Abduminator :-)

You know you want one!

I had occasion to talk with a "cosmetic surgeon" recently. He assured me that I could have six-pack abs in a simple "out-patient procedure."
I said thanks but no thanks,
I told him that I'd rather continue cranking out ab contractions, rope pull-downs, hanging leg-lifts, and crunches; and keeping an eye on the intake of peanut butter sandwiches. Not that any one of these is likely to take effect soon, but they do include a lot of health and fitness benefits along with reducing the waist size of my pants.

What your surgeon friend didn't mention that fat build up continues, but often not in that area - so say they take away most of your fat cells from your stomach. Instead of first replacing those cells the body can respond by creating & filling fat cells elsewhere in the body to the max. So, some people can end up with flabby lower backs, shoulders, butts, even arms can start to sag - so unless you like the idea of an all over fat removal procedure I don't think it's worth it.

Also I notice you mainly do flexion movements for abs. The main function of abs is to resist flexion, so don't forget to add a fair amount of stuff like:

Rollouts - start using a stability ball on your knees , move to a roller or barbell on your knees , finally a roller or barbell standing



Front Plank - Couple of points to this one. First off do NOT start as shown on the video below! Start on hands & knees, then put one leg back, then the other leg back to achieve the plank position. Next point, when in the plank you should be able to put a pole or straight PVC tube along the back & it should touch the glutes, upper back & head. This is generally the correct position to hold. You can start on the knees, progress to one leg or one arm held out. 2 minutes is considered a minimum front plank for a person to be considered to have good core stability. For the athlete more would be even better.



bird dog To advance you can spell out the alphabet with your foot, or add ankle weights &/or a small dumbbell for the hand.



A variation is the upright bird dog



Side plank



Once those are mastered you can move onto stuff like get ups

Turkish Get-up Note use both hands at the start to raise the kettlebell across the body & over the head. You can use dumbbells if no kettlebells are available, but the movement doesn't 'flow' quite as well in my view, but seeing as you can get these beauties quite cheap there's no reason not to get a pair to mimic a kettlebell feel.



That should be enough for anyone's abs!!!

Been looking at some core options & stumble on these 2:






I might give the second one a go next workout & see how if I can do it? (any back 'warnings' & I may have to save it until full recovery)