3 Usable Ab Workouts You Can Do

It doesn't matter whether you jog, buy exercise equipment or join a gym, doing some ab workouts is also important. For lots of people, the way their abs look is considered evidence of the kind of shape that they are in. Obviously the truth is that health is more complicated than that but wanting healthy and well toned abs is certainly understandable. This article will go over some of the more effective ab workouts that you can add to your exercise routine.

Jumping rope, when you do it right, is a highly intense workout for all of your body but especially for your abs. Most people think of jumping rope as something that only children do but boxers in training also do it quite often as well. Boxers often jump rope to get in shape and build their endurance--both of which are very useful for helping boxers reach the weight classes in which they want to compete. If you try it out, you'll be surprised by how tiring it is and how sore it can make your muscles. This is not a reason to quit doing it, it is just evidence that you are seriously working your entire body and, if you keep at it, it's also a fantastic workout.

You already know that crunches are effective for working the abs and, if you do them on a medicine ball, you'll have better results because you will greatly enhance your range of movement. Medicine balls are weighted and about the size of an average soccer ball; you'll see them at the gym and you shouldn't confuse them with the bigger stability balls, which also have their uses. You can also do plank exercises on the medicine ball; this is where you put your hands on the medicine ball and put the rest of your body in a push up kind of position. To increase the level of challenge for this exercise, do leg lifts while you perform your planks. If you're unfamiliar with these types of exercises, however, you should practice them on a mat before doing them on a medicine ball.

It's likely that you believe that ab workouts that are exercises that specifically focus on your abdominal region but doing cardio workouts are just as important, especially if you want to burn the fat in your mid section. There are lots of great cardio workouts you can do like jogging, speed walking and using machines like exercise bikes, elliptical machines and treadmills. You only need to do thirty minutes of cardio each day and a few targeted ab exercises to see a major shift for the better in your overall health as well as actually being able to see your ab muscles because you'll also be trimming away the fat in your mid section.

The ab workouts in this article are just the tip of the iceberg. It is a good idea to change things up every once in a while so that you work different groups of muscles and keep your workouts from being boring. Anyone can get bored when you do the exact same workout all the time. What really matters is that you compete at least some sort of effective exercise at least a few times each week.

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