How to Perform an Effective Ab Workout

Charlotte Hellhoff: Hi! I am Charlotte and this is Cinda and we are Performance Private Training. We are talking today about how to get ready for swimsuit season. Cinda, you are going to show the audience two ways to perform ab exercises.

We are going to start with a medicine ball and Cinda is going to do something called a Russian Twist. Cinda, if you can come back a little bit more, there you go. Twisting side to side, she is working her whole core. She has her feet on the floor.

To make this a little bit harder, if you are strong enough, take one foot off the floor, just like that, excellent. Very good, keep twisting. Just keeping her abs nice and tight, keeping her back straight, take the other foot off the floor, excellent. This is for you who have a really strong core. Now if don't have a medicine ball at home, like most people actually don't, you can get that milk jug or water jug. Its a little bit harder to hold on to but it's doable. We are just going to do the same thing. It was excellent, can you feel that? Very good. Taking that other foot off the floor as well, very good. Very good form, thank you Cinda.

Now we are going to go over to flutters. She is going to lay on the floor on her back. Alright, she is putting her hands on to her lower back for support. Her legs straight out and she is fluttering, there we go, and working her core.

Now to make this a little bit of harder, lift up your torso, making sure your neck is nice and straight, so you can look straight up in the ceiling. Very good, don't bend your neck towards your chest. Very good, looking good, can you feel that still? Oh yeah, this is a great exercise. Alright, thank you.

When I teach people how to do ab exercises and we talk about repetitions, I normally don't ask them to do a certain amount of reps. We talk about go till it burns. However, if your lower back hurts, you need to stop immediately. Otherwise, sometimes I have my clients do a minute at a time and after a while you are going to see that you are going to get used to doing that.

Coming up next, we are going to talk about finishing every good workout with a great stretch.