My Top Three Ab Muscle Exercises That You May Not Think Work Your Abs

When you think of ab movements you will probably think about sit ups or crunches right? But ill bet you wont know these movements which although they aren't really considered Ab Muscle movements they are very effective at building better stronger abdominal muscles.

In this article I'm going to give you an example of three movements, in fact they are my favourite three abdominal muscle movements, you may not have used before to
work your abdominal muscles, but they are three of the best way to get six pack abdominal muscles quickly.

This session uses a giant set format, meaning you do all three with limited rest between the movements. So let's get to it:

1a. Renegade DB Rows
1b. Front Squats holding a Barbell
1c. Mountain Climbers on the floor

I would use this circuit 3 to 4 times doing about 8 reps of the first two movements, 10 to 14 of the mountain climbers or you can do these for a certain time eg 40 seconds. An alternative would be to do less reps with more weight and do more sets, like doing 4 reps of each 6 times.

Renegade Db rows are a great movement which requires very strong Ab Muscles to do the movement properly. The technique for these is as follows:

- Start in a push up position with your hands starting on two dumbbells
- Row one dumbbell up while you keep your body up with your other arm and keeping still using your abdominal muscles (this requires a big demand from your abdominal muscles and you will feel how well these work almost immediately)
- Bring the dumbbell back to the ground and lift the other arm while stabilising with the opposite arm
- Once you bring this dumbbell back to the ground this is one rep

Front squats are done using a similar movement to normal squats or back squats but they are done holding a bar in front of the body, and these require a great effort from your abdominal muscles to keep you back stable. To do them properly:

- Hold the bar on the front of your shoulders stabilising the bar by crossing your arms holding the bar into your shoulders with your fists and keeping your elbows pointed away from your bodynote: this is a difficult movement to get a first, you may want to seek advice from a qualified trainer to get your form right
- Squat backwards like a normal squat remembering to keep your elbows forward and up to stabilise the bar and keep your back strong

To complete the mountain climber movement:

- Start in a push up position holding your shoulders up over your hands
- Keeping you hips in the same position move your feet one at a time under your chest in a climbing motion

To make this more challenging you can also move your hands in a little less than a foot to correspond with your foot movements. This takes an already difficult whole body movement and makes it even harder. You should feel this one work your abdominal muscles quite hard.

When you finish each movement you can rest for up to 30 seconds before you start the next movement, you should then rest about 1 minute after each circuit before you repeat it.

This should give you an intense abdominal muscles workout without doing any direct Ab Muscle movements. Try it and you will feel what I mean.