One dumbbell, eight minutes, six-pack abs: Try this Chris Heria workout

There's lots of ways to work being fit and healthy into your daily routine. You could walk to work instead of driving, or get off the bus one stop early. You could bring a healthy (and cheaper) packed lunch rather than grabbing a convenient, sugar-and-salt-filled snack. 

However, sometimes nothing beats a quick core workout to make you sweat in a short amount of time. The best workouts for abs can be done in just a few minutes, helping you to fit one in first thing in the morning or last thing when you come home. HIIT workout principles are often used to up the intensity, working at your maximum effort between brief resting periods. 

This eight-minute core workout from YouTube's Chris Heria is a perfect routine to fit into your busy day. Heria has been uploading calisthenics workouts to the platform for years, and has amassed a considerable following of over 3.65 million subscribers. 

Heria says "Most of the time, we use our own body weight as resistance to train our abdominals like when doing leg raises, mountain climbers or sit-ups, which is super effective. But after some time, if you want to create more 'progressive overload' you're either going to need to increase your repetitions or add resistance.

"In this case, I'll be increasing the resistance with a dumbbell."

If you've done a fair few abs workouts and you're looking to step up that resistance level, grab one of the best adjustable dumbbells from our list and follow Heria's routine below:

Watch: Chris Heria's eight minute abs workout

Not quite ready for added resistance? Heria says you can use your best water bottle or similar sized object instead to replicate the movements, and slowly work up to the increased resistance of a dumbbell. 

Heria's workout takes just eight minutes, organised into 45-second periods of exercise followed by 15 seconds of rest. This is done eight times with eight different movements, the end result being a comprehensive six-pack workout which hits your muscles in many different ways – all performed under 10 minutes. Sound good?

This exercise is great for people who are just focused on improving core strength. But if you want a shredded six-pack, you're going to need to focus on diet too. Drinking lots of water, exercising portion control (our portion size guide can help you here) and maintaining a "calorific deficit" as Heria notes, will all help you lose belly fat and reveal those six-pack abs underneath. 

Ditching refined sugars and processed foods, and eating more fruit, vegetables, and lean cuts of higher-quality meat will also help – it's as much about the quality of your diet as the quantity. If you're a vegetarian or vegan, skip the meat and grab some inspo from our best vegan cookbooks list.