ABsolutely great core exercises!
What better way to finish up our ABsolutely August focus of the month, than with a few of our instructors favourite ab exercises, including that of our poster boy Joe's!
Our Poster Boy - Joe: Kicksitz
This is my favorite ZUU exercise. It's a complete core workout and mobilization movement.
Start with arms and legs as you would for angry cats but keep back neutral. Tuck your toes and raise knees just clear of the ground. Imagine a straight line running under you from left to right and move your feet along this line as you pass your legs from one side to the other. Once leg is fully extended touch your bum to floor. Kick-sits 😉
The foot of your stationary leg will pivot and then place the heel down allowing you to point the knee up. Keep both hands on floor ALL the time. See the video below and this instructional vid on IG too.
Miss Pole Queen NZ - Oliva: Oblique crunches
I LOVE to do oblique crunches with the leg hooked on the pole. The obilques do a lot of work for dead lifts - a dream move for lots of students!
To do these, hook your inside leg on the pole (or a washing line...street pole, kids playground pole). Keep your body face on as you lower yourself at a right angle to the pole.
The key to this one is the slow squeeze upwards of those obliques closest to the pole. Imagine you're trying to get your ribs to touch your hips, and lift yourself back to standing.If you hold yourself at a right angle before crunching back up, you're also having to engage your whole core to hold that pose. But the benefits of dipping down lower is having to engage the obliques closest to the pole a lot more to lift yourself.
Extra challenge: hands by ears. Super Extra hard mode: Arms straight and shoulders squeezing your ears.
Oliva shows us that you don't need to have a visible 6 pack for your abs to be fabulously functional.
Winner of NZAPP Open Category 2017 - Tash K: Eagle Crunches (aka 'evil crunches')
Cross your knees and cross your arms so that your elbows are nice and close together.
Crunch elbows and knees together and repeat.
A more advanced version would be to leave the lower back on the ground the entire time whilst crunching. The crunch becomes smaller and more compressed but 10x harder.
Eagle abs work like normal crunches, but because we've crossed our arms and legs, the torso is more compressed and thus the crunches are a little deeper. Enjoy, muwahaha.
