Balancing platform
The simplest exercise machine: an unstable board or a rubber hemisphere. With them, you can do the so-called core-training, which tightens the deep abdominal muscles, inaccessible to conventional exercises. No prior mastery of the technique is required: these stabilizing muscles, willy-nilly, are included in the work when it is required to maintain balance on an unstable surface. Bring your workouts onto this platform to work your abs on your shoulders, legs, or arms. And if you don’t have home workouts, start watching TV, brushing your teeth and cooking while standing on such a platform.
bonus: ideal workout for the buttocks and lower back.
Hula-hup
The method has been known for a long time, but it works. Under two conditions: first, you need to twist the hoop as quickly as possible – at the end of a normal 15-minute workout with two three-minute breaks, you should sweat a little. Or maybe not slightly – it depends on what speed you take. Secondly, both the body and the hips should remain practically motionless: the smaller the amplitude along which they “walk”, the more effective the training.
bonus: intense load on the buttocks and thighs.
Twisting
The good thing about a basic abdominal exercise is that it can be varied indefinitely. The most effective version is one in which the muscles do not relax for a second. Lie on the floor, slightly raise your straight legs (about five centimeters, no more) and the upper part of the body (make sure not to strain your neck). This will be the starting position. As you inhale, raise your legs and body, forming the Latin letter V. As you exhale, return to the starting position for 5 seconds and repeat the exercise.
bonus: training the front of the thighs.
Monolasta
These are two flippers combined into one: it turns the swimmer into either a dolphin or a mermaid. And if during “normal” swimming the press does not work as intensively as the muscles of the back, buttocks and thighs, then here it receives the full load. Monofin swimming training courses are offered in pools, fitness clubs and freedivers.
bonus: increased calorie burn and good back workout.
Pilates
In Pilates, the abdomen is considered the center of strength of the human body, and no exercise is complete without the work of the press. The starting position for exercise is that the abdominal muscles are tense, as if they are striving for the spine, the knees are slightly bent, the buttocks are tucked up. Pilates coaches say that after several months of training, the belly and “sides” disappear even in those who have considered themselves “wide in bone” all their lives. Because Pilates includes every single abdominal muscle in the work, including the small ones and those located under the rectus abdominis muscle.
And there is an exercise in Pilates that targets and comprehensively works with the waist, one of the key exercises for this entire system. Lie on your back so that your lower back is firmly pressed to the floor throughout the exercise, and your stomach is tense. Bend your knees at right angles, press your feet against the mat. Inhale and as you exhale, lift your upper body, making sure that your back remains straight. Once you have counted to five, raise your hands and quickly place them on the mat with your palms. Repeat as many times as you can – ideally doing this exercise 100 times.
bonus: Pilates can be practiced everywhere – at home, in a fitness club, in a hotel, in the country.