I Challenge you Push Up People to a Duel!
 

LOL

First, I must say I totally respect the Push Up Challenge, so much so, you got me going on a challenge of my own to y'all, one I bet even even you Push Up Masters will find difficult. hehehehheee

Abdominal Lifts are a yoga exercise that involve tucking your tummy up into your chest cavity, as high as it will go, and then immediately dropping your tummy out, up and down, in a flopping motion. You do as many as you can until you need to take a breath. That's one round.

Tip: You have to do it with all the air out of your lungs so your belly has somewhere to go when you tuck it up.

It's rigourous and intense when you don't cheat! (Who? Us?)

Here are some detailed instructions:
http://www.audioyoga.com/AbdominalLifts1.htm

Do a round, then wait while everything completely relaxes, then do another round, relax completely, then do another round.

If you're doing them full out, the last round will feel a little weak, cause you're tapped out!

You get incredible abdominal development out of this! Unlike any other exercise I know!

The race goes to whoever can do the most, in total, over the three rounds.

Beginners can usually do 3 - 6 per round, so that's a total of 9 - 18.

I can do 95 a round for a three round total of 285. I'll race you to 300!

Holy hell, yeah that is hard..

I lost count, but it was a very pathetic number.. I'll have to practice more.

Wow... I was totally being judgmental here and was like wtf, that isn't exercise.

Then I actually tried it a few times. At 40 I wanted to stop, at 50 I was shaking.

This rocks. :)

Gotta try this out and get back to ya on it...

hmm. interesting! i'll try it when i'm not too tired. /more time.

Well, I've been practicing, and I'm getting better, but I'm still not close enough to win any duels :p

LOL

You people are great! I love the way you just go for a challenge and get totally into it!

OK -you have a sporting chance. I've had a cold recently and it's knocked me back to 40 or 50 ab lifts per round....

How's it going with you?

Wow. Okay, I had to try a few times before I got it right. Then I got a successful round of 35 in, another painful round of 35 (my lower ab area started to cramp up a bit around 17), and then finished with an even more painful (I really wanted to breathe!) 35. So, uhh.... I guess I accept the challenge. Consider me at the starting blocks with a total of 105. :thumbsup:

My muscles are just a little bit sore now that I've finished all three rounds. My greater challenge - at least for now - seems to be the not breathing part. For somebody who played the trumpet for so long, I'm not very good at holding my breath. Or maybe I'm just not good at doing it on empty. *shrug* Ah well, something to work on. :)

Great challenge, Brilliant Idiot! Does this mean you'll be on board when I get around to creating the Sit-Up Challenge? Eh? Eh??

What?? You be judgmental? LOL! :icare:

How are those hovers going?

This is one of the exercises I have to do to build up my core strength after ruining my lower back. Should get on that, actually...

By the way, Brilliant Idiot, is this for the upper abs or lower abs, or a combo? I'm gonna give it a try when I get home, I don't think I can do justice to it for the first time at work.

I never was a "push-up person", so I'll have to be on the abs tucking side, lol!

That yoga site is very interesting, I look forward to looking through it more.

Hi, Folks. Glad to see you're giving this a solid try - because it's really the best single exercise I know. It gets your metabolism up, improves your circulation, rids your body of catecholamines, (which, when they build up, cause heart attacks), builds core strength, increases your awareness of the insides of your body, warms you up on a cold day and, while you're doing them, takes your mind off all your problems! Not to mention, it's a great conversation starter and party trick! :p

35, 40, 50! Those numbers are incredible for people who've never done them before. So... I'm going to confess... the push ups must also be doing something for you. :D

If you feel you can do more of the ab lifts, but find you're stopping for lack of air, you can try this week's exercise on the Yoga Snacks page: 1:2 breathing. It'll start you pacing your breathing, so each breath lasts longer. There's also lots you can do to build up the quality of your breathing over all, so if you want tips on that, please don't hesitate to email me or pm me. ( corinne@audioyoga.com )

And, snowyowl, these are great as part of an overall plan to improve your lower back. I have some other exercises, (easier than this one! LOL ) on my website if you want some help with that - or just email me and I'll do what I can to help you out.

Sultana, o answer your question, these will work the entire abdominal region if you do them deeply and they develop diaphram strength, too. Nice to see there are other people huddled in this non-push up corner with me. LOL To tell the truth, as a mother in a busy household, the push ups are just impossible! I try to do push ups, but feel somewhat impeded by the toys and critters poking at my belly and kids climbing up my body thinking it's a play ramp.

Supple Cow - great user ID! :lol: ROTFL OK OK I'll do a sit up challenge whe n you launch it. Haven't done the official version of those in ages. That would be fun - eh? (Do I detect a fellow Canuck?)

I'll give it a try and get back to you. Looks easy............. I know, I know, all ab work looks easy. Never heard of this one- will try it. I don't know squat about yoga. I don't think I'll be of much use for dueling. (But you never know -:) Need to poke around the yoga link more.
Not sayin it is easy- only looks that way. Nothing looks easier than crunches. If these are worse I'm less comp than I thought.

First try
Round 1 - 20
Round 2 - 25
Round 3 - 28

Total = 73

Yeeehaaaa!

And hey, newtx, let me know how it goes.

If you do these every day for a couple of weeks, you'll notice a definite difference. After 4 - 6 weeks you'll start being able to do things you couldn't do before. :thumbsup:

I'm a bit overweight, how are these compared to situps for excercise? A replacement?

i don't know if i'm doing these properly.

Basically, exhale, then suck your stomach into your chest repeatedly?

i never 'feel' the muscles being used for this andi try and try constantly.

A great replacement, especially since they're easier on your lower back. Harder to enjoy the effort when there's extra weight on board, but still do-able and an even better work out when there's more weight to move.

What's your general fitness level at the moment?

probably average, i started a gym a fewmonths ago and am improviing, but not great by any means.

My first thought was that maybe you were already in good shape in your abs, but, really, any yoga exercise will work you to your limit and you should notice it, no matter what your level of fitness.

It's possible you're not doing them deeply enough.

Or, if you do them with food in your stomach, you're not going to get the same depth of contraction as you would if your stomach were empty. So, if you're not doing this already, try it on an empty stomach, like first thing in the morning. My yoga students and I havce found that you can almost double the number and greatly increase the intensity of them that way.

Another way to practice getting them deeper, so that you'll feel it, is with the Mega Lift. This is one big abdominal lift which you hold while you dont' breathe. As long as you're holding it, you try to tuck your abs higher and higher into your chest cavity. Keep doing that until you need air. Then drop, gasp and wait until everything has relaxed before doing it again.

I describe the mega lift in detail here on my website:

www.audioyoga.com/AbdominalLifts2.htm

These will increase the strength of the regular ab lifts and build your abs even more quickly.



PS: I promised the people on my Yoga Snacks thread I wasn't telling you folks the secret of the empty stomach. :D (They needed an edge somehow!) Now I'm sure they're going to wrap me in a pretzel position and put a stamp on my butt and squish me into a mail box.

wow I'm in really bad shape (I weigh in at around 3 bills) but I thought I'd get more than 6 a round