Michelle Beaumont: Hi! I'm Michelle Beaumont with michellefitness.com and body mind fitness solutions. I'm here today at Fitness first in Rockville, Maryland with Sarah, a member. We're going to demonstrate for you today, how to get six pack abs on the mat. Sarah, we're going to began by keeping your hands behind your head, your heels are touching the ground, and toes are up. Contract you abs tightly, try not to lift from your neck too much and keep space between you're chin and chest. And began your half sit-up, but now began to add a little deeper benefit into the transverse muscles by alternating the knee left. So, gently lift your right knee towards your arms, they come up together.
And then, you'll lower your legs and lift your legs. So the legs come down and you're alternating, right here. So, just alternate, both feet on the floor. Good. Alternating lifts. Excellent, feel that?
Sarah: Oh, of course.
Michelle Beaumont: Alright, now we're going into an exercise calls a lift and pulse. The way that this works is you're going to keep. You can start. You're going to keep your back flat, your abs in and you're going to lift up your thighs grabbing the back of your thighs, pull your weight up slightly, stay there, and then you'll just hold your arms out and pulse, little pulses. Good. You're feeling that deeply into the transverse muscles. Excellent, now go ahead and relax. Take this medicine ball now you're your head, keep your heels down, toes up, and you're going to roll from the abdominals; don't use the arms or the legs, all the way up to touch your toes. Inhale and touch, curling like a ball and exhale back down.
Now, the tendency is to keep the head up, I want to curl in more, so that you excavate those abdominals in going deeper. Great and you would repeat a few repetitions of these according your level. This is too hard for you with the ball; you can attempt it without the ball or lock your feet underneath something. Alright. Great, you can pass me the ball.
The next exercise, you're going to take this weight and place it right at the side of your chest, your hand is behind your head, and you're going to give me a side crunch, I want you to aim for you knee, so turn good. A little less elbow working from the obliques, squeeze down from here to lift that. The elbow is there -- the elusion that we're twisting from that elbow, but really we're crunching from the oblique and don't move your head, just aim here, eyes are here on the knee. Good. That's great. Nice adjustment. You would want to do both sides as well.
The next exercise, I'm going to have you grab the ball between your thighs, so your toes comes straight up touch the ball between your ankles and reach your arms up over your head. It's an alternating crunch with the ball. So, grab the ball bring it over your head, there you go, and up and transfer the ball back and forth. Great. Excellent and that's it. Okay, you can let that ball go. You can also place your legs right on top of the ball and you can do a full circle abdominal exercise, don't lift all the way out, but lift half way up and just circle through all of those little muscles good, and that can finish off your abdominal routine on the mat. And you would want do the other direction, of course.
The next series that we're going get into are the planks. So, I'm going to remove the ball and Sarah, I'm going to have you turn over on to your belly and place your forearms down. So, this is a low plank, you want to make a fist, press your forearms down, locking your core and lift up, grip your toes. If you're beginner, you might stay like Sarah just was with the knees down, if not come all the way up on the toes holding your abs tight and make you're not slouching here, keep your neck in neutral spine, so this is in alignment and you would just hold this plank or you can do little lift. Shift your buttocks towards the air, up and down several times. Good. You can also take your right arm and extend it or your left arm, try to balance and play with a different distribution of weight. Separate your feet a little more in the back, so that you can lift your leg up and down also.
Take your right leg out and your left leg out. Good. Or you can do right arm, left leg, if that's not too advanced and switch. Good. Excellent, drop your knees, and relax. Come up on all force, place your palms down, knees underneath your hips and reach your right arm and left leg and give me tuck. So, you're reaching and crunching into those abdominals. Again, working from your centre and addressing both sides of your bodies; that's great.
Finally, we're going to into what's called a high plank. So, let's get into full preparation for a high plank, toes are down, hands are down. Good. Drop your buttocks, hold it here and I want you to rotate to your side, go ahead rotate on to your side in a side plank and bring your arm up, and then reach it through your body. So, you're actually going to take your arms, there you go and reach it through. Excellent, and hold it up; hold it to the side now. Now, drop the hip up and down several times and that's great. You can drop yourself all the way down Sarah, and then back on to your back.
In the end of your abdominal routine, you want to make sure that you hug your knees into your chest to release your lower back. So, go ahead and lay down flat on your back and just hug the knees in, drop your head and massage the lower back gently. And that completes your six pack ab routine on the mat.
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