My Six Week Abs/Pushup Program

(Since I'm not a man, and not likely to get 6-pack abs, this isn't the look I'm shooting for. But hey, any excuse to post a picture of some hot abs, right? ;)

So I fully intended to go back and complete the 100 Pushup Program. Really I did. Then, well, I didn't. Week 5 just seemed so daunting. And my wrists were so not loving me for doing so many pushups. So I stopped. And I still do have the cute little shoulder dimple which was the pleasing result of all those pushups. So I tell myself - maybe I should figure out a program for myself which does include some pushups, but not the crazy number of them from weeks 5 and 6.

Then I start thinking...hmmm...I should look up an ab program. And you know something? A six week ab program is a hard thing to find on the web (without paying for some kind of booklet or something). And most of the sites I came across require some kind of equipment (like a captain's chair, or a ball, or a bosu). While I love the ball crunches because of how wonderfully effective they are, they're problematic (just like captain's chair and bosu) because while some gyms have them, I don't have them at home). So I had to find a very effective exercise that will kick my butt without equipment. Check this site out for their top 10. And guess what? #1 is an exercise which requires no equipment, and not only uses abs but obliques. I think we have a winner!

The key to the bicycle crunch is doing them slowly. Singles will hurt your abs, but not quite the same burn as the slower ones. But because I'm always trying to mix things up, and fool my body into working hard, I'm going to do them at different speeds.

Because they're slower, each count is going to be going from one side to another (right elbow/left knee slowly moving on a count of 8 over to left elbow/right knee). So when I say 2x 8 count, this means counting out 8 (about 10 seconds) to one side, back, then repeat (so 1x 8 count is one time each side).

So here's my Week 1:

Day 1 - Tuesday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 2x 8 count, 4x 4 count, 8x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 6

Day 2 - Thursday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 3x 8 count, 5x 4 count, 10x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 8

Day 3 - Saturday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 4x 8 count, 6x 4 count, 12x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 10

Let's see how that goes. I've never done this before. Who knows whether that's too hard, too easy or whatever. I guess we'll see how it goes this week before I figure out how to tweak it. Maybe I should go buy a ball.