I realized after basically bombarding you with my overall fitness philosophy, I never really did answer your specific question regarding some other ab exercises other than the crunch and all its many forms:
- I like hanging from the arm slings and raising my knees to my chest, and then when you get more advanced, raise your legs straight up, while extended.
- I like leaning back on a Swill ball and raising my chest to the ceiling with hands behind head. On the way back down you can hyperextend to get a good stretch on the lower abs.
- I like lying reverse on an inclined sit-up bench with my head high, and holding the leg brace padded bar with my hands and doing leg lifts to the ceiling.
- You can do modified leg lifts while lying flat on your back on the floor and lifting your entire pelvis and legs toward the sky.
Many of these obviously work more than just the abs, engaging the hip-flexors and rectus-femoris muscle of the quads. But that is the idea: Building functional all-around core strength.
I recommend never isolating or emphasizing the obliques, (AKA, 'love-handles'), because building these muscles, though they make a man's phyique look like a man, can make your waist look wider and be mistaken for fat, or amplify a spare-tire look. So no side twists or angled crunches. Speaking of obliques and properly presenting a your physique - when you or any of us guys wear boardshorts at the beach or are shirtless, make sure your shorts are pulled down slightly lower than where your lower obliques insert back into your hips. This will make your torso appear longer, your waist appear slimmer, and, the abs are not properly showcased if the obliques are not displayed along with them! (Just make sure butt-crack is not showing for goodness sake! Remember, this is not the same thing as wearing your pants like a G or young punk. This is a classy look.)
These aforementioned exercises all work the '6-pack muscles', but to emphasize a flatter stomach you must engage the 'transverse-abdominus', which runs across your mid-section like a big waist band, and is responsible for pulling your navel inward. You work this simply by sucking in your gut often!
In fact back in Bodybuilding's golden years this used to be a classic pose made most famous by Arnold, known as the 'Vacuum'. Nowadays, unfortunately, there is so much 'Roid-gut' and distended, overdeveloped abs in bodybuilding, this is no longer a realistic pose for most IFBB pros. This is mostly attributed to abuse of Growth Hormone and other anabolic steroids.
Hope this helps,
Max
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