Fitness Guru Kayla Itsines Encourages Instagram Followers To Exercise With Five-Minute Ab Workout

Kayla Itsines has been encouraging her 12.3 million Instagram followers to keep up with their workouts despite the coronavirus lockdown by posting a variety of exercise videos that can be done anywhere and don’t require much equipment. On Friday, the fitness trainer took to the popular social media platform to share a five-minute ab workout that only requires the use of an exercise mat.

For the workout, Kayla takes to the outdoors, putting her mat on what appears to be a synthetic sports field. She wears a red sports bra that contrasts nicely with her bronzed skin and allows her followers to glimpse a swath of toned tummy. She pairs the top with gray gym shorts that extend to just below her backside, leaving her sculpted legs exposed. The fitness trainer completes the outfit with white sneakers and an exercise watch. Her long, brown tresses are scooped up into a high bun on top of her head to keep her hair out of her face as she moves through the workout.

The ab workout circuit includes five exercises that Kayla performs without breaks in between. The first exercise, known as commando, is a type of pushup that involves resting the upper body on the forearms and extending each arm one at a time.

The second exercise is called the straight-leg jackknife. Kayla lies flat on her back and lifts her legs toward her chest at the same time she raises her torso off the ground and attempts to touch her feet with her outstretched arms. The third exercise, the bent-leg jackknife differs in that Kayla bends her legs at the knee as she brings them in toward her body.

The second-to-last exercise that Kayla demonstrates is called the single-leg plank. Getting into a plank position, Kayla alternates lifting each leg off the ground and balancing her weight on the other for 30 seconds on each side. The final exercise is the classic ab bike, which involves moving the legs in a cycling motion while lifting the torso and attempting to touch the opposite knee with an elbow, alternating sides.

In the caption of the post, the gym buff outlines each exercise and includes how many reps her followers should perform of each. She adds that they should set a timer for five minutes and challenge themselves to complete the entire circuit within that time frame. More advanced trainees can try to see how many laps of the circuit they can finish in those five minutes.

The video earned over 20,000 likes and hundreds of comments just within the first couple of hours of being posted.