, you push the plate forward the ceiling. This move is callous and recommended only for advanced trainers since it requires strong lower back beside the abs.
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Sit Up With One Dumbbell
This is a kind of alternative to the previous one. Since there is only one dumbbell in your hand, it is going to be an asymmetric movement that is very efficient to strengthen the core since the muscles on the opposite side have to compensate the instability. While the other side works to perform the motion.
The easier version is when you put the dumbbell on one side of your chest, but the real killer is when you hold it up with stretched arms.
Plank on Fitness Ball
If you want to get six pack abs, you should train your abdominal muscles with both dynamic and static exercises. The most popular static abdominal exercise without a doubt is the plank.
If you are good at planking and you can keep the position for a few minutes, then it is time to boost this exercise. A good way is to place your forearms on a stability ball instead of the ground. This way it is going to be much harder to keep the position because the ball wants to go away. To avoid that, you should keep your abs, better to say your entire body, tight.
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V-Up with Medicine Ball
Grab a medicine ball. It does not have to be too heavy first. Lie down on the ground with stretched legs and arms that are placed next to your ears. From this position, focusing on your abs, lift both your legs and arms at the same time, and put the ball between your shins. For this, you have to pull your torso between your thighs and keep this peak contraction until you place the ball between your legs.
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Ab Tuck with Ball
Put your legs on the stability ball and go to a position as if you were doing a push-up. The ball should be somewhere at your ankles. From this position, bend your hips and pull your knees forward your chest. The abdominal muscles will contract dynamically if you bend not only your hips but your entire trunk. When you reached the final position, keep it for a few moments and finally roll back the ball to the starting position.
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Scissors with Static Weight Holding
You can turn the ordinary scissors abdominal exercise harder by holding a weight plate above your chest instead of placing your arms next to you. Or you can use ankle weights for extra resistance.
So here are few extreme ab exercises from which you can create an advanced core workout routine. But keep in mind, that these exercises are only for advanced trainers. If you are a beginner, stick to the typical exercises and only add extra resistance to the exercises if you can do many reps correctly. Weighted abdominal exercises can be dangerous for those who have not got existing strong core muscles.
Related reading:
- Extreme ab workout at home
- Find an intense ab workout routine here
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