The Best Ab Exercise
You Must Be Performing

When you have the best ab exercise, that's all you really need to firm up your stomach and get flat abs in a hurry.

Going about your ab workout but not seeing results? If so, you need to learn what the best exercise is and then start incorporating it into your routine on a regular basis.

Many people make the mistake of performing an endless series of crunches on an abdominal mat, but then never really get the results that they're after.

The primary reason for this is that the movements that they're performing are just not calling into the play the core muscles to a large enough extent, which is why they aren't seeing strength or definition gains.

When you perform ab movements that stimulate every single muscle fiber deep within the core, you'll not only burn more calories doing that exercise, which is key for seeing results, but you'll also see greater strength gains.

Let's have a look at what the best ab exercise is that you need to start performing immediately and then show you a few variations that you can include in your workout program. Remember that the abs will respond best to constant change, so make sure you're switching it up often.

The Best Ab Exercise

The one ab movement that you absolutely must be doing if you hope to see success is the plank. Hands down, there is no other movement that is going to work as many muscle groups at once and increase not only the control you have over the stomach region, but also the firmness that you feel and see.

The plank movement is an isometric exercise in nature and it's because of this fact that it proves to be so effective. Since you aren't going to be hardly moving at all while you perform it, the muscles are constantly contracting, developing not only high levels of strength but endurance as well.

How To Perform The Plank

So how do you perform this best ab exercise? When performing the plank, the absolute most important thing that you must keep in mind is that you are to keep the back flat at all times.

If at any point you're letting the back lift up or drop down, you're moving out of proper form and all the tension that's placed on the abs may be lost. In addition to that, your chances of developing back pain are much higher if you're not using proper form, so it really is a must do for results.

When performing the plank exercise, your goal is to keep the feet about shoulder width apart and place the forearms directly down on the floor for balance. Your back should be flat and the head should be looking straight down in front of you.

It's important not to try and lift the head up however, as this can create unnecessary stress on the neck muscles.

Hold this position for 30-120 seconds depending on your skill level before coming back down.

Plank Variations To Consider

Once you are able to perform the best ab exercise without any problem, then it comes time to learning how to incorporate in the variations for greater challenge.

The first variation is to simply lift one leg up off the floor. Since this then causes you to decrease your base of support, it's instantly going to enhance the challenge that you feel.

Try and lift one leg up off the ground and then switch to the other to work both sides equally.

Once that's easy, consider lifting one leg and the alternate hand up off the floor. This basically takes the challenge from the previous example and builds on to it.

Continue alternating legs until you're time is up.

Another of the plank variations to try is the travelling plank. For this one you'll hold the normal plank in position for 30 seconds and then you'll slowly shuffle the body to the side about five feet. Then hold the plank for another 30 seconds, before shuffling back and holding for the remaining 30 seconds.

This will really develop a high level of agility and coordination and since you'll really be calling the abs into play for balance will definitely enhance the stress on the ab tissues.

So there you have the best ab exercise that's a must in your workout program. If you aren't doing this movement as part of your usual workout plan, it's time that you incorporated it in.

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