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Strengthen your core and tone your abs in 10 minutes with this trainer’s three-move abs finisher
Abs, it’s said, are made in the kitchen.
In truth, that’s where they are revealed, when your body fat is low enough to show off your core credentials.
Rather, they are built, fortified and fine-tuned with core-based strength training—and that could be using bodyweight alone.
That’s why experienced trainer Alex Marks of London PT studio On Your Marks believes in including core exercises within the main body of every workout he programmes.
If time is tight, however, he swears by a short, sharp abs routine that can be performed on its own or as an effective finisher at the end of an exercise session.
All you need is 10 minutes, one dumbbell and one resistance band. Buckle up.
Use this 10-minute finisher to build a strong and stable core
Marks recommends performing each of these exercises to near failure, repeating them back-to-back with minimal rest for the full 10 minutes.
But if you’re a relative beginner—or especially tired after the main body of training you’ve just completed—I’d suggest easing into this finisher by breaking it down into 60-second segments.
Start by performing 30 seconds of work, resting for 30 seconds, then moving on to the next exercise.
As you build up your core strength, you can tweak this to 45 seconds of work and 15 seconds of rest, and so on until you can perform 60 seconds of each exercise continuously.
1. Reverse crunch
- Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor.
- Place your hands by your temples rather than behind your head to avoid straining your neck.
- Press your lower back into the floor to engage your deep core muscles.
- Using your abs to power the movement, lift your upper back off the floor while simultaneously lifting your legs until your elbows and knees almost touch.
- Pause, then slowly lower to the start.
2. Anti-rotational dead bug
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- Loop a resistance band around a stable support like a banister or squat rack.
- Lie side on to the anchor point, holding the band with both hands next to your chest while allowing some slack in it so that it’s not pulling you across.
- Lift both legs and bend your knees to 90˚, then press your lower back into the floor to engage your deep core muscles.
- Now extend your arms and take the strain of the band so that you have to use your core to avoid being pulled toward the anchor point.
- Next, extend one leg until your heel gently taps the floor, then return to a 90° bend.
- Repeat with the other leg, alternating sides with each rep.
- Move slowly and with control, feeling for your core muscles to resist rotation with each rep.
3 Plank drag through
- Assume a high plank position with your feet shoulder-width apart, hands directly below your shoulders, and your body in a straight line from head to heels; with a light to medium-weight dumbbell just outside your right hand.
- Engage your core and, keeping your body as still as possible throughout, pick up the dumbbell with your right hand and move it under your body to just outside and behind your left hand.
- Return your right hand to the floor and repeat with your left hand.
- Continue, alternating sides with each rep, keeping your hips stable and avoiding letting your hips lift or drop.
What is a workout finisher?
A workout finisher is a short, sharp bout of exercise that can be tagged onto the end of a session to target a particular body part, group of muscles or energy system.
For example, you could program a 5-10 minute endurance-boosting HIIT drill involving nothing but burpees (although no-one deserves that).
Alternatively, as Marks demonstrated above, you could combine two or three exercises to target accessory muscles, such as the abs, arms or shoulders, to keep your strength topped up.
There is no hard or fast rule of how long a workout finisher should last or what it involves, but it’s worth having a few options up your sleeve next time you have a few minutes spare at the end of a session.
