Abdominal exercises are not only great for building ripped abs, but it is also important to have a strong core to stabilize your body and prevent back pain. If you are looking into adding new fun variations to your abdominal exercise routine, try the following off-the-floor exercises.
1. Hanging Leg Raise
Using a pull-up bar to do abdominal exercises have great benefits, such as increasing your grip strength, stretching your shoulders and engaging your back muscles. For this exercise, hang onto the pull-up bar and keep your upper body still as you pull your knees to your chest. Your thighs should move at least 90 degrees from the starting position.
2. Hanging Pike
The hanging pike calls for more body coordination and hip flexibility than the previously mentioned leg raise workout. As you lean back slightly, touch the pull up bar with your feet as shown in the image. Your legs should be fully extended and adjacent to each other throughout this motion.
3. Hanging Bicycle Crunch
Another effective core strengthening exercise is the hanging bicycle crunch. As you hang on the pull-up bars, move your legs as if you are riding a bike. You could complete this exercise with your body position situated vertically. However, a greater challenge would be to lean back and position yourself parallel to the ground like the picture above. This change in position causes you to utilize more back muscles to stabilize yourself.
4. Hanging L-Sit
The hanging l-sit is a static exercise that requires you to contract your abdominal muscles and hold the position illustrated in the image. You can hold onto the pull up bar with a narrow grip or have you hands placed shoulder width apart. The change in grip position will target your back muscles differently.
5. Pommel Horse L-Sit
A common gymnastic pommel horse pose is this l-sit position. If a pommel horse is not available to you, perform this exercise with parallel bars. Both l-sit exercises are great at targeting the abdominal muscles, but this one engages your triceps and shoulders instead of your back and bicep muscles.
6. Pommel Horse Split
Doing the split on the pommel horse requires you to open up your hip flexors and stimulate stabilizers muscles in your lower body as you maintain this difficult position. This split position demands more body coordination and balance than the l-sit. It is recommended that you stretch your groin and hip flexors before attempting this exercise.
7. Parallel Bar Plank
This plank exercise is an upgrade in difficulty compared to the plank performed on the ground. With your weight and balance solely supported by your arms, holding this plank position demands a ridiculous amount of strength and body control.
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