If you have aspirations of carving out a six-pack, or simply want to strengthen your core, then you don’t necessarily have to spend hours in the gym doing long workouts.
Short, sharp abs workouts can be highly effective if you do them consistently, as long as you’re also backing up your effort with a healthy diet and ideally also doing some longer full-body workouts on occasion.
This 10-minute abs workout from fitness trainer Chris Heria is found on YouTube channel THENX. It’s a fast-paced session that works all the muscles in your core, and it’s suitable for all fitness levels.
You don’t need any kit for the workout aside from one of the best yoga mats, which I found invaluable for making it more comfortable to do the session on a hard floor.
Watch Chris Heria’s 10-minute abs workout
The workout is made up of 10 exercises, and you do each move for either 45 seconds, 40 seconds or 30 seconds depending on your fitness.
Heria recommends beginners do 30 seconds, intermediates 40 and advanced gym-goers 45 seconds — obviously, the longer you work the more you do and shorter your break before the next move starts.
I gave the workout a go one morning to challenge my core and found my abs were still feeling the effects a couple of days later. Here are my other takeaways from the session.
Change your work time depending on the move
While Heria suggests aiming for 30, 40 or 45 seconds of work depending on your existing fitness, he also says you can vary this depending on the move, which is obvious but I needed him to say it to consider that an option.
On some exercises I was comfortable that I could do a full 45 seconds of work, like mountain climbers, but I found hitting that mark a bit trickier with moves like the bicycle crunch, so I dropped to 40 seconds.
Changing the target actually helped me to stay motivated and push on, rather than stopping earlier in a set knowing I wasn’t going to hit my initial goal of 45 seconds.
Try to slow down instead of stopping
Another useful bit of advice from Heria that helped me in the workout is slowing down when a move got tough rather than stopping for a break.
These exercises are still challenging when moving slowly and getting through a set at a reduced pace is more effective than taking breaks then working faster, because by keeping going you maximize the time under tension for your abs.
The workout hits the whole core
The moves included in the workout target different areas of the core, so you start with two lying-down moves to hit the upper abs, then two for the lower abs and two for the obliques, before flipping onto all fours to do mountain climbers and plank variations.
This approach not only means you hit all the key muscles around the core, but also that you switch the focus from certain areas so they get a small break while you target other muscles.
So if you feel completely exhausted after a couple of sets of exercises, don’t be dismayed, you’ll be moving onto other muscles with the next moves and you should be able to do them.
I should have worn shoes
The second half of the workout involves doing in-and-out planks and mountain climbers, and I wished I’d worn shoes to make jumping my feet around more comfortable.
I was fine barefoot for the first half, but if you do the workout, I’d definitely pop on a set of trainers so you’re ready for the second half.
The on-screen timers are a bit confusing
There are two timers on screen during the workout, one counting down the work and rest periods for each move and one counting down the whole workout.
The timer counting down each move often didn’t line-up with Heria’s verbal instructions and seemed to have shorter rest periods at times. I’d stick to listening to Heria himself rather than relying on the timer.
Plank side-to-side is a great exercise
I’ve done a lot of abs workouts in my time but the plank side-to-side is not a move I remember doing before, and it’s a great variation on the classic plank where you swing and lower your hips from side-to-side, increasing the challenge to your obliques.
If you’re looking for a way to mix up your core workouts and are tired of the standard plank, give this variation a go.