I wish I started incorporating the ab wheel into my routine sooner. This tool takes up only a tiny space in your garage or closet, but it gets the job done in strengthening several parts of your body.
Using the ab wheel will work your full body, but it especially focuses on the:
Let’s jump in!
Start on your knees with the ab wheel a few inches in front of you. Position your knees so they are a little more than shoulder-width apart.
Grab the handles of the ab wheel with your hands and position the ab wheel so that it’s directly under your shoulders. Your arms should be perpendicular to the ground. Make sure that your back is not hunched or concaved; your back should be a straight line from your hips up to your shoulders. Once you are in the correct position, inhale.
As you exhale, tighten your stomach, and start to move your torso forward, with your arms leading the way. As you move your torso forward, extend your arms with strong shoulders, until your face is near the ground and your shoulders are by your ears.
As you inhale, tighten your core, and return to the starting position. On the return, it’s important focus on using your core to elevate and retreat your torso back to starting position. Repeat.
This movement takes a lot of practice at first. For beginners, I recommend only rolling a few inches in front of you, then return to starting position. Over time and with practice, build enough strength so that you can roll out and have your face to the ground.
Do it safely but have fun – this is a great exercise!
I personally use the following one that I purchased on Amazon.
I really like the width of the wheel on this one. The wheel is not too narrow, and there’s hardly any friction in its movement. It also comes with a small mat (which I hardly use).
This is an affiliate link, and as an Amazon associate I earn on qualifying purchases. But this is the exact wheel that I use, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Here are some ideas on how you can program an ab wheel.
A finisher is just a short sequence of exercise(s) that you add to the end of your workout. And an ab wheel is a great finisher to add to your workout. Do 5 sets of 5 repetitions at the end of your workout. Slowly work your way until you can do 5 sets of 8 repetitions.
A 5×5 workout, as covered in my post on minimalist workouts, is a circuit workout comprised of 5 rounds of 5 movements. Select 4 other movements, and then add the ab wheel as the 5th movement at the end of the series.
Here’s a very simple core workout that you can do 2-3 times a week, using the wheel:
5 rounds of:
This program works your entire core (abs, obliques, lower back), and is a simple addition to your current program.
The pike push-up is a push-up variation that will give you a great shoulder burn. It is a strength-building exercise that targets your shoulders with support from your triceps. The movement also requires flexibility in your hip complex, hamstrings, calves, and ankles.
The following muscle groups are engaged when performing pike push-ups:
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The following muscle groups are engaged by hip extensions:
The following muscle group is engaged by the Single Leg Romanian Deadlift:
The following muscle groups is engaged by the Towel Bicep Curl:
The following muscle group is engaged by the Lunge:
The real question is, what isn’t a Burpee? A Burpee is the Megazord of bodyweight movements. It takes a High Push-Up Position Hold, a Body Squat, a Push-Up, connects them all together, adds a jump in there for extra power, and creates a bodyweight super monster that can stand up to any evil and malicious opponent that wants to stop you for staying in shape. The burpee will engage all of your muscle groups and is also an excellent exercise for strengthening your cardiovascular system. There are several variations of a burpee that can make this difficult exercise even more challenging (see progressions at the end of the post), as well as variations that can make it easier for beginners (see regressions at the end of the post). Admittedly, this is my favorite bodyweight exercise, and is an excellent movement that once learned can be a great addition to your exercise tool belt.
The Burpee is a full-body exercise with an emphasis on the following muscle groups:
Also called Lateral Bear Crawls, a Lateral Crawl is a full body movement that will shred your core and exercise all the muscles in your arms and legs. This is a simple but effective exercise that provides you with a full body workout. The prerequisite for this movement is the High Push-Up Position Hold, which is more or less the movement that my daughter is performing in the video, although I am still coaching her to keep her back straight and her feet closer together. Like my daughter, I recommend that you try 3 sets of 30 seconds of the High Push-Up Position Hold before attempting the Lateral Crawl.
The Lateral Crawl is a full-body exercise with an emphasis on the following muscle groups:
The training montages from the Rocky Balboa films are more energizing than most pre-workout energy supplements. Watching Rocky train for his boxing matches still gives me chills and shots of adrenaline, and I would argue that the training scene in Rocky IV tops the series’ montage list.
In the Rocky IV training scene, Rocky prepares to fight the deadly and intimidating Russian, Ivan Drago. The training scene records both Rocky’s and Ivan’s preparation for the US/Russian boxing bout. Ivan’s training method utilizes machines and measurements, and his scientific and exact approach is contrasted to Rocky’s brutish bodyweight exercises, where Rocky trains in barns, mountains and the freezing cold.
*Spoiler – Rocky defeats Drago, even though he uses more rudimentary exercises. This fact is my 7th reason for why bodyweight exercises are extraordinarily effective.
At the 5:23 mark of this scene, both Rocky and Ivan perform an advanced Russian Twist movement. Rocky does the movement with what looks like a yoke for an ox, and Ivan does the movement upright with a machine. The Russian Twist that we will do is several steps down from these men’s training exercises, but the same muscles are engaged and strengthened.
Russian Twists are a core exercises that blasts your entire midsection, with a particular emphasis on your obliques. Your obliques are a group of muscles on the front sides of your stomach, and they support the twisting and turning motion for your torso. It is a challenging movement that requires flexibility in your lower back and hips, and there are easier exercises that I’d recommend you start with (see regression at the end of the post). But this exercise is useful to strengthen your obliques, and oblique training should be a part of any core training program.
The following muscle group is engaged by Russian Twists:
I remember the very first time I saw someone do a clap push-up. It was the 6th grade, and our P.E. teacher decided one day that he would have us 6th graders do a push-up contest. At the beginning of the class he demonstrated for us how to do the push-up movement. I remember watching him do 5 push-ups, then 10 push-ups, then 20 push-ups, then 30 push-ups, and around the 30 mark he started doing clap push-ups until he hit about the 40 mark. I was mesmerized.
That night at home, I tried doing a set of my own clap push-ups… and failed immediately. My hands barely left the ground. The clap push-up takes explosive strength that needs to be developed, first by doing push-ups, and then secondly by doing an exercise called the Shove-Off. The Shove-Off is an upper body strengthening exercise that performs the explosive clap push-up movement, only using an elevated surface that makes a challenging movement a lot easier.
The following muscle group is engaged by the Shove-Off: