The Best Exercises for Stronger Abs

If exercises for your abs make you think about a desire to look better in your jeans, you’re not alone. But there are a few other reasons strong, toned abs should be on your stay-fit wish list. Technically, your abdominal muscles consist of five major muscles: (1)

Rectus Abdominis Located between the rib cage and the pelvic bone, this is more commonly referred to as the “six-pack.”
External Obliques These sit on the sides of the rectus abdominis and allow your trunk to twist.
Internal Obliques These also flank the rectus abdominis, but inside the hipbones, and also help with twisting motions. Transversus Abdominis These sit behind the obliques and help stabilize your trunk. They’re also sometimes called the corset muscles. Pyramidalis This small, triangle-shaped muscle sits in the pelvis and helps maintain internal abdominal pressure.
Together these muscles are responsible for your ability to bend over or curl up. (Hello, crunches.)

But those muscles are just one part of your core, which refers to the muscles that are essentially the foundation of your body, allowing you to hold your body up, explains Eric Botsford, a National Strength and Conditioning Association-certified personal trainer and a frequent participant in high-level fitness competitions like the CrossFit Games and Tough Mudder events.

“All movement originates in the core, so there’s an importance to prioritizing some form of core-centric exercise in your everyday routine,” he explains. Your core also includes the erector spinae muscles, which are the muscles in your spine that help stabilize you as you stand or sit up, lift something, or rotate your upper body. (2)

Working all of these muscles — your abdominal muscles, as well as the muscles in your spine — together is how you get a midsection that looks more sculpted. And more important for your health and overall functioning, this stronger core improves balance, posture, and mobility, while also decreasing the risk of injury and some types of chronic pain (like in your lower back). The bottom line: Stronger abs will make aging overall a little bit easier.

But that doesn’t mean you need to hit your bedroom floor and crank out the crunches, Botsford says. “The biggest misconception is that you need to do sit-ups in order to train the core.”

Instead, he suggests a mix of isometric exercises (static ones, such as a plank or wall sit, whereby a muscle gets stronger by stabilizing itself) and dynamic exercises. (3) And Botsford recommends focusing on moves that engage all your core muscles, not just ones that focus on the rectus abdominis.

And remember: Just because you can’t see a visible six-pack doesn’t mean that you don’t have strong abdominal muscles. “Don’t be fooled by what social media defines as a strong core,” says Botsford. “There are people out there who don’t have washboard abs but can 100 percent carry more weight than that model on Instagram.”
Flexibility and mobility are both important components of healthy movement, according to the International Sports Sciences Association. However, they are not synonymous.

Flexibility refers to the ability of tendons, muscles, and ligaments to stretch, while mobility refers to the body’s ability to take a joint through its full range-of-motion.

There is no specific recommendation for the number of minutes you should do activities that improve flexibility or mobility (such as stretching), and the health benefits of those activities are not known because of a lack of research on the topic, according to the Physical Activity Guidelines from HHS. But the guidelines note that flexibility exercises are important for physical fitness.

And the guidelines do recommend that older adults incorporate balance training into their weekly fitness routine. Evidence suggests that regular exercise that includes balance training can significantly reduce older adults’ risk of falls, which can cause serious and debilitating injuries, among other consequences.

Source: everydayhealth