We’ve almost made it to another weekend, and I am continually amazed at how fast time is flying. Christmas is really right around the corner! Is everyone done with Christmas shopping? I have most of mine done. All that’s left is a few gift cards and one or two stocking stuffers to pick up. Since we spend Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning at my mom’s house, my sister and I have taken care of my mom’s stocking for as long as I can remember. Of course, I’m also in charge of John’s stocking. He gets off easy-my mom still does mine! Although considering he gave me the best stocking stuffer gift ever a few years ago, I guess he’s off the hook 
.
Going into this holiday season, I realize that fitness can sometimes take a backseat. With the absence of a set routine, I tend to just rely on the same old cardio day in and day out. One of my December goals is to work on strength training. I especially want to focus on my abs and waist. I’ve always been blessed with pretty good legs. My problem is, and as always been, my midsection. It’s definitely the area where I tend to put on weight. In addition to this being uncomfortable, it’s a very unhealthy place to have unwanted fat! To be clear, my goal is to be healthy and strong. I don’t want anyone to interrupt this as some quest from body perfection (<–does anyone even know what that is) A strong core is so beneficial is so many areas. It is especially essential to me as a backpacker. I am definitely a “plan” person, so I decided to do a little research and put together a few ab and waist exercises to supplement my regular workout routine. I wanted to share a few of those exercises here today!
Bicycle Crunches
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Side Plank With Hip Lift
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Russian Twists
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Lunge with Rotation
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Reverse Crunch
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Elbow Plank
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Those are a few of the ab exercises I’m going to start going through a few times a week. This is a perfect way to implement some more strength training into my routine, and I’m excited to feel the burn!
Do you have any go to ab exercises?
My abs are one of my favorite muscles to work on! I love planks and any modified pushup, works the arms and the abs! If you’re interested, I did a 30 day ab challenge back in July that was pretty great, I could email you a link if you want! Great exercises, and it’s different everyday so you don’t get bored
Please do! I love doing challenges because they give me something to work towards. I especially love doing them on things that I don’t know as much about i.e. abs!
Bicycle crunches are so hard, but they are such a great workout:)
You are so right! I just got through doing a ton of them!
those are great ones! I am all about the plank, hard but a good workout.
It really is! I can’t believe I only discovered the plank about a year ago!
Ah, planks are so tough! I’m sort of doing the #PlankADay challenge on Twitter … but I do my planks every three days or so.
Planks aren’t awful for me, but that has to do with the fact that I only ever hold them for about a minute!
My #PlankADay max is one minute–and I had to work for every last second!
Some great new ideas here, Natalie! Love to mix it up with abs; it’s the only thing that will make me sore.
Me too! It’s always one of those delightfully sore feelings!
Those are some great exercises…thanks for the pics/reminders. I just asked someone what a Russian Twist is…now I know.
I am going to do better with strength training too…it’s like the red headed step child that doesn’t get much attention. 
Love ab work! It’s one of my favorite things to work out! I don’t think I devote enough time to it, but I still love it!
Every time I do it, I remember that I really enjoy it. I don’t know why I don’t make it a priority!
I need to work my abs more. I feel like the only ab workouts I’ve been doing recently have been different types of cardio that engage my core – other than that, I haven’t been focusing on my tummy. Gotta get back on it!
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I found a great ab workout on Pinterest. I’m going to blog about it next week!
Have you ever tried doing bicycle crunches the opposite way? So instead of putting elbow across to knee pulled in, put elbow across to leg out. So your knee that is in is also the shoulder that is highest, leg out on the side that the shoulder is down. If you haven’t tried it before, give it a shot and let me know what you think.
I will have to try it. That sounds hard!