Many people believe that to develop abs, you have to go to the gym and use equipment. I used to have this misconception too, and I even bought an incline sit-up bench to use, but I left it there to hang my clothes after only a short time.

Based on my years of experience training abdominal muscles, bodyweight exercises without equipment are the most effective.

There are many different variations of abdominal exercises, and different postures can train different muscle groups.

This picture shows the structure of the abdominal muscles. Basically, you can see that there is a tissue called the linea alba that divides the abdominal muscles into 8 pieces. The shape of everyone's abdominal muscles is different. Some people's are more square, some are more slanted, and some people may only look like they have 4 pieces because of the linea alba. Everyone is different.

What we actually see as abdominal muscles are just the surface abdominal muscles. The deeper muscles are actually the transverse abdominis. Abdominal muscle training can help stabilize the core and is a great way to exercise at home.

Today I'm going to introduce how to do abdominal exercises at home using the concept of TABATA.

Why do we need to do interval training, and what are the benefits of interval training?

We used to know that weight loss is achieved through brisk walking or jogging, which is also the most suitable exercise for beginners. If you are overweight or have never exercised before, jogging, an aerobic exercise, can usually help burn fat and thus achieve weight loss.

However, aerobic exercise has a drawback: it cannot build muscle. If you do aerobic exercise for too long, you may burn muscle along with fat. But muscle is very important. Muscle burns calories 10 times more efficiently than fat, which can help us increase our basal metabolic rate, make our body look better, and make it less likely to regain weight.

However, modern people are quite busy. Some don't have time to go to the gym, while others don't even have time to exercise. Tabata interval training uses your own body weight and 20 seconds of all-out effort to achieve the effects of high-intensity aerobic and strength training. It can help your heart rate reach over 90% in just 4 minutes.

Simultaneous aerobic and strength training produces an afterburn effect, helping to burn calories, reduce fat, and retain or increase muscle. This concept of combining aerobic and strength training achieves results that cannot be achieved with regular aerobic exercise.

Tabata is very intense, requiring you to exert all your strength for 20 seconds of exercise, which many people cannot do. Due to the reduced intensity, many people have turned Tabata into HIIT.

If your physical fitness level is not high enough, it is recommended to start with HIIT training, as it is easier to achieve good training results. HIIT is similar to Tabata in general, but the intensity is relatively lower. Follow the WeChat account "hiydjs" and reply "hiit" to get the most scientific and reasonable HIIT training video tutorial plan.

The above provides a general introduction to the concept of Tabata exercises. Next, we will use this concept to do abdominal exercises. I have designed a total of 4 exercises. Each exercise should be performed for 20 seconds, followed by a 10-second rest. Repeat this exercise twice to complete one set, which takes exactly 4 minutes.

These four actions are:

1. Touching your ankle with your hand is an exercise to train your obliques and develop your V-line.

Several key points for touching your ankle with your hand

1. Lie flat on the ground with your knees bent.

2. Use your right hand to touch your ankle, keeping your side muscles engaged.

3. The movement should be horizontal to the right, with the upper back slightly raised as if doing a crunch.

4. Return to the starting position, then repeat the same steps in the opposite direction, touching your ankle with your left hand and then returning.

2. Side crunch with leg raise

This exercise is also a variation of abdominal exercises, but it's easier to do it with one leg, and the slight side rotation of the body can train the lower abs and the V-line area of ​​the obliques.

III. V-Sit

This is a great exercise for training the entire abdominal muscle group. The key to this exercise is that after your feet go down, don't touch the ground directly to rest. Instead, keep your feet suspended in the air and horizontally supported by the ground.

Key points of the V-stand:

1. Lie flat on your back with your arms extended straight behind you and your feet about 3 cm off the ground.

2. During the movement, simultaneously bring both hands and feet horizontally towards the hands, forming a V-shape with the body.

3. As you move upwards, exhale, keep your abdominal muscles engaged, and keep your arms and legs straight.

4. Slowly return to the starting position, keeping your arm and legs straight throughout the movement, with both hands and feet lifted horizontally off the ground.

IV. Horizontal Traverse

The fourth exercise is to lift your body up and do a leg-kicking motion, which can train the abdominal muscle endurance.

Several key points of horizontal kick

1. Lie flat on the ground with your arms crossed over your chest.

2. During the movement, slightly raise your upper body as if doing a crunch, and straighten your legs off the ground.

3. Maintain this position throughout the entire movement; you can cross your legs up and down or horizontally to the left and right.

4. Remember to keep your abdominal muscles engaged while doing this exercise.

These four exercises are designed to work the entire abdominal muscle group. Each session lasts 4 minutes, and doing 3 sets a day is sufficient.

There are a few things everyone should pay attention to before doing this:

1. Never do it directly on the floor. You must put something underneath you, preferably a thick yoga mat or a thick tuck. Doing it directly on the floor without a mat will injure your spine. Never do it without a mat.

2. If you feel pain in your spine while doing this, it means your posture is incorrect, so stop immediately.

3. To have firm abs, in addition to ab training, the most important thing is to control your diet. You will only get good results if you eat right. Otherwise, no matter how much ab exercise you do, your abs will be covered by a layer of fat and you still won't be able to see them.