Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Stability Ball Ab Exercises

Here are my 3 favourite stability ball ab exercises that can be done at home and will build your abdominals and strengthen your torso muscles. Might even help give you a flat stomach.

The first exercise is the stability ball rollout. So to get into starting position, kneel on a mat, with your body in an upright position and hands on the ball.

Now, roll out for a count of 3 seconds, stretching your abs, and then return to the starting position by contracting your abs for a 2 second count. Perform a total of 10 repetitions for this exercise.

After the stability ball rollout, the next exercise to perform is the stability ball jackknife.

There are a couple of ways this abs exercise can be done; one, with your elbows on a bench and feet on the stability ball, or alternatively, with your hands on the ground and your body in the pushup position.



For the purposes of this explanation, I am going to do it with my elbows on the bench. So to start, place your body in a plank position with your elbows on the bench and feet on the stability ball.

Next, while bracing your abs, tuck your knees up to your chest and back out again. This abs exercise although very effective is not quite as hard as the stability ball rollout.

The third exercise of the stability ball triset is the plank with elbows on the ball. According to Men's Health, this exercise is 30% harder than a regular plank with elbows on the ground. So, to get in position, place your elbows on the ball and your body in a straight line.

If you want to make this more difficult you can do a couple different things. The first is to move your elbows in front of your shoulders, and secondly, which is even harder, is to roll the ball in and out.

In all scenarios, you want to hold this position for 20 seconds. For advanced levels, a 30 second hold is very good, especially after performing the previous two exercises.

Perform the above exercises for 5 minutes twice a week and combine that with the TT supersets and interval training 3 times a week and you will begin to burn belly fat and achieve that flat stomach.

Enjoy that workout,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Click here for more bodyweight workouts

1 comment:

10timesbetter said...

The 65cm body ball is a really simple yet effective way of helping you to gain better abs and strengthen your core. i was looking for fitness equipment myself recently and the body ball was one purchase i made, plus i bought other gym equipment.