Thursday, April 10, 2008

Alwyn Cosgrove Ab Exericses

In Santa Monica, there's a famous bar called the King's Head Pub.

And every New Year's Eve, the King's Head rings in the New Year at 4pm (to coincide with their friends back home in the UK), and then again at 9pm (to celebrate with Americans on the East Coast), and then again at midnight (of course).

Twelve days ago I had dinner at this famous King's Head pub with Scottish fitness expert Alwyn Cosgrove.

Alwyn and I had a long discussion covering everything in the fitness industry (from Valslides to Jay Ferruggia's PR Workouts to fat burning workouts and all the sport-specific training in-between), but what was most interesting was Alwyn's latest recommendations for ab training.

So I twisted his arm to get him to reveal a long list of ab exercises for you to use in your workouts...

Here's what Alwyn had to say:

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A recent study testing abdominal activation with various exercises showed an interesting trend.

The most activation occured when the abs were used as stabilizers as opposed to prime movers.

In other words - planks and the ab wheel type exercises worked the abs HARDER than crunches or reverse crunches.

Therefore, you need various types of stabilization work in your routine to get maximum results. Start with an isometric variation and then add a dynamic stabilization version.

Here are 40 ab stabilization exercises from my staff training manual at my gym, Results Fitness:

1) Plank

2) Plank with single arm support

3) Plank with single leg support

4) Plank with single arm and single leg support

5) Plank on Stability ball - elbows on ball

6) Plank on stability ball - hands on ball

7) Plank on Stability ball - elbows on ball & single leg support

8) Plank on stability ball - hands on ball & single leg support

9) Plank on Stability ball - elbows on ball & feet on bench

10) Plank on stability ball - hands on ball & feet on bench

11) Stability ball knee drives

12) Stability ball cross body knee drives

13) Side Plank

14) Side Plank with single leg support

15) Side Plank on Stability ball - elbows on ball

16) Side Planks from hand

17) Side Planks from hand with single leg support

18) Alternating side planks to elbow

19) Alternating side planks to hand

20) Alternating side planks to elbow with single leg support

21) Alternating side planks to hand with single leg support
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Whew. We'll save the remaining 19 exercises for a follow-up email next week.

I guess the exercises are actually Scottish, not Californian,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

PS - Alwyn has a fat-burning workout called "Real World Fat Loss Results"...

...and it will help you lose your belly fat and get a flat stomach.

Especially if you use the exercises he recommends above. More exercises to come next week.

In the meantime, get started with Cosgrove's training:
=> Click HERE for Alwyn's program

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