Craig Ballantyne is a great trainer. I don’t say that about a ton of peeps, so when I endorse him, you can take that seriously. Here’s some great ab training tips from the one and only Ballantyne in time for Valentine’s day.

This video takes you through the evolution of 21st century ab training.

You’ll find 6 different ab exercises where the focus isn’t on crunching or spinal flexion, but instead is geared towards providing a core workout that offers stabilization and resistance rotation.

Just because these ab exercises aren’t your traditional crunches, doesn’t mean that you won’t get that great ab burning feeling following your workout.

These core exercises will still help build 6 pack abs, but in a much safer way that will reduce the incidence of low back pain.

The first ab exercise in the evolution of ab training is a simple plank.

This exercise needs to be mastered by beginners and those at risk of low back pain. The goal here is to work up to a 90 second to 2 minute hold in the plank position.

The next core exercise is the side plank or side bridge. A little more difficult than the regular plank, the trick here is to keep your body in a straight line and keep those hips raised.

Once you’ve mastered those ab exercises, try the plank with your elbows on the stability ball.

According to Men’s Health magazine, this exercise works your abs 30% hard than a regular plank. To increase the difficulty of this ab exercise, try moving the ball further away from your body.

The fourth ab exercise to work your entire core is the stability ball jackknife.

Here, you will place your feet on the stability ball and your hands on the floor or elbows on a bench. Then you will bring your knees to your chest, while maintaining the plank position, and then return to the starting position.

Similar to the ab wheel, the next exercise in the evolution of ab training is the stability ball rollout.

Place the ball in front of you, with your hands on the ball, roll the ball out, stretching and maintaining your back in a straight line, and contract to return to the starting position.

The last ab exercise is a plank rotation.

When you take a regular plank and combine it with a side plank, the subsequent resisting rotation works to provide a total body workout.

So to perform this exercise you will start in the side plank position, and without moving your hips rotate to a regular plank, and then over to the opposite side plank position.

Continue to do this, while keeping your back straight and hips raised.

Crunches are old news. You just won’t get the same total body benefits of this new type of training.

Try out these 6 ab exercises that will provide not only an exceptional core work, but a total body workout as well.

Want more? Check this out: http://goo.gl/q5z0U

Craig has a special Valentine/Ballantyne ab special on for us. It’s an amazing ab DVD at a ridiculous discount for Valentine’s Day.

This entry was posted on February 13, 2011 at 8:29 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Workouts by Shawna Comments Off on Happy “Ballantyne’s Day”