Abdominal Ab Exercises

Your abdominal muscles are a group of six muscles - the transverse abdominals, the internal obliques, the external obliques, and the rectus abdominus - which wrap from your back all the way around your body, acting as a built-in “girdle” to support your organs and maintain comfortable, erect posture. These muscles work together and individually, improving balance and stability. Keeping your abs toned and strong is the key to avoiding back pain and injury. Healthy abs also play a leading role in excelling at competitive and individual sports, providing the central axis for other muscle groups.

Abdominal exercises usually address more than one of the six muscles at once, helping each muscle to improve its strength individually and as part of a healthy, well coordinated muscle group.

Perhaps the most familiar of the ab exercises is the traditional sit-up. Once the mainstay of phys ed classes and gym workouts worldwide, it’s been established that the full sit-up, performed in the traditional way, is actually not very effective in targeting and strengthening the abdominal muscles – and it can cause significant risk of back and neck strain. Today, the old-fashioned sit-up has been replaced by the abdominal crunch. Depending upon which way the crunch is performed, different abdominal muscle groups can be worked. For instance, adding torsion to the crunch works your oblique muscles – the muscles that stretch along the side of your abdomen, creating your waistline.

Exercising your abdominal muscles can do more than make you look fit and trim – strong, toned abs are an essential part of a healthy body, preventing back pain and injury and improving your overall endurance and stamina.

Popular and proven exercises for improving abdominal strength and conditioning include the following.

Exercise Ball Crunch – Another great exercise for the rectus abdominus, the addition of an exercise ball to a regular crunch gives the move the extra leverage needed to really stretch and tone those central abdominal muscles.
Long Arm Crunch – Similar to a regular crunch, but performed with the arms extended over the head, this exercise focuses on the often difficult upper abs.

Oblique Crunches – A variation on the traditional ab crunch, the side-to-side motion of this exercise is intended to firm and tone the obliques.

Using a resistance band or medicine ball can increase the torsion effect of some exercises designed for the obliques. Hand weights can be added to abdominal exercise routines for added resistance, especially for exercises which target the central muscles of the abdomen.

The Syco XT is not just an Ab exerciser it is a complete core training system.