The Best Ab Exercises

One question that every personal training has been asked is, "what is the best ab exercise I can do?" As with most answers you will receive from a personal training you will hear it depends. This really is true. It depends on what exactly you are looking to accomplish. Are you trying to get a stronger core for a sport? Do you want a six pack? Are you trying to improve back pain because of a weak core?

You can start to see how this becomes a tough question for a trainer to answer. Regardless of your goal however you core musculature needs to be trained. There are two types of core exercises that you can do. Both are necessary for any type of goal. These are core stabilization and core mobility exercises. First, you need to master core stabilization exercises. These are exercise where stress is placed on the abdominals and other core muscles but the spine does not move. It is the goal of these types of exercises to learn to use your core to prevent your spine from movement. One of my favorite "ab" exercises is a core stabilization exercise called the spiderman mountain climber.



Core Mobility exercises are those in which you actually have your spine move. These are your more traditional ab exercises such as sit ups, crunches, and twisting. With these and all core exercises the more body parts your can incorporate the better. Total body ab exercises will work the core the way it was meant to be trained and will burn more calories. For example Burpees may not seem like an ab exercise but when performed correctly they will work the abs as well as many other body parts.