Unique exercises for a teenage girl trying to get abs?

@beachlife Welcome to fluther. Don’t go for a six pack. It’s a lot of work. Just look healthy and have some curves. Men love that.

You are a teenage girl your goal should not be a six pack. Being thin (not skinny) and getting exercise is all good, but being too extreme is bad for your health. Girls need some fat to maintain their cycles, we naturally hold more fat than men. If you want some muscle tone to show then eating well and staying in your average body weight range for your height is how to do it. No amount of crunches will give you a flat stomach and visible muscle tone if there is fat over it. Muscle and fat are two different things, and the fat lays over the muscle. But, I loath to even tell you that, because too many young girls think they are overweight when they are already perfect. Don’t be extreme, you will regret later. Look at most bathing suit models and lingerie models in magazine, they do not have six packs. I am not talking about health magazines, a lot of those women look like they have huge amounts of testosterone, it is not attractive in my opinion.

abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym

@Adirondackwannabe Who said she’s doing it for a man? It might just be for herself.

Sheesh, all this advice you didn’t ask for, and no real answers. I would’ve put this in General if I was you.

You can do crunches until you’re blue in the face and get no results. They just don’t work like that – at least, not on their own.

There are plenty of ab workouts online. Here’s one. I don’t know about it working in “weeks,” but they’re good workouts. I also think a YouTube search would help. Fitness gurus post ab videos all the time. Switch it up – don’t stick to the same workouts every day. If you want good definition, you have to keep the muscles guessing and constantly challenge them.

It’s hard for men to get six-packs, and it’s even harder for women. Most of our bodies aren’t built to be muscular. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t expect a change overnight. This will take awhile. See if you can get advice from a personal trainer.

Now, these ab workouts won’t work alone. You have to eat right and exercise using your entire body. If you have belly fat, you’ll never see those abs. Cardio and strength training that engages your entire core is what you’ll need. This will take dedication and consistency.

Good luck.

6 pack abs require a BMI of less than 10, the average woman is consider underweight at 18.

Your BMI is weight in Kilograms divided by height in Meters squared or BMI K/M^2.
So if you weigh 110 pound (50 Kilos) and are 5’ 6” ( 1.68 M ) squared is 50/2.82 or about 17.7 BMI. To get to a 10 BMI or less you would have to weigh 61 pounds. Not relealistic !

@Tropical_Willie Wrong. If that were true, no women would have a six pack. The majority of these women are not underweight, and none of them are 61 lbs. And BMI is pretty useless, especially for people will muscle mass. Trainers don’t even use that as a reference anymore because, if BMI was valid, all of those buff guys at the gym would be labeled as obese.

The Women’s Health workout that @livelaughlove21 linked looks pretty good—especially moves 2, 4, 5, and 6—but one exercise that anybody working on their core should do is planks. The Women’s Health workout has the rotating side plank exercise, but I mean solid planks (both basic and side planks).

Start with the basic plank. Get into the position and hold it for as long as you can to establish a base time (some people recommend starting with ten seconds, but there’s no point in doing that if you can naturally hold it for longer). To get your base time, round to the nearest five seconds: if you can hold it for 22 seconds, your base time is 20 seconds. If you can hold it for 24 seconds, your base time is 25 seconds.

Next, try the side planks. You’ll need to do this for both the left and the right sides. Again, get into the position and hold it for as long as you can to establish a base time. It’s okay if your base time for side planks is different from your base time for basic planks, but you will want to use the same time for each side. Most likely, side planks will be harder for you. If you have an unusual exercise history, however, they might be easier.

Now that you have some base times, here’s a short routine:

1. Basic plank (base time)
2. Rest (30 seconds)
3. Basic plank (base time)
4. Rest (30 seconds)
5. Left side plank (base time)
6. Right side plank (base time)
7. Rest (30 seconds)
8. Left side plank (base time)
9. Right side plank (base time)
10. Done!

You can do this every day if you want, or you could alternate it with the Women’s Health workout. If you only do this routine, do it at least three times a week. If you’re alternating, do each routine at least two times a week.

For the first week, just hold the exercises for your base time. Then on the second week, try adding five seconds to your base time. You might not be able to hold the positions for the full time with the added five seconds, but give it your best shot. If by the end of the week you are able to go for the whole time, add another five seconds for the third week. If not, stick with the week 2 time for another week and add another five seconds at the end of week 3 instead.

It’s easy to lie to yourself here and say that you can’t do the extra five seconds. You don’t want to hurt yourself, but you can’t just be complacent if you want to get results. Set yourself some intermediate goals. Being able to hold the position for a full minute is good. Being able to hold it for two minutes is great. Being able to hold it for four minutes is fantastic!

A note about resting periods: part of the routine is being able to hold the exercise longer while maintaining the same resting period. If your exercise time is less than 30 seconds, however, you might consider resting for the same amount of time that you are holding the exercise. This will help you progress a little faster. Also, don’t get discouraged if it gets harder and harder to add time. The important thing is to maintain a regular routine.

And if you want to add something to the short routine I gave you, think about adding a non-plank exercise in between the basic and side planks. Any of the exercises from @livelaughlove21‘s link will work. This would lead to the following routine:

1. Basic plank
2. Rest
3. Basic plank
4. Rest
5. Non-plank exercise
6. Rest
7. Non-plank exercise
8. Rest
9. Left side plank
10. Right side plank
11. Rest
12. Left side plank
13. Right side plank
14. Done!

Good luck, and good health!

Sit ups. I used to do 80 -100 a day, and I’d try to get them all in during a commercial break because I hate exercising.