The beauty of the abdominal hold exercise is the fact that it can be done anywhere where you have a chair or a stairway with at least four steps. If we look at the exercise involving a chair, simply sit in the chair with a straight back and your feet firmly planted on the ground. Then place your hands towards the side of the chair and lift your feet and your bum slowly off the ground. You should aim to
Read more The Abs roll-out exercise is another great way to strengthen your abdominal muscles. For this exercise you will need a barbell with round weights on either side or a specific abs roller. The starting position is the kneeling position with your back straight up. Then grab the barbell, on the ground, with your hands just a little more than shoulder length apart. You then simply roll out the barbell, while remaining as straight as possible, as far as you feel
Read more The hand walk-out exercise is a surprisingly intense and useful exercise when looking to tone up your abdominal muscles. The starting position may is effectively bent over double from a standing position. This means that your feet are placed firmly on the ground as are your palms (for those who cannot touch their toes, simply bend as far as possible) and you simply place your hands on the floor and walk them out slowly. This will make use of the
Read more The mountain climber exercise is a great way to tone up those ab muscles, with a relatively short but intense burst. The starting position is similar to a straight arm press up with your arms locked and your body as straight as possible down to your feet. Pull your left knee up you towards your elbows, with your left foot touching the ground (as if you were in the blocks waiting to start a 100m race!), with your back right
Read more In many cases it is relatively small movements such as the hand slide crunch exercise which have the greatest impact on your upper and lower abdominal muscles. The starting position for the hand slide crunch exercise is to lie down on the ground with your feet flat and your knees raised. Then place your hands onto your thighs and sit up only using the top half of your body. As you sit up, slide your hands down towards your knees
Read more There are many relatively simple exercises which will help to build and develop your abdominal muscles. The starting position for the leg raise exercise is to lie down flat on your back on the floor. Then, while maintaining your legs as straight and outstretched as possible, raise them as high as you can or until they are vertical. Then very slowly lower your legs, while maintaining the outstretched position, until they are positioned just above the ground. It is advisable
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While the Zottman curl may have something of an exotic name it is a relatively straightforward bicep curl with a slight twist. Holding a dumbbell in each arm, stand with your hands by your side and your palms facing inwards – this is the starting position. Now twist your arm so that your palms are facing outwards and then curl the dumbbells (both arms at the same time) up towards your shoulder level ensuring your upper arm and shoulders remain
Read more The kneeling single hand curl is an extremely useful way of rebalancing your biceps if one side is stronger than the other. It is done in the kneeling position simply because this eliminates using other parts of the body to create the momentum to do the bicep curl. So, the starting position is, holding a dumbbell in each hand, hang your arms down by your side with your palms pointed in. Retaining the dumbbell in the same position, lift the
Read more The incline dumbbell curl again makes use of a bench which is set at a 45° angle. You will lay back on the bench press with your arms hanging down by your side, with a dumbbell in each hand, ensuring that your head is firmly pressed against the bench. Slowly lift the dumbbells in a traditional bicep curl movement up to your armpits, hold for a few seconds and then slowly return to the starting position. The number of repetitions
Read more The decline dumbbell curl changes the angle of attack and therefore the way in which your bicep muscles are challenged. You will need to lie chest down on a bench set at a 45° angle to begin this exercise. Holding a dumbbell in each hand, fully extend the arms (letting them hang down) and then simply bending the elbows bring the dumbbells up as close to your shoulders as you can. Hold at the top for a few seconds then
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