Ab muscles are vanity muscles. It really doesn’t prove much except that your body fat percentage is low enough to ab muscles. This article will teach you how to get a stronger core, which will not just give you toned abs but improve your overall fitness.
1. Do more compound exercises: Compound exercises are something anyone can do. Also called multijoint exercises, these moves engage several muscle groups at once and require complete stabilization of the core.
Examples of basic compound movements include:
Squats
Deadlifts
Pullups
Pushups
Lunges
Shoulder presses
Burpees
Box jumps
Jump squats and jump lunges
Tuck jumps
2. Practice isometric core work: Also called static strength training, isometric exercises profoundly improve core strength because they train the exact function your core needs to excel at: remain stable under duress. Isometric core work teaches you to tighten and engage your core muscles and create a strong support base for your extremities.
The exercises include:
Wall sits
Single-leg wall sits (advanced)
Planks
Side planks
Static lunge
3. Do single-leg and single-arm exercises: What this does is by trying to work on just on arm or a leg, you’d be using your core muscles. Next time you work out, try this: See how heavy a dumbbell you can lift above your head with your right arm and then your left arm. If you’re like most people, one side will present more of a struggle. Muscle imbalances like this are common, but can be fixed through unilateral (one-sided) exercises, which require you to engage your core muscles through an extended range of motion while unbalanced by your body weight or a weighted object, such as a dumbbell.
Try out these single-leg exercises to improve core strength:
Box step-ups
Split squats
Reverse lunges
Single-leg deadlifts
Single-arm dumbbell shoulder press
Single-arm row
Single-arm dumbbell bench press
