As a fitness writer and keen runner I’m no stranger to pushing myself during workouts, but even so, I often struggle to find the motivation to do strength sessions. This year I’m trying to use micro workouts as a method to train regularly, and that includes short, sharp abs sessions like this one from fitness trainer Chris Heria.
I had this workout on my agenda for a few days, but even though it’s only eight minutes long I kept finding ways to put it off. Eventually, I did manage to summon the steel to power through eight minutes of abs exercises, and as with all workouts I was glad to have done it afterwards.
Even though Heria himself sports an impressively toned six pack, and his companion for the video is champion powerlifter Larry Wheels, it’s a workout that will suit most fitness levels, and I was able to get through most of the moves without needing an extra break.
You don’t need any equipment aside from a yoga mat to lie on for the workout, so dive into it anytime you have eight minutes to spare and sufficient willpower to tap into.
Watch Chris Heria’s 8-minute ab workout
Aside from a little preamble the video goes straight into the workout without a warm up, so be ready to go from the off. The session is made up of eight exercises, each of which you do for 45 seconds before resting for 15 seconds.
Heria and Wheels do the workout with you, so you get live demonstrations of each move, and there’s a ‘coming next’ clip on show at the end of each set too, though I found it hard to see this while performing some of the exercises — it might be worth following the session on a phone so you can move into your eyeline with each move.
If you’re feeling brave and have more time you could do this workout as a finisher for a full-body session, or even do the routine twice for a more effective ab workout. Here are my main takeaways from the workout.
My abs were burning from early on
Although 45 seconds doesn’t seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things, it’s a long set for an abs exercise, and my muscles started burning mid-way through each move. It means that even though you’re only doing an eight-minute workout, you can be sure your abs will feel the benefits.
Your obliques get worked too
The variety of the moves in the workout includes twisting exercises like the bicycle crunch and Russian twist to work the obliques as well as your central abs.
In just eight moves, Heria mixes things up enough to ensure that all of the abs are getting a good workout, which also means that some moves give certain muscles a chance to rest a little as they’re not the main focus.
Slow down to avoid stopping
Heria’s advice for when you’re struggling to complete a set is to slow down your reps and really try not to stop entirely, and it’s great advice.
This means you keep your abs under tension for the whole set, even if you only complete a few reps, and you’ll get a lot more from the short workout than if you stop for a moment, rush a few reps, then stop again.
I started to struggle during several of the moves, but by slowing down my pace, I could generally get through the 45 seconds without stopping entirely. That said, if the burn in your muscles gets too much, there’s only so much slowing down will do, and I still stopped completely once or twice.
You will need longer sessions to keep progressing
While this is undoubtedly an effective way to spend eight minutes and a great place to start with ab workouts, I feel like I’d need longer sessions as well to keep improving my core strength.
An easy way to do this would be to simply double the session for a challenging 16-minute workout, or you could try this monster 40-minute core workout for a more comprehensive training route.
More from Tom’s Guide
- I tried this standing abs workout with 30 million views — here’s what happened
- This dumbbell abs workout builds core strength in just 8 moves
- Forget planks or crunches — these 5 standing core exercises will torch your abs
