Any ideas of good Oblique exercises that I could incorporate into my abs routine?

Hi Castell

My favourite for obliques is lying on a Swiss Ball, holding a medicine ball with arms straight over your head, then do a crunch holding the ball over your left shoulder and crunching towards your right knee. You can alternate one side then the other or you can do one side for several reps and then the other.

Do a pyramid set starting light for about 30 to 50 reps and then20 to 30 for the second set and then 10 to 20 for the third. Make sure after you warm up that you try to do a fast, powerful contraction on the way forward and then a slower, more controlled descent for the negative part of the rep.

Thanks for the reply Mark! Any chance you could post a link to this exercise? I find it easier to follow if there's a video in hand.

Hi Castell,

My favourite exercise is a Swiss ball cross body wood chop:



Not the best video but the only one I could find demonstrating the exercise. I perform 4 sets of 15 reps with zero rest between each side.
Cheers

Thanks Olly. Could you please comment on my abs routine;

3 supersets - 15-20 reps

Swiss ball crunches
Reverse crunches
Adding the new oblique exercise you mentioned
Hanging leg raises.

Cheers bro

Looks good mate, I would start with the hanging leg raises, move onto SB crunch, then reverse and finish with the oblique movement.

Hey Guys,

I love all these recomendations.

Olly, I think that the muscle that you want to hit that doesn´t get much bang for it´s buck mainly due to lack of rotation in most peoples workout, and could be doing withstimulated first.

Loving your cable exercise, what do you think about adding some multi planar lunges on the end of that to get more rotation.

But to start with......
What about taking the cable loosely with out the swiss ball and go through diagonal wood chops at varied heights with no lunges just upper body movements that look like oblique crunches and maybe some squats, and start to add the lunges as the obliques start to work harder stimulating the entire oblique system with the rectus abdominals and even the whole core, spinal erectors and glutes.

Then when you hit the sagittal plane - straight movement exercises like hanging leg raises or indeed any other abs exercise whether it be prone or lying down your obliques will get what your after which is more bang for their buck and waken them up a little, lol.

When I have learnt about the body I have learnt that it´s always beneficial to get the muscle to lengthen to its max capacity that feels comfortable as well as to shorten. There are different ways to do this both with and against the motion but that´s a lot more to think about so i will leave that there for now.

My inspiration comes from FASTER http://www.train4function.com/home.php.

Hope this helps.

Scott Hamilton

Specialities
Functional Perfomance
Functional Therapy
Functional and Kinetic Tissue Rehabilitation with Tom Hyde (www.faktr.com)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scotts-FUNctional-Page/201132766590971

Hey Guys,

I love all these recomendations.

Loving your cable exercise Olly, what do you think about adding some multi planar lunges on the end of that to get more rotation.

@Olly - I think that the muscle that you want to hit that doesn´t get much bang for it´s buck mainly due to lack of rotation in most peoples workout, and could be doing withstimulated first.

To start with......
What about taking the cable loosely with out the swiss ball and go through diagonal wood chops at varied heights with no lunges just upper body movements that look like oblique crunches and maybe some squats, and start to add the lunges as the obliques start to work harder stimulating the entire oblique system with the rectus abdominals and even the whole core, spinal erectors and glutes.

Then when you hit the sagittal plane - straight movement exercises like hanging leg raises or indeed any other abs exercise whether it be prone or lying down your obliques will get what your after which is more bang for their buck and waken them up a little, lol.

When I have learnt about the body I have learnt that it´s always beneficial to get the muscle to lengthen to its max capacity that feels comfortable as well as to shorten. There are different ways to do this both with and against the motion but that´s a lot more to think about so i will leave that there for now.

My inspiration comes from FASTER http://www.train4function.com/home.php.

Hope this helps.

Scott Hamilton

Specialities
Functional Perfomance
Functional Therapy
Functional and Kinetic Tissue Rehabilitation with Tom Hyde (www.faktr.com)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scotts-FUNctional-Page/201132766590971