Destroying the Abs

I thought I had pretty strong abs, I get bored doing crunches (which I don't do, unless my coach makes me), I can do plank work for over 3-10 (not really sure) minutes, I can hold a L-sit for over 30 seconds (not a full one due to hamstring inflexibility), I get bored during leg raises, and I can do some pull up bar leg raises... but I haven't tried the ab roller yet. I never have access to one

Let me tell you what an ab roller is. An ab roller is a wheel with two handles; one on each side of the wheel. The way to do a full 'roll out' is to grab the handles, roll out until your arms are almost lined up with your straight body, then the tough part: rolling back up. Is this exercise it's actually bad to make your lower back kind of like a U, unlike the dead lift and bent over row. If you make your back like a U then you're not tightening your abs enough and you could pinch your lower back. It's best to keep a perfectly straight back, but bent slightly either way is fine.

So, I don't have an ab roller... how'd I do an ab roll out? A barbell. It's not as good because it requires less stabilizing and sometimes the weights tighten up so a 'wheel' (the weight) stops moving and I'm forced to stop and fix it.

Before I explain my workout, I'd like to say what I did before so I don't sound like a wimp... The day before I did 4-6 minutes of planks, a couple pushups with someone on my back, and some leg raises. Right before I left for track I attempted to do a full standing ab roller... I felt my soreness from the day before and also realized I'd need to warmup or I'll pull an ab muscle, so I stopped and decided to wait until after track practice.

At track I did seven 400s going at my mile/two mile pace for the first 300 or 200 meters then sprinting the rest. Helps me improve my 'kick' near the end of the harder races.

So after I walked home from Greene Central School, I stretched a little and then did my ab workout.

I warmed up with a minute of planks. Then tried the standing roll out. I got fully extended, but couldn't pull my body up... my abs were on fire, pulling as hard as they could but I wasn't moving. Soon enough they gave out and I fell to the floor. Now that I think about it, I might not have been using enough of my lats, but who knows.

If I couldn't do one full ab roll out, I'd have to drop my ego and do them on my knees. I alternated between plank variations, almost full L-sits and knee ab roll outs for about 20 minutes. My abs were a little sore to start, but man. They were dead now. I did a little bit of oblique planks in the end. Normal ones felt kind of easy, leg in the air ones spasmed my hip flexers a lot, so I tried adding a weight to my hips. Boo-yeah. Talk about a oblique burn!

So that was my ab workout. I'm pretty darn sore right now... I probably won't do anything like that until after KVACs because I have a feeling if I do this again, I won't recover in time to preform as well.

Notice this though: all the exercises I did, promote good posture. Unlike the crunch... yet my abs got a serious workout. Planks beat crunches any day! So do them.