When you do regular sit-ups or crunches, there is only one part of your abdominal region that is getting worked for the most time (either your transverse abdominal muscles, obliques, or rectus abdominis) but with a exercise fitness ball, you are allowing yourself to work larger groups of muscles for the same amount of time. By working out larger groups of muscles, your journey to develop harder and more sleeker abs will come in no time.

By triggering muscles you thought you never had, and seeing great results, try these two exercises below to get the most out of your exercise ab ball workouts!

Exercise Ball Abdominal Roll-ups

This fitness ball exercise works out the rectus abdominis, hip flexors and also the obliques. As per your starting position, get down on your knees with the ball right in front of you. Next, lie flat on the floor. Let your hands touch the ground as you reach out, and roll the ball towards you inner thighs. While keeping your abdominal muscles contracted and shoulders aligned with your hands, walk your hands until your chin touches the ball. Next, using your legs to pull the ball forward, bend your knees upwards into your chest while you are rolling the ball underneath. Do this until your knees touch your chest. After one repetition, go back to starting position and begin another rep.

Abdominal Curl with Exercise Ball

During this exercise, you are going to work multiple muscle groups within the abdominal region with the exercise ball. When it comes to complete abs exercises, this one is it. Parallel to the floor, lie on top of the exercise fitness ball while your knees form a 90 degree angle. Without bending your hips, lift your shoulder upwards slowly and with control. Next, go back to the starting point and begin another repetition.

After you complete your abs ball workout, you’ll be surprised at how using an exercise ball to workout your abs can be. For better results, remember to compliment your exercise routine with a calorie reduced diet.

Listed below are a few highly effective exercises you can do on a exercise ball:

Elevated Push-ups

During this exercise, the exercise ball is used as a prop for your legs to rest on, while at the same time rising the legs to above parallel of your shoulders. To create more resistance for this exercise, elevate your legs and apply yourself into a traditional push-up position. Once you are in position, begin to do push-ups. This exercise is great both for beginners and advanced trainees. Although, obviously advanced trainees might have the upper because of heightened upper body strength, but as you continue your workouts your upper body strength will develop and come in no time.

Knee Bridge

The purpose of this exercise is used to help stretch out your hamstrings and also help tone and define your buttocks area. With your knees bent over the exercise ball and your back flat on the floor, push your buttocks and hips up and hold this position for a split second. Then, return to your original position. The more you stress the holding period, and the more you enunciate the overall movement, the more effective the knee bridge exercise will be.

Wall Squat

The wall squat is similar to that of during a squatting motion, except you are rolling the exercise ball up and down on a chosen wall. While the ball resting on your upper shoulder and back area, place the ball between the wall and yourself. Perform a squat while pressing against the ball with enough force as to keep it secure. The more slower you perform the squatting motion, the more pronounced impact it will have on your hamstrings, quads, and buttocks as the difficulty increases.

Alright now that you got your exercise ball, onto the next step.  Before you go about doing your workouts, you need to go out and warm up your core aka your back and abdominal muscles.  You can do this by doing a 3-4 minute brisk walk, on a bicycle, or even just a quick jog around your neighborhood.  Using a treadmill is optional as well.  By effectively warming up before you start your abs ball workout, it will help lower the risk of pulling a muscle during your exercise session.

Here are a couple simple exercises to get started on your exercise ball:

The first exercise that you will be doing is called the Seated Abs Core Exercise.  Upon going about this exercise, you should start out by sitting on the ball with your feet flat on the floor.  When you are ready to begin this exercise and you are in position, lift your heel one at a time.  All at the same time while doing this exercise, ensure that your other foot is placed flat on the floor.

When you start to get the hang of it, start to move your arms in sync with your feet.  It’ll look as though you are marching in place.  While you are doing this exercise, keep in mind to keep your abdominal muscles contracted and tight.  As a beginning trainee, try to get 10-12 reps in for the first couple sets.

The second abs ball exercise that you will be doing is called the Prone Abdominal Core exercise.  Instead of sitting on the ball, position yourself to lay on the ball while on your stomach with your hands flat on the floor.

While keeping your abdominal muscles tight, start to walk forward on your hands.  You should keep walking up until the ball is right under your thighs.  Slowly return to your starting position by moving backwards with your hands.  For this exercise, try to complete 4-5 sets with 10-12 reps each for each set.  If you want to add further difficulty to this exercise, you can also do push-ups when the ball is under your thighs.  After a week or two of doing these abs ball workouts, you will start to feel increased strength, flexibility, and more tightness with your back and core muscles.

When you first go about initiating your exercise with an exercise ball, the first part of the abs workout is the curling of the abdominal muscles using the exercise ball.  All the major abdominal muscle groups are worked with this easy to do exercise.  In order to do this exercise the correct way, lie parallel to the floor while laying on your exercise ball and bend your knees at a 90 degree angle.

Without bending your hips, move your shoulders up with a slow, and controlled movement.  You should then return to the beginning point slowly and repeat until you are finished with your set.  If you would like to gain more lean muscle mass, you can also hold a weight plate across your chest to increase the difficulty and resistance.  But this is optional.

Another exercise that can be done on an exercise ball is the abdominal roll up.  The obliques, rectus abdominis and hip flexors are all used during this exercise, hence the targetted muscle groups.  This exercise is not too difficult to perform and can be considered a beginners type movement.  While you have the ball in front of you in a kneeling position, lie down on the floor.  Next, with your hands on the floor, reach out in front of you and roll the ball in the direction of your thighs.  Afterwards, walk with your hands until the point where the exercise ball is touching your chin.  Also, make sure your shoulders remain alignment with the hands while your abs are contracting.

At this point, use your legs to pull the ball towards your body while bending your knees to the chest.  Do this until your knees come to the chest.  Then return to the starting point and repeat this exercise.

Instead of isolating specific muscle groups, this abs ball workout is more effective in working the whole region of the abdominal muscles.  In other words, the ball is vital when trying to get a six pack.