Abs That Rock

My name is Sarah. I am a stay at home mom to my 9 month old daughter while my husband is finishing up his last few semesters in college. I'm Katie's walking buddy, and I'm also the one who took Katie to the abs class that nearly killed her. I am in no way an expert in abdominal workouts, nor do I have abs that in any way resemble a rock. But Katie asked me to share a few of the moves that we do in my class on The Skinny. I couldn't think of a good way to describe the exercises without making silly little videos of myself, so that's exactly what I did.
Now, this is just done on my kitchen floor with my husband recording me on our digital camera, so the quality isn't really that great. My form is far from perfect, but it will give you a general idea of what the moves are supposed to look like. I just chose a few of my favorites to demonstrate (and by favorites, I mean the moves that sort of make me feel like I'm going to die, but in a good way). With that said, onward to the embarrassing video clips!
I call this first exercise the "hard pushup thing". In class we use gliders, but paper towels work just fine. I like this exercise because it works my abs while I try to maintain a good pushup - or 'plank' - position, but it also really works on my upper body and arm strength.

Got it? Now repeat the whole cycle 3 or 4 times. My arms are really cooking by the end of it.
This next one I call the "one that makes my sides sore". There are three different levels of intensity for this move. The first is lifting just the knee, the second is touching the toe, and the third is lifting both legs up. I have (sort of) demonstrated all three levels in the clip.

Finally, this is the one I like to call the "lift your bum off the ground" move. It's pretty self explanatory. The one thing my instructor emphasises is it's not swinging the legs up, more lifting the legs up. Again, this one has 3 levels that I've (tried) to demonstrate.

And that's a small sampling of my abs class! I attend this class twice a week, and every time it really gives me a run for my money. When we're in the middle of a hard move, my instructor likes to call out "This is supposed to be hard! If it's not hard, you're not pushing yourself enough."