Blast Your Entire Core With These Plyometric Exercises

Andy Speer, trainer and creator of our Anarchy Abs and Anarchy Arms workouts that are designed to seriously chisel your muscles, knows a little something about building powerhouse abs.

This workout will not only strengthen your abs, it will give you a cardio boost, too, due to the continuous, fast repetitions. And unlike other common ab workouts, these movements aren’t slow or stationary. Instead, you are training your core to stabilize while performing explosive movements.

This type of training will carry over well to athletics and compound exercises where you have to maintain a braced core while you become fatigued.

Directions: Perform the exercises below in the order listed.

1. Candlestick Row Get your heart rate up while firing up your core muscles with candlestick rows. Don’t rush these, since keeping your core tight as you move a bit slower will force your muscles to really work.

Number of reps: 5

2. Close-Grip Plyo Pushup Not only are you engaging your core, but your arms also play a big role in this exercise. Adding plyometrics—or jump training—into the mix works your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which boosts your overall power and agility.

Number of reps: 10

…read more at menshealth.com