Weight Training Tips and Articles

Do Abdominal Exercises On A Core Ball

May 13, 2008 on 11:07 pm | In Weight Training Exercises, Abdominals, Build Muscle |

  Abdominal workouts are great for strengthening your core and giving you washboard abs if you don’t have a layer of body fat covering them up. Chunches are an especially great exercise for building the abs. However, many weight trainers and workout enthusiests do their crunches on flat benches or machines with a flat back support that don’t allow you to stetch the abdominals at the beginning of a rep.

  To build muscle for any part of the body it’s very important to do full reps during your weight training exercises. Part of a full rep is getting a nice stretch at the beginning of a repitition and a good muscle contraction at the end of it. While you can get the hard contraction you need at the end of a crunch rep on a flat bench, you won’t be getting much of a stretch because the bench won’t allow you to go any further back at the beginning of a crunch rep.

  To get that stretch to start a crunch rep you should do them on a core ball. When you do abdominal exercises on a core ball you’ll be able to stretch your midsection to start the rep which should result in an even better contraction at the end of it. Training your abs on a core ball will also allow you a lot of variety. You can add a twist to your core ball crunches to help buiild and strengthen the ab - oblique area on each side of your midsection. You can also start a set of an ab exercise on a core ball with your lower back on the ball to get a better stretch and make the reps harder. Then, as you get closer to failure you can move your body forward so the ball is higher up under your back so you can crank out a few more reps. A weighted medicine can also be used at the beginning of a set of crunches on a core ball and dropped as you get to failure so you get some more reps with just your body weight.

  Beyond the fact that you’ll get a better stretch in the abs when you train on a core ball is that you’ll also be strengthening many small stabilizing muscles and improving your balance. Try doing your abdominal training on a core ball get the most out of your workouts.