Ab Workouts - Core Gives You More!

An open letter to every man and woman in America who wants to have better sex, golf swing, tennis game, lift stronger, be able to keep up with the kids without ending up in pain and look like they lost 5 lbs. overnight.

From this moment on, forget about everything you were ever told about how to achieve all those things – whether someone told you that you needed pills, better golf clubs, a lighter racquet, daily personal training, you're not young anymore, so don't play with the kids that way – because almost overnight you can learn to improve all the things you love doing and improve your overall life by focusing your fitness efforts in one place.

In 2001, I had back surgery at the age of 28 after a couple decades of sports, injuries and wear and tear. I thought the surgery was going to severely limit the activities I enjoyed at a pretty young age.

But, never one to sit in doubt, I began the road to mending. When I was able to, I started some pretty lame physical therapy that was so old-school it made me question how up-to-date the profession was. The lack of quality care, however, was the catalyst for me to begin learning about the body and fitness and led me to becoming a certified national trainer.

Over the course of my now 13-year career in fitness, I've become a student of what is needed to get our bodies back to full function and living life hard, charging forward without injuries holding us back so that we can live a life of high performance.

In today's media-sham world, as I like to call it, you are promised cures from every angle on how to improve your sex, your sports, your daily life. And most of it comes with a three-easy-payments plan, in a bottle or in a "secret report."

But, what if I were to tell you that you can improve all those things you want by focusing on just one area of your body? Would you do it?

The center of your entire body is your core. You hear that word like it's some mystical place inside your body that few can find and even fewer have gotten in touch with. Well, let's demystify what the core is to us mere mortals.

The core is where 60 percent of the overall strength in your body comes from! It dominates how you move in every direction from getting up and down, turning around, reaching for stuff and those funky things you sometimes do with your body (wink, wink!).

Now, that's way more interesting than what most trainers and physical therapists try to tell you – the core is made up of the area around your trunk and pelvis; the abdominals, back and gluteus maximus, medius, minimus, erector spinae and multifidus, rectus abdominals, internal and external obliques, transverse abdominals. Boring! No one cares.

You want to know how it helps you keep the romance in the bedroom, how it can help you drive the golf ball 20 more yards, and how it can help you run circles around your kids so they sleep through the night and you get a chance to enjoy that strong back after the lights go down.

As a trainer I used to try and WOW my clients with how I knew the anatomy and all the fancy words. Their eyes would glaze over and none of it stuck. Then I got older and wiser and realized people just want to know how it benefits them, how it applies to life and how to keep it simple. People want to stand up tall, feel strong, have confidence that their body can last and keep coming back.

So, here's my Core Gives You More, an at-home abs workout routine for a strong, sexy, golf-driving, tennis-swinging, kids-playing, abs-sucking core circuit that will have you feeling amazing.

The good news: it doesn't take specialized equipment or fancy exercises to strengthen the core.

Ab Workouts

Starting with (1 set) of 3-4 exercises a day will improve your core.

• Choose 3-4 different exercises from the list below. Mix it up every day.
• Use time or repetitions: 30 seconds – 1 min or 10-15 repetitions
• Start at 1 set of each exercise and increase to 3 sets
• Try and perform exercises 2 times a week and increase to 6 times a week

Exercises for the Core:

• Hover Plank (on floor or ball)
• Ball Crunch (regular or with a twist)
• Ball Back Extensions (on floor or ball)
• Ball Oblique Crunch (oblique plank)
• Sidewinders (with or without the ball)
• Superman (lying on floor or on ball)
• Bird Dogs
• Band Trunk Rotations
• Ball Bridge

Keep doing this routine for the rest of your life, and you will be feeling young, vital and strong until your final moments! Quality of life, baby! It's what it's all about.