4 Essential Ab and Back Exercises

Posted on May 19 in Featureby Michael StewartPrint

No matter which movements you do throughout the day – walking, running, or picking up a pencil from the floor – the muscles in your body constantly have to work to keep you steady and prevent you from losing your balance. The muscles of the core – particularly the abdominal and back muscles – are responsible for providing this stability and balance as we go about our daily activities. Given that these muscles play a part in every movement, it is essential that you work on strengthening them each time you workout. Aside from the fact that you’ll improve your stability, you’ll get plenty of other benefits when you improve your core strength:

1. Core exercises simultaneously tone your ab and back muscles, which means you save time in your workout routine. There’s no need to dedicate time to working each muscle group individually.
2. Most core exercises don’t require special equipment, and as such you can do them at home or in a hotel room while travelling. No more excuses about not being able to exercise because you don’t have a gym membership or expensive equipment in your house.
3. Strengthening your core will significantly improve your posture and that means you’ll be less likely to suffer from back problems. In addition, good posture equates to you standing up straight and having a longer, leaner frame which in turns makes you appear slimmer. Who’s going to turn down an opportunity to look a few pounds lighter simply by standing up straight?

Now that you’ve got the reasons why you should strengthen your ab and back muscles, let’s take a look at how you go about it with a few key exercises:

Bridge: Lie on your back with bent knees and feet flat on the floor. Get your back into a neutral position – lower back isn’t arched nor is it pressed against the floor. Pull in or tighten your lower abdominal muscles as you raise your buttocks off the floor until your knees, hips, and shoulders are on the same plane. Stay in the raised position for a count of 10 then lower and repeat. Depending on your strength level, you may only be able to raise your buttocks a few inches off the floor. No problem. Keep working on this move until your strength increases.

Quadruped: Start on your hands and knees (also known as Table position). Your hands should be directly underneath your shoulders and your head should be on the same plane as your back. Raise opposite arms and legs i.e. raise left hand and right leg. Hold for a count of three, then switch sides and raise the right hand/left leg. Repeat, alternating arms and legs each time.

Modified Forearm Plank: Start by lying on your stomach. Raise yourself up so that your knees are on the floor and you are resting on your forearms with your elbows just directly underneath your shoulders. Keep your back and head in a neutral position. Pull in your abdominal muscles. Make sure not to shrug your shoulders up towards your ears. Hold the move for 3 counts then return to the starting position and repeat.

Full Plank: If the modified plank is too easy for you then try the full plank position. You start on your stomach as with the modified plank, but when you raise yourself up to rest on your forearms, straighten your legs so that the knees are off the ground and your toes are on the floor.

The plank is an incredibly versatile and effective back and ab strengthener that you can do in a variety of ways. For example, for an added challenge in the modified or full plank, you can raise one leg or arm a few inches off the ground. To push the challenge even further, you can also raise alternate arms and legs off the ground (in a similar fashion to the quadruped exercise). And when you get tired of being on your forearms, you can simply get into a traditional pushup position and hold the move for a few seconds. While in the pushup position feel free to lift your arms and legs off the ground as well. The sky’s the limit!

The goal is to change your center of gravity and shift your weight distribution – basically, doing whatever you can to make yourself unstable and then, working on stabilizing yourself. Since the back and abs are involved in stability it stands to reason that every time you put them through a destabilizing movement, they have to work that much harder and as a result become stronger.