FitnessFixation.com

You know, I love spending time with my daughter. I like going to museums and movies with her, playing Princess Monopoly and Go Fish, walking to our local coffee shop for lattes and cocoa (she’s a real caffeine fiend). I can even tolerate those indoor kid play places, where they have messy face painting and it’s louder than an ACDC show. But I really, really HATE the park. I don’t know why. Time just seems to move extra-slowly whenever we go. I make the trek since I know she needs to run around outside for the sake of both of our sanity, but it is one of my least favorite things. Maybe it’s all the other kids, maybe it’s the mindless swing pushing, or maybe the discomfort of sand and wood chips, but whatever the reason, I have to steel myself for that hour of fresh air.

Watch, you all love the park because you are good mommies and daddies. Sigh.

Anyway, if you must go, might as well get six-pack abs while you’re there.

Hanging Tuck Ups

Hold onto the bar and hang there. Now bring your knees as close to your chest as you can using your abdominal muscles. Drop your legs again and hang some more. Tuck those knees again. Do reps. Millions of them. Or three sets of 20. If you want to work your obliques, bring your knees in to one side, then the other (and see that third picture for a visual representation).

If those whiny park kids give you a hard time about taking too long a turn on the monkey bars (especially since you also just did your arm set, if you checked in with us yesterday) you can always use other park equipment to do your tuck ups. Here, the lovely Ms. Tracy demos some swing set tucks.

And finally, if you want a bit more of a challenge, do an L-sit. Hang on a bar or rings and tuck your knees, then straighten your legs so your body makes a right angle. Just hold that for 30 seconds, three times minimum. Pretend you are a male Olympic gymnast. Just like Eric here.

Hanging Sit-ups

This one only works if you don’t mind being upside down. I sort of do, but Tracy doesn’t, so be like Tracy. Find some nice bar to hang from by your knees. Keeping your back and abs nice and tight, crunch yourself up so your upper body is perpendicular to your legs. Slowly go back to the starting position and repeat. Do this until the head rush makes you so dizzy that you lose track of your kid. (And FYI, he or she is just hiding under the play structure. They all do that to mess with us.)

Hey, that’s it for abs. Do all these or just do crunches. Whatever. And come back Tomorrow for Legwork. We’ll sing a little ZZ Top as we do it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 4:55 pm and is filed under exercise, new moves, parents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.