Variety

• Your body will adapt to any exercise within a few weeks and find a way to make it easy. This is called the general adaptation syndrome. To keep your body from adapting and thus reaching an exercise plateau, do a variety of exercises. Learn some basic exercises to build strength, but then do as many as you can. Ab bench exercises include decline crunches, decline crunches with rotation, decline side crunches, vertical hip thrusts and vertical oblique hip thrusts, among many more, but these are good to start with.
  
  You can add variety to specific exercises as well. For example, to do a decline crunch, hook your feet in the foot rest and lower yourself to the bench. Your head will be below your heart in this position, which may be a contraindication for this exercise if you have blood pressure or other problems. Put your hands behind your ears lightly. Do not pull on your neck. Crunch up halfway and hold for 2 seconds. Relax all the way back down to the bench and repeat. For a variation, add some rotation to the exercise and work your oblique muscles by twisting your shoulders to one side at the top of your crunch as you hold, and then alternating your twist to the other direction on the next rep.
  
  

Frequency and Progression

• Although it is important to have days off to allow your body to recover and repair, too many days off will result in losing strength. Start with two abdominal workouts a week. Move up to three workouts after 3 or 4 weeks. You can do two to four core exercises a day along with a full-body resistance training workout. About 10 to 20 reps done in two to four sets is ideal. You may want to start with exercises on the floor for the first few weeks to gain strength before progressing to bench exercises. Otherwise, you may not have the strength and coordination to do ab exercises correctly on a bench. After you have mastered exercise on the bench, incorporate some exercises on a ball to give your body something new to deal with. This will alleviate boredom and keep your body from figuring out all the exercises you are doing, rendering them too easy.
  
  

Breathing

• Breathing is a very important but often overlooked part of exercise. Breath can be especially useful with abdominal exercises. Exhale with each exercise will tighten the abs and make your exercise form better. For example, when performing a decline crunch, breathe out as you crunch up and inhale as you relax back down onto the bench. Exhale as you lift your hips on a vertical thrust and inhale as you return to the bench. Typically with ab bench exercises, the exhalation should come when you lift up, and the inhalation should match when you are relaxing back onto the bench. Deep breaths will keep your muscles from fatiguing quickly. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.