I lead a busy life. Despite the fact that I spend a good chunk of my time in the gym when preparing for photo shoots, I can't live in the weight room 24/7. Just like you, I have other things to do, people to see, and a social life to fully enjoy. That's why I'm sharing this time-saving, highly effective ab circuit. You'll likely be done in 15-20 minutes, but it'll give you the sensation of a killer workout when you finish!
In fact, this training session is so effective that I often begin my daily workout with it, or some similar variation. The circuit consists of only four exercises, but before you begin, I recommend you gather all of the equipment you'll need—such as a stability ball and ab roller—so you're ready to hit each movement in quick succession, without rest.
Ready to give your abs the greatest pump of your life? Let's grow!
Rodney Razor Abs
Watch the video - 6:41
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Razor-Sharp Tips
Hanging Leg Raise
This is a tough lower-ab exercise. You'll feel what I mean soon! Find a bar to hang from, and while keeping your upper body stable, bring your legs up so they end up above parallel to the ground. Since you'll be hanging, all of your core stabilizer muscles will fire to keep you from swaying too much. Keep your elbows unlocked and engage your core to also keep yourself steady.
You can either do this with your legs extended or knees bent, but the former adds a greater challenge. If you want to ramp up the difficulty even further, you can hold a dumbbell between your feet as you perform each rep. I even do them to the sides to target the obliques as well.
Decline Crunch
You'll need a decline bench for this ab movement. This seems like a basic upper-ab exercise, but in the video you'll see that I never fully relax my abs when I lower myself to the bench, so there's no way to rest between reps. Keeping tension on the muscles like that from start to finish amplifies the burn.
There are no rules here. You can even increase the difficulty by adding a medicine ball or crossing over to one side to work your obliques, as well. Mix it up even further by jettisoning the medicine ball after you reach muscle failure to extend the set as you would a dropset.
Really, the goal is to just kill your abs. No matter how tired you are, you just gotta get through it.
Stability-Ball Transfer Crunch
In the previous two exercises, you hit the lower and upper abs separately; during this one, you'll hit both in the same movement. One important tip here: Don't allow your heels and the exercise ball to touch the ground during the entire set—you want to keep your abs under tension the entire time.
Reach as high as you can to take or pass the ball. Getting your shoulder blades off the ground is the name of the game for upper-ab development.
Ab Roll-out
To put my personal twist on this exercise, I like to count to four on the descent rather than just speeding through reps. That usually puts my hands and the ab wheel fairly far out in front of me—a far greater challenge than a short range of motion.
Ab Roll-out
Only after full extension do I engage my abdominals to bring the ab wheel back toward me. I know this is going to tire you out fairly quickly, especially if you've never done roll-outs this way before, so try other rep speeds to work the muscle in slightly different ways.
Be sure to tuck your chin, but keep it off your chest. Also, remember to round your back, rather than arching it, to better engage your abdominals.
Try out this ab routine and let me know what you think in the comments section below!