- This is Quick Fit and I'm your host, Cassy Vieth.

Abs classes are some of my most popular and most requested classes.

At the same time, crunches can be drudgery, especially if your core and abdominal muscles are quite de-conditioned.

But don't worry; with practice, it will become easier, you'll burn more calories in the process, you'll start to feel your abs more.

Then you'll do more abs, burn more calories, feel slimmer, and you can see where this is going.

The benefits will just snowball.

So let's get started.

[upbeat music] We'll begin by warming up all of the abdominal muscles in the entire core with what I call the vacuum.

You'll be on your hands and knees, and it really won't look like anything's happening, but it's very effective.

So we'll be doing a hold, just pulling up the abdominal muscles.

Think about pulling your belly button up to your spine and holding it there.

Now that doesn't sound like much, but with every breath, you're going to be releasing.

So I'm going to keep repeating.

Pull up, inhale, and then exhale and pull up even more, trying to get as much of your abdominals tucked up under your ribs as possible.

But try not to arch the back; keep the back flat, pushing into the floor, [inhales and exhales] breathing, exhaling, and pulling up.

So it's a hold and it's going to get those deep abdominal muscles around your spine.

You can push into your lower abdominal muscles down between your hip bones, and that will help you to engage those and see if they're doing their job.

And the longer you pull and push, the more you'll feel engaging.

And it simply takes time.

So you have to be patient.

There's not a lot of glamour going on, you're just holding your abs in.

This is something that you can do during commercials or while you're riding passenger in a vehicle, just pressing your back into the seat or pulling your abdominals up into your spine.

So keep holding, keep pulling up.

It's a very effective move, even though it doesn't look like much is happening.

So keep pulling up.

All right.

[inhales and exhales] All right, that's good for that.

You can always do more of those, but for now, let's roll back onto our back and we'll start engaging the lower abdominal muscles.

So have one leg up, and I'd like you to squeeze your bottom so that you can feel your low back press into the floor.

Now squeeze the back more intentionally into the floor and feel the hips tip up, and you can release.

Do that again, press the back and tip the hips.

Now your foot that's on the floor, your right foot that's on the floor, you can push with that a little bit.

But we're not doing a bridge; we're just tipping the hips.

And it's such a slight, intense move, you might not be sure if you're doing it right at first, so it's just gonna take practice.

Let's switch legs, it's one of those that if you push on those muscles right above your pubic bone, right between your hip bones, press the back into the floor, you can feel them engage.

And even if it's just a little bit, that'll be your clue you're doing the right thing.

So just a teeny lower abdominal wake up.

All right, let's do two legs.

And this one will be a little bit harder, and squeeze, okay.

Lift the hips, press the low back into the floor.

And again, lift.

You'll get better at it; it just takes practice.

All right, and lift.

And one more, lift, [inhales] exhale, lift.

I lied, do a few more.

All right, let's put your right foot down, extend your left leg.

Now once again, make sure your back is pressed into the floor.

Squeeze your hind end, use this foot to push into the floor to get that whole back against the floor, and lift, lift, lift.

Even when it seems like we're not doing anything and I'm just talking and we're setting up a move, you're still engaging your abs to keep that leg extended and up off the floor.

Lift, lift.

With every lift, you can feel your abs engage.

Now we're going to press down.

Press, press, press, press.

[inhales and exhales] Exhale, keep pulling your abdominal muscles in.

Press and press, now circle.

Think about the lift as well as the press, the lift and the press, recruiting as many muscles from your core down as possible.

Don't forget about the leg that's pushing into the floor, that will help.

You'll just feel stronger as you perform the move.

Now let's switch legs.

Extend, squeeze your hind end, take your inventory, press that back into the floor, squeeze your hind end and lift the leg.

We're not throwing the leg around.

Squeeze, squeeze to lift the leg.

Lift, lift, lift, lift, lift.

And we're gonna press it down, press.

Squeeze your hind end, imagine that you're pushing your foot into a balloon, all right.

So we're not tryna pop it, we're just tryna squeeze it.

Squeeze, squeeze.

Now circle.

The circle is a pressing down and a lift, and down and a lift.

It's purposeful, we're not flinging the leg around, okay.

Control it.

Very good, all right, leg in the air.

[inhales] All right.

So take this, you got your right leg in the air.

We're going to take your left elbow and we're gonna twist towards the knee, hold, [short exhales] reach, and back.

[inhales and exhales] Twist, three, two, one, reach it further and back.

Inhale, exhale, twist, reach, reach, reach a little further, and back.

A couple more, hang in there.

Twist, reach.

Are you pressing your belly button into the floor?

One more.

Twist, reach, two, I feel like I said one more a couple times, you can't trust me.

[laughs] All right.

Let's switch legs, switch arms.

Inhale, exhale, twist, reach, reach, reach.

Reach it further and back.

Across, reach, and back.

[exhales] Twist and hold.

Hold, reach it further, and back.

And again, twist, reach, and back.

Very nice, very nice.

All right, take a little break.

[inhales and exhales] Now we'll be doing some crunches.

So I'd like you to get two legs up in the air, press that low back into the floor.

Remember the hip lift we did earlier?

I'd like you to do that again at the same time that we lift our shoulders.

So press the low back into the floor.

Lift the hips and the shoulders.

Three, two, one, and back.

[inhales and exhales] You ready?

Lift and hold.

Lift, lift, try to smile, and back.

Good, now pull your belly in, make sure you're not pushing your belly out or up, okay.

Lift, lift, lift, and back.

Slow and controlled.

[inhales and exhales] Lift, lift, lift.

Maybe reach, and reach, and reach, and reach.

Just make it more intense, pull, pull, pull, and relax.

So good.

All right, let's put your hands behind your legs and we'll kick up to a seated position.

But don't worry, we're not done yet.

Stretch it out just a little bit, and now we're going to roll it back.

Just to that point where you think you might lose it, hold it back, and now rope climb up.

Rope climb up, rope, rope, stretch, roll it back.

Rope, rope, rope, grab it, pull, pull.

So it helps you do a little twist and lift.

[exhales] Roll it back and reach, reach.

Pull up, pull up, pull up.

And one more, one more, maybe five more.

Reach, reach, how are you doing?

Do you need a break?

Take a break and join us again.

[inhales and exhales] And then when you do this class for the 10th time and you get all the way through it, you'll be like, "Okay, I had measurable improvement."

All right, back, [inhales and exhales] reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, and done.

[exhales] All right, let's roll it over onto our bellies.

Stretch out nice and long.

To have strong abs, they have to be strong back here as well as up front, because your abs go all the way through, from front to back, so to speak.

All those muscles are sandwiched together and they all have to be strong.

[exhales] All right, let's bring one arm back, one arm forward, and lift.

You feet are down, we're lifting our upper body.

And let's rotate like a clock, inhale, exhale.

[exhales] You can have a neutral head.

In other words, let your nose just face the floor, but don't let your forehead be dragging on the floor.

Have nice, long, strong lines.

This workout's for your whole body.

[inhales and exhales] One last one, lift, lift.

Very good, and now hands right about where your shoulders are, and we'll push, stretching that low back, the front.

[inhales and exhales] And remember, as always, if something doesn't feel right for you, don't do it.

Okay, we're all slightly different.

We all have different issues we're trying to deal with.

All right, let's push up onto our hands and knees, okay, and just one of these nice stretches; shift around.

And then hand behind your back, lift, over.

[exhales] Other way, reach it back, stomach's in.

[exhales] Good job.

All right, fantastic, enjoy that.

[exhales] You made it through!

Now congratulate yourself and commit to repeating this particular class two to three times per week, mixing and matching your favorite classes or the ones that fill a particular fitness need of yours.

Find them all right here at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where I'll be waiting with more great routines to keep you feeling great and full of energy.

Because life is movement.

- Announcer: Funding for Quick Fit with Cassy is provided by Greg and Carol Griffin, founders of ElderSpan Management, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.