Best abdominal exercise? Any suggestions anyone?

I find sit ups tedious and it hurts to do them 50 -100 times. I’m a boxing instructor who stills hits the heavybag around every few days, and I don’t have the same mobility with this slight gut of mine, it slows me down a lot. So I am looking for suggestions to slime down my abdomen. I’m not looking to have abs of steel, I just my stomach to be slim again. From there I can focus on my footwork and coordination.

So what do you guys believe is the best exercise to melt away fat from your stomach. Ten points for the most thorough/best answer. Thanks a lot!

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12 Responses to “Best abdominal exercise? Any suggestions anyone?”

  1. Monkeyjam Says:

    Then it’s nutrition you need to alter more than anything!

  2. Priya B Says:

    Crunches, Push-ups, Curl-ups are the best.Start by doing each only 10 times a day, then add five more of each the next day. Keep doing it until you see what you’re looking for.

  3. deaddarkness8908 Says:

    buy a ab lounge

  4. LoveUrLife Says:

    Lie down on your back and lift your feet up about six inches and your arms and hold it for 30 seconds. do about 10 of these 30sec on 30sec off it helps a lot

  5. Molly Says:

    Well, I should know this without having to give you a website, because my mom was a fitness instructor for a very long time, but I don’t listen well enough I guess. Because I forgot. This website gives you a ton of stuff you can do though.

    http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/bestabexercises/a/all_abs.htm

  6. JUST ME Says:

    Everyone thinks to loose abdominal and get abs is to do sit ups and etc. but its not! Too loose abdominal weight unfourtunetly you have to work out your entire body which means treadmil or eliptical. Or if you dont have access to those then just walking. Tightening your stomach as you do that will suck your stomach in.

    Only do crunches and sit ups, or excersises with the excersise ball after about 2 or 3 weeks of walking cause it will start contracting your stomach muscles getting them to suck in and give you that toned stomach.

    Hope I explained well .. Lol

  7. mary p Says:

    Get a Yoga book..the stomach exercises in the book are not strenuous but will leave your abs quivering….Great stuff!!!

  8. sarah Says:

    Go on youtube and look up “Ab workouts” there are actually a lot of legit workout videos on there. Watch a few of the videos and you should find a lot of alternatives to painful crunches, good luck!

  9. Janey Says:

    I think the plank is pretty amazing, and the reverse curl works wonders too. Sit ups don’t do much for me, I need slow, deliberate and targeted crunches.

    There are some here:

    http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52413

    If you can hold the plank for say a minute or 90 seconds you’re doing really well!

  10. Melo Says:

    Running or jogging will help you lose some pounds, then push-ups crunches and sit-ups will help tone your stomach. Try to go for a run 2 or 3 times a week. Try to work your way up to 3 sets of 20 sit ups, and 3 sets of 20 of push ups a day. You’ll definitely feel and see the results after a few steady weeks of this workout. Anything that gets you active is a good way to lose weight.

  11. gary j Says:

    There’s no magic bullet, it takes work, which you already know.

    I have the similar problem, the weight is due to being bed ridden for six months after major surgery.

    For me the sport is Tae Kwon Do

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  12. healthfreakken Says:

    People have the misconception (especially concerning abs) that a certain exercise will slim down their stomach area. In reality, it’s your diet that has a much greater impact on weight loss than any ab exercise.

    Since you already hit the heavy bag every few days, why don’t you just increase this activity a few more days, and cut an extra 500 calories per day from your diet.

    Here’s another way of looking at it. When most people think of ab work, they think that doing hundreds of reps of an ab exercise will build a six pack and melt the fat away.

    What’s really happening when you do hundreds of reps of ab work, is you’re burning calories, not building muscle. And, doing ab work is an inefficient way of burning calories in the first place. Jogging will burn more calories than doing ab work.

    Your abdominal muscles are no different than any other muscle group in your body. Medium to heavy weights builds muscle. Would you do hundreds of reps on squats every day? You could, but you’d have to use a ridiculously light weight which would do nothing for muscle growth and you would be sore as heck the next day.

    Now if you want to build a little muscle that will show nicely when you lose the fat around your belly, then I suggest getting an ab wheel. It’s really cheap and you can get it at virtually any sporting goods store. It looks like a wheel off a kids wagon with handles on each side.

    To start, I would do just a set of 5. As you get better you can add a few more sets. Work up to 5 sets or 5. That’s all you need. You can do this a couple of times a week.

    Here’s how you do it.

    Get down on your knees (place a padding underneath them), with the wheel in both hands in front of your knees. Inhale, round your back maximally, tuck your butt and chin in. Keep your hips vertical.

    Do not arch your back or stick your butt out backwards. Keep your lats tight and roll forward as far as you are able to. Come back up by trying to round your back while pulling with your arms. Don’t exhale until you reach the top.

    This exercise may be too difficult at first, but I don’t believe I’ve tried a better ab exercise to build muscle. When you get much stronger, you can try one off of your knees. Not many can do it this way.

    So again to lose fat, cut some calories from your diet, increase your heavy bag workouts and do low rep ab work to build some muscle to show off your abs. That’s it!

    Good luck on your progress.