A really good abdominal workout

As I vaguely mentioned in Monday's recipe post, I've been trying to improve my running stamina.  This is part of a greater effort to improve my overall health, strength, and fitness.  I've developed a number of really good habits over the past 10 months, and I've managed to see a fair bit of encouraging progress over that time.

That said,  my routine was until recently lacking in exercise that would strengthen or tone my abs.  I'd experimented with a number of exercise regimens designed for the purpose but found that many of them, for some reason or other, presented with pretty awful back pain after the fact.  Additionally, my core is so out of shape that performing most regular abdominal exercises (like sit-ups) is discouragingly difficult and painful.

When presented with this information, my youngest brother Kevin suggested a particular regimen referred to as 7 minute abs, which he would do every morning during track season.  As Kevin is by far and long the single healthiest and fittest member of my family, I took his suggestion seriously.

The 7 minute abs routine requires you to do two rounds of 7 exercises for 30 seconds each but at your own pace.  YouTube provides us with a useful instructive video on the subject.  I like this video a lot because it provides instruction, proper timing, gives you variations on the moves to make them either easier or more difficult, and gives you a visual representation of each group on abdominal muscles as you work them.



Now, because my abdominals are so thoroughly out of shape, I have started out just doing the first cycle of exercises (3.5 minute abs) rather than strain something and seriously hurt myself.

My first go at the routine was pleasantly successful.  I was pleased to find that all seven exercises were quite simple to execute, and allowed me to actively feel which muscle groups were being used for each move.  What's more, by that evening my abs were actively sore; not the kind of sore that denotes strain, but the kind that lets you know those muscles actually did good work that day.  Because of the soreness, and because I didn't want to overdo things right off the bat, I gave my abs a day or two of rest after that initial run.  Since then, I've been doing them almost every day with little or no soreness.  I've also been quite happy to find that even after a week and a half of doing this regularly, I've had no back pain.

Beginning next week, I will likely start pushing myself to do the full 7 minute routine.  Hopefully I will be well on my way to doing the full set every morning before I head off to CA for camp.