KB Top 5 Video Series: The Ab Exercises – Kicking Crunches To the Curb

Getting my "write" on with a nice view from the hotel balcony.

Earlier this weekend, the six of us – my 4 kids, my wife (who’s due with #5 very soon) and myself – went up north to the Muskoka region of Ontario and stayed at a beautiful hotel with the rest of our extended family for the long weekend.

It was literally breathtaking up there and it was nice to get away from the city, disconnect, enjoy the fresh air – the air really was different – and admire the colors of the changing leaves.  With baby #5 due within a couple of weeks, this was our last hurrah as “The Lopez Family 6″ and our last extended weekend of normalcy before we make the adjustment to being a family of 7 (!!!!).

We just wrapped up Thanksgiving here in Canada…and I mean that literally because I just finished wrapping the last piece of leftover turkey with some aluminum foil.  In addition to the turkey, I had the luxury of finding space in our fridge for the candied yams, stuffing, lots of steamed asparagus (nobody seems to eat them except me) and some leftover pumpkin pie (note to self: go to the grocery store to pick-up more whip cream to finish that sucker off).

Just like “American” Thanksgiving – that’s what us Canadians call it – there’s always an overabundance of food and dessert available to us.  Sometimes, it’s a matter of us recognizing when we’ve had enough, whether we’re full or not, and to call it quits.  Whether you call it will power or just knowing “thyself”, this is a key component to getting those 6-pack-abs that we’re all after.

One of the biggest mistakes is doing too much of NOTHING in the gym.

Do we need to jog on the treadmill everyday for 30 minutes?

Do we need to do front raises, lateral raises and reverse flies to “hit” every head of our shoulder muscles?

Do we need to spend an hour training one body part?

No. We need to focus on using our time doing things of HIGH IMPACT that will get us the most results in the least amount of time.  We need to be doing the exercises that will give us the most bang for our buck.

When it comes to ab training, crunches and sit-ups need to take a back seat.  There is no place for these exercises in our busy lives.

That’s why we train with kettlebells.

Because working with KBs allows us to cut through the fluff of the “regular” gym-culture training.  We’ve chosen to by-pass the weekend certified trainers. To choose to eat real food instead of the potions that they serve at the juice bar. And to stop doing bicep curls in the squat rack.

Here’s a video that I filmed with Craig Ballantyne a few weeks ago showing you the best Bang-For-Your-Buck kettlebell ab exercises…

If I’ve missed your top exercise, please let me know in the comments section and I’ll be sure to film another video of “viewer favorites”.

Enjoy your day!

-Chris Lopez