Abdominal Exercises

Contrary to what you might be thinking, this section, and these exercises are not for the faint of heart! Abdominal exercises are often associated with people trying to loose weight or to get in shape in general. However, they are a far bigger factor in the performance of an athlete, aiming to maximize his or her potential, then in losing a few pounds.

It doesn’t matter how strong you are in terms of squats, or how explosive your quads are, if you don’t have the torso to keep up the weight, then you will not be able to utilze all that potential. You need a strong framework. This is by far the most overlooked area in all of weightlifting, and probably one of the most improtant ones. It takes a little more time than the others to develop fully, but makes you rock solid, hard, fast, agile, and yes, allows you to jump higher too! It is essential!

You most certainly have heard of the sit up. That’s good. But if you want to have strong muscles that will carry an athletic torso, you need to train a little harder.

1. Seated crunches in machine. This is a great exercise that you can do in many variations. Depending on the amount of weight you put on, you can vary the reps to really ”burn” your muscles. Here you are going for strength. You want to adjust the amount of weight so you can do a maximum of ten crunches before you must take a break. You should get an almost acute sensation in your stomach. Do thre or four sets of these.
2. Lying on the floor, with your head near a wall or at best two handles to hold on to (arms reaching behind/over your head), extend your legs and raise them vertically. Then lower them and raise them in repetitions of ten. As you get stronger you can either attach weights with a belt around your feet. Or you can use a weight-belt, one that olympic lifters use, wrap it around both your feet so they are locked in. Then lock the belt to the cablecross machine or some other that mightbe available. Begin with a low amount of weights and gradually increase them.
3. The third exercise is almost the inverse of the first. Here you place a bench across the seated row machine. Take a rope handle and attach it to the machine. Then turn around, so you face the other direction and sit down on the bench. If it is hard, have someone help you reach the handles. They should be coming over your shoulders, behind your neck, so that you are now pulling forward. Make sure you have somewhere to lock in your feet. If there is nothing, use the bigger weights that you place on top of your feet. This should allow for some good cruches.
4. Inclined bench sit-ups. Lock in your feet on the top of an inclined bench and do regular sit-ups. When you are getting stronger you may add some weights that you hold to your chest.
5. The killer bench! This is the same as the one above, only here the bench is inclined to 90 degrees. It’s vertical. When you can do 20 sit-ups in this exercise, with a ten kg weight to your chest, you can consider yourself to be strong!
6. Hanging leg-shifts. Hold on to a chins bar so you are hanging freely. Raise your legs so they are above horizontal, and start swinging them side to side at the same time as you twist your body. The swings shouldnät be large, but enough to create a good burning sensation in your abdominals.
   

These were just a few of the exercises that could get you moving to great results in terms of strength, quickness and power. There is a lot more, and if you are aiming to increase vertical jump ability to the max, then have a look at some of the jump programs featured on this site. They take you step by step, from scratch to success!