ORIGINAL: Brocklp
My upper abs are pretty solid. but i have flab in my lower abs and my love handles, i really dislike doing side crunches and was curious if anyone knew in exercises to work on my sides and my lower abs. Or maybe just ab exercises in general would be killer thanks
Welcome to the forum! I can't tell for sure from the paragraph above, so sorry if I'm misinterpreting, but it sounds like you are wanting to lose some extra fat around your belly?
If that's the case, you definitely need to do some cardio exercises as you can't "spot - treat" the belly by doing ab exercises alone. Alot of people have that misconception. The geurilla cardio workout NIC mentions looks pretty good. You'll need access to a track though... or go running around your neigborhood. I tried the routine at the gym, but none of the treadmills were fast enough for the sprints or able to stop immediately for the 10 second rests.
Personally, I think there are alot of advantages to jogging for longer periods of time. It gives you a massive endorhion high. It raises your heart rate longer which in turn will more effectively increase the size and capacity of the heart itself (and lungs). It also increases your endurance more effectively than short sprints. Will you burn some muscle - absolutely. But let's face it, you burn muscle when you scratch your head.
You just have to decide what your personaly goals are, either way.... you need cardio to melt away the fat!
For lower AB exercises, to define the abs, everything that's been mentioned so far is quite good... you might also consider reverse crunches. I've been able to get my abs to burn nicely from those.
Since lower abs are typically the weakest, I would suggest working them out prior to your upper abs while they are freshest (for lack of a better term). Also, you probably know this, but you always want to work your abs until failure (until you can't do another rep).
I hope this helps!