Best Abs for dream six-pack or perfect waist

It's time to push your abs to exhaustion—not to mention, fight the flab—with new abs exercises that are anything but routine. And it's not just a six-pack you'll get: Maintain strong abs and you’ll help prevent back pain, boost your agility, and increase your flexibility.

But no matter how tough these exercises get, always remember the golden rule of abs workouts: quality over quantity. If you're still cranking out 2,000 fast-paced crunches a day, you're wasting your time (and maybe even hurting your back). Instead of ripping through the motions, slow down and focus on getting the most out of each rep.

With a slow, concentrated effort you'll be building up to 30-second sets of quality moves—and admiring those washboard abs you've always wanted—in no time.

Nothing says fit like a washboard stomach. But scoring high-definition abs isn't as easy as cranking out crunch after crunch. To sculpt a stronger, more chiseled core, you need the best ab workout to work the two dozen muscles between your hips and your shoulders in the many ways they function. After all, your abs do more than flex on a daily basis—they stabilize and rotate, too.

Refresh your abs workout with these 25 core exercises. They'll challenge your abs from all angles, making you stronger in everything you do and giving you a body you'll be proud to show off shirtless. And for a complete fitness program that will not only build your abs muscles, but also melt the fat that covers them. You’ll get five 30-minute calorie-torching workouts that employ a unique blend of metabolic training, traditional strength training, and gymnastics fundamentals to strip away fat from head to toe.

Abdominal Hold - This is the sort of move that looks so wonky, you sure hope your roommate doesn't catch you doing it — unless she also gets to see you look stellar in a bathing suit, in which case she just may pull up a chair.

The Side Crunch - A deceptively difficult move, the side crunch tests your balance while it teases your oblique muscles. (It worked my hips in a way I've not felt in a while, too.)

Opposite Arm and Leg Raise - Done during my workout warm-up, this move makes me feel longer, steadier, and seriously balanced. Thanks, core!

The Prone Plank - A super-simple, do-anywhere move that zips up your abs.

Squat Thrust with Twist - I avoided this move at first because I thought it had "wrenched back" written all over it. But after doing slooowly at first and testing where the back tweaking would begin, I found the threshold between "yikes" and "yes!"

The Climb Up - Crunchier than most of the lying-down crunches I've tried, this move also makes the cut simply because it's novel.

Ballet Twist - I like the really generous side-stretching in this modified half-crunch. (When I first tried this move, I had a buddy hold my feet still at first until I got the motion down — it was helpful to have her watch my form and correct the angle of my back.)

The Single-Leg Stretch - The top of my abs burns at first when I do this move consistently, and after a few days my whole six-pack feels engaged. Nice.

The Cobra - After doing a series of regular crunches and other lying-down exercises, getting into cobra pose is a welcome change. It always makes me feel like I'm lengthening the front of my rib cage, too, which is a sweet reward.