Best Ab workouts anyone?

I run a lot. Like try at least 5 miles a day, a lot. I'm thin-ish but my stomach isn't defined at all. So i need opinions on the best ab videos. I dont have a DVD player, but I do have ondemand, so on demand subscribers, any tips?

THANKS :)

I'm fond of 8 minutes abs and I found it on You Tube for you! Hope this helps.

Don't do the Billy Blanks one (the Tae Bo guy) that's on On Demand. Or if you do, fast forward through the first five minutes where they just do this washing machine back and forth thing over and over. Too fast, not enough resistance, and borrrrring. There has got to be something better than that video on there.

Hey!!!Beleive it or not everone has great abs, the big thing is your BMI if your not around 10% BMI your abs are going to be covered with a layer of fat you can work your abs till the cows come home and you will have a strong core ....but you wont see it lol! 

Original Post by metricscaler:

Hey!!!Beleive it or not everone has great abs, the big thing is your BMI if your not around 10% BMI your abs are going to be covered with a layer of fat you can work your abs till the cows come home and you will have a strong core ....but you wont see it lol! 

 You mean body fat %, right? BMI has nothing to do with how much fat you carry.

Men with BF% around 10% usually have defined abs, I think for women it's a little higher.

I agree that all the ab exercises in the world won't give you a defined stomach, only lowering your body fat will do that.

If you insist on doing ab workouts, do exercises that use your abs for what they were designed for, stabalizing your lower back. Squats, deadlifts, bent over rows, standing military press, planks, etc use your abs for their intended purpose.  Sit-ups, crunches, bicycles, pilates, etc don't.

I used to do the 10 minute abs workouts on On Demand.  They are in a menu with 10 minute buns and 10 minute arms/legs.  I haven't done those in about 2 years, though.

Now I just do a lot of crunches.  Crunches with my arms stretched out, regular crunches, reverse crunches.  They have made a difference.

Other people here will insist that squats and dead lifts are the way to great abs.  So, that's something else you might try.

I have a low body fat %, and there isn't flab on my stomach. I meant to say, i can some sort of abs, but it isnt amazingly defined like i want it to be.

My body fat is around 11%

If you are already thin but want definition to your tummy you are not only gonna have to do ab exercises but you may need to add weight to really build the muscle to show your abs. Envious of your Body fat percentage

(I get what you're saying, I guess others didn't see the "thinish" part and runnign 5 miles)

Are you doing any type of ab stuff right now? (you know the basics, crunches, sit ups, leg lifts)

yeah, i do basic ab stuff every other day, and believe me i feel it :/

but its like bulking my stomach out, so maybe i'm not doing the right stuff?

Original Post by floggingsully:

Original Post by metricscaler:

Hey!!!Beleive it or not everone has great abs, the big thing is your BMI if your not around 10% BMI your abs are going to be covered with a layer of fat you can work your abs till the cows come home and you will have a strong core ....but you wont see it lol! 

 You mean body fat %, right? BMI has nothing to do with how much fat you carry.

Men with BF% around 10% usually have defined abs, I think for women it's a little higher.

I agree that all the ab exercises in the world won't give you a defined stomach, only lowering your body fat will do that.

If you insist on doing ab workouts, do exercises that use your abs for what they were designed for, stabalizing your lower back. Squats, deadlifts, bent over rows, standing military press, planks, etc use your abs for their intended purpose.  Sit-ups, crunches, bicycles, pilates, etc don't.

Well I know someone with 10% maybe less and their abs aren't very defined...anyways, a good workout would be front and side planks...

Original Post by runnabe15:

yeah, i do basic ab stuff every other day, and believe me i feel it :/

but its like bulking my stomach out, so maybe i'm not doing the right stuff?

Your abs need rest just like any other muscle, switch to doing then every second day if you still insist on doing ab exercises. Also, yes, excessive direct ab work is bad, and will have the opposite of the desired effect.

Everyone tends to have a different way to work the abs.  Yet some General guidelines for working abs include you must work your obliques, lower abs, and upper abs. If you want your abs to show, you must use dieting, aerobic exercise, and weight training to reduce your body fat % and make your abs show.

Find 3-4 exercises for each part of the abs mentioned above, have virtually no rest between each exercise, and work your abs three to four times a week. Each set you work them, work them until exhaustion or until you can't do one more rep.

Read these articles and you'll learn all you need to know about ab training, and you'll know more ab exercises than you can shake a stick at.

Some great exercises are the ab rollout, plate twist, weighted crunches, air bike, planks, reverse crunches, hip raises on parallel bars, cable crunches, and oblique crunch.  You can use an exercise ball, cables, a bench, plates, and some crunch machines to modify standard ab exercises like the crunch. Look up how to do these exercises on YouTube, Bodybuliding.com, or just type them into a popular search engine.

Hip/knee raises on the parallel bars or the Captain's Chair exercise is a very effective exercise, doing 7 reps completely exhausts my lower abdominals.