The Best 30-Day Ab Challenge (Ideal for Men and Women)

If you’re looking for a solid 30-day ab challenge, then you’re in the right place. And you don’t need it to be Monday or even January 1st to start it! It’s simple and easy to get started with and you don’t need any special gear or equipment, a simple yoga or exercise mat will do.

In the early days of the blog, every month I selected a 30-day challenge to help me create new habits. Over time that grew and they became challenges that thousands of runners started participating in as well! I decided to bring that back in a new way with more videos, details and research behind it!

If you’re looking to strengthen your entire core, the 30-Day Core Challenge is what you need! Getting your abs to show means working the FULL CORE and not just doing a bunch of sit ups.

This challenge includes follow-along videos, nutrition tips, and advice, and even helps with your mobility. What’s best is that it can all be done in only 10 minutes a day! 

What Is The 30-Day Ab Challenge?

This 30-day ab workout challenge is a daily fitness routine with core-specific workouts that lasts for 30 days and targets your upper abs, lower abs, and obliques.

This 30-day challenge is ideal for anyone who finds a lack of time to be an obstacle in getting in your core-strengthening workouts because every exercise in the challenge just takes your body weight and you can do each daily workout in 10 minutes or less.

This 30-day ab challenge can help you gain stronger abs while establishing a consistent habit of completing a few minutes of core workouts per day.

But it’s important to note that it won’t guarantee chiseled six-pack abs since muscle definition depends on body fat percentage and genetics.

This is because you can’t spot reduce your belly fat, so even though your muscles will be stronger they won’t show till the body fat percentage goes down.

Why not just do a plank a day?! Because that won’t make you a better runner and it won’t work all the muscles in your core for that whittled middle so many desire. No, no, we need a great ab challenge for beginners to help us make changes.

Join the Challenge NOW!!!!

Once you join you can keep repeating the program as many times as you like to keep getting stronger. It’s yours to keep.

Ab Challenge Goals

What should you expect of yourself for the next 30 days??

• 5 ab workouts, 2 hip strength, 2 glute strength, 2 mobility and 2 hip stretch focused workouts.
• Follow along workouts and quick demos for both beginner and advanced moves
• A workout calendar to guide you through the month
• Focusing on the benefits of a stronger core
• Reminding yourself you have 5-10 minutes for key cross training

Ready to go???

Use #runtothefinish on Instagram to show off your core workouts and clean eats! I’ll be reposting and sharing photos throughout the challenge on Instagram!

Why Join an Ab Challenge?

I love these short 30 day challenges because they allow you to start creating a new habit without the overwhelm of feeling like you must do this for the rest of your life! {Read more about mini habits}

“The reason people fail to change their lives, and fail to instill new habits, is because they try to do too much at once.

In simplest terms, if your new habit requires more willpower than you can muster, you will fail. If your new habit requires less willpower than you can muster, you will succeed.” Stephen Guise

This is not about doing an ab workout every single day.

This is about getting refocused on working your core consistently and with some crazy dynamic workouts that are going to teach you new ways to hit every muscle in your abs. It’s no good to just do planks or crunches all the time.

As a bonus, we’ll be working through the nutrition changes that are going to help us lose whatever might be covering up the muscle we’re toning.

Ab Challenge Calendar

This isn’t about exhausting your core every single day. This is about getting yourself focused on consistently adding in some ab workouts all the time. These are QUICK, no reason not to make it happen.

Download the following ab challenge calendar and each day do the listed exercises inside the program, to do things on your own and get results. It’s quick, easy and will shake things up.

Ab Challenge Tips

Additionally this month I will be doing the following to really focus on seeing those abs:

• Increase that water because dehydration makes us tired and causes us to hold on to water weight!!
• Focus on eating enough protein to help us build muscle
• Add strength training for upper and lower body
• Moving more throughout the day to increase NEAT calories (see ways to get 10,000 steps)
• Focusing on engaging my abs during runs

Bonus Ab Challenge Workout

In fact, I won’t even make you wait!!

You can start the challenge TODAY with this killer full core workout. This isn’t even one of the workouts in the program! It’s an absolutely free bonus to get you moving right now, ASAP.

Because we can’t get the results we want by just researching! So stop scrolling, hop to the floor and start working.

Let’s walk through these moves and then watch the video below to see them in action!! Aim to work up to 3 rounds of 10-15 reps per exercise.

Reclined Bicycle

With legs extended, lower yourself back to 45 degrees and then pull your right elbow to left knee, then switch to left elbow to the right knee.

Shifting Plank

Start in a high plank position with the entire core tight. Your body should form a straight line from shoulders to ankles. From there, lower on to your right forearm then left forearm, and then push back up to full plank position.

Reverse Leg Raise

Get into a reverse plank position with hands pointing towards your butt. Stabilize the core and then raise one leg at a time, alternating sides.

Table Swing

Get into a tabletop position (on all fours but with stomach facing sky), and then swing butt back between both arms.

Starfish

Laying on your back in a star position, raise your upper body to connect your left arm and right leg. Return slowly to the ground and then raise up to connect the right arm and left leg.

Heel Taps

Lay on the back with feet on the ground and knees bent. The feet should be roughly a foot from your butt. Raise your shoulders off the ground and then reach the hand to heel squeezing your obliques on the move. You can modify this for toe touches instead by touching your toes instead of your heels.

Trainer in this ab workout

Tara Laferrara is a Certified Personal Trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine in the Mile High City. While her athleticism came from running track through her young adult years, she has a passion for helping and inspiring people to pursue their dreams in fitness and wellness. She’s a big fan of HIIT, high metabolic, and plyometric exercises.

What’s the Difference Between a 30-Day Ab Challenge vs 30-Day Core Challenge?

A 30 Day Challenge is usually a LOT of crunches, bicycles and static planks. But the 30 Day Core Program is going to give you tons of videos and more moves that are really specific to runners! We know that your body doesn’t care about holding a static plank to get stronger and develop muscle.

Your body needs to be able to do side planks with leg lifts and learn how to keep you stable! These moves are going to not only help you get those toned abs, but the strength to run faster, play pickleball or cycle without knee pain.

Seriously, over 1000 of people have gone through the Core Challenge and most have done the program 2-3 times through to keep improving.

What Are The Muscles That Make Up Your Core?

There are actually 8 major muscle groups that make up your core and it’s what helps stabilize your body in a lot of common everyday activities, including running.

When your core is stable, you may concentrate on enhancing the range of motion in your hips and upper back. On the other hand, when your low back overcompensates for movement, your hips and the upper part of your spine contract and tighten, and you become more prone to injury.

The core exercises mentioned in the 30-day ab challenge will strengthen your midsection to help you move better and more safely.

They target your rectus abdominis, which are the front ab muscles that give you that flat belly six-pack look, as well as the transverse abdominis, which are the deep corseting muscles that support your spine, and obliques, also known as your love handles.

I’ve even included hips and glute exercises for an overall strong core that supports the other muscles to help stabilize and strengthen your core.

What Types of Exercises are Included in this 30-day Core Challenge?

When people think of ab workouts, they frequently picture crunches, sit-ups, and planks. While this 30-day ab challenge includes many versions of these traditional core exercises, I’ve added other exercises as well that involve functional fitness.

Plus, the workout routine will help provide mobility while keeping your spine stable, which is incredibly important for overall health. You’ll also do anti-rotational exercises such as the plank shoulder tap that’ll help strengthen your core even more.

You’ll also do other types of well-known ab exercises such as mountain climber, side plank, Russian twist, and forearm plank.

And just so you know, daily core exercises are completely safe to perform. Each day you’ll be working out for 10 minutes by following a 30-day calendar with built in rest days. I’ve designed this so that you’re working all the different 8 muscle groups to fully target your core and get those abs strong.

What Do I Need for this 30-Day Ab Challenge?

You really don’t need much at all to get started! A simple exercise or yoga mat will work just fine, otherwise, you can do it on the carpet in your home.

The exercises use body weight and so you don’t need any workout gear for them. But there are a few cheap pieces that can definitely help, especially if you’re looking to invest in the 30-day Core Challenge:

• Resistance Bands
• Trigger Point Ball (2.6 inch)
• High Density Foam Roller
• Balance Disc (optional for later moves)

How Do I Get Access to the 30-Day Core Challenge?

To get started with the 30-Day Ab Challenge, get immediate access to my program for $49.99 here. You’ll get access to the portal where you can sign in and get started right away.

There’s also a mobile app for the platform which will make it easier than ever to do the moves. Details of that are provided inside the course!

There are 13 different workout videos to help you follow along and know exactly how to do each exercise. So if you’re confused about the correct posture or about simple things like where to position your palms and how to get into the right 90-degree angle, my video will explain all that and more.

Follow the calendar and spend 10 minutes every day doing the exercises. That’s about it. It’s an investment into your well-being and overall that will keep you injury-free and stronger for day to day activities too.

Additional Ab Training Tips

Here are some other ab defining tips to help us all:

• 10 Tips from a Personal Trainer to See Your Abs
• Tips for Boosting your metabolism
• 7 Secrets to Running for Weight Loss

Other ways to connect with Amanda
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Facebook Community Chatter: RunToTheFinish

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