I want to get abs

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Right now what I'm doing is moving up and down my torso so it works out my abs is this effective?
If not what could I do at home to get some sick abs?

Crunches. That's pretty much the classic way.

Of course, if you've got belly fat at all, it won't show up; but you will still be stronger.

If you're sore, take a day off. You wanna let your muscles rebuild themselves.

Yay wikipedia!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunch_%28exercise%29

Personally I have tried weight and strength training, but I really prefer cardio, because it just feels good. I don't do any strength training anymore at all, actually. But don't forget the walking, running, swimming, or whatever you do to get your heart pumping. That'll give you the biggest bang for your buck as far as fitness is concerned.

Hanging leg raises seem to be very effective.

#1, which many people don't know, is that we all have washboard abs. The issue is, do they show or not. You won't be able to see them until the body fat level goes below about 10%, and if you really want them to be radically ripped, you need to aim for 5% body fat. In some cases, that's too low and not healthy (if you have diabetes, a family history of cancer or other illnesses). You need some body fat stored, in case of illness where you can't digest food. If no fat at all, you can starve much faster, and get sicker.

Anyway, with that out of the way, work toward getting the body fat down very low, and when you start to see the abs, it will make you feel a lot more like shaping them up. I'm not an "expert" in many things, but ripped abs might be one place where I am an expert; at least for myself.

Charles

x250rider hit the nail on the head.

"Abs" are all about low bodyfat. Some people are naturally lean, and so have abs without even trying even when they eat high calorie foods.

Where as most normal people wont have visible abs even if they are very active and have an excellent diet. If you are someone who naturally has quite a bit of fat around your mid-section, you will really have to work hard with restrictive diets and exercise to burn calories and get them showing.

It may not be worth it.

In addition to this, training your anterior abdominal muscles with situps/crunches etc can cause serious postural problems if you do not do other (more valuable) exercises which strengthen your psoterior chain. (Back, glutes, hamstrings etc).

Most normal/sedentary people have shortened tight hip flexors. Doing situps & leg raises will make them even tighter. This will give you postural and gait problems.

Some of the most intense abdominal exercises you can do are actually full body ones which will make your whole body stronger, more athletic and give you great posture. These are squats and deadlifts.

The only things that will work your abs harder than these are stuff like Ab roller or Gynastics front levers and such. Which are probably much too hard for you to do anyway.

To get visible abdominal muscles/definition is several steps.I'm a woman,former dancer,and I'm just not too excited to get the "ripped,six pack" look that is so lucrative to some people.
Cardiovascular exercise in order to burn fat.Running,swimming,hiking,dancing,anything that gets your heart rate up for 60 minutes a day.
I always recommend yoga.All the breathing works your abdominal muscles,keeping them engaged.
Core strengthening,like with a bosu ball or balance ball,or just light weights.Navasana (Boat pose )is a great one,as well as others.These poses I posted I do daily,and they do indeed work your abdominals.Contrary to popular belief,crunches and sit ups don't really do much:what they actually do is strain your psoas ! so be careful!

But generally,you should go take a yoga class instead of trying to learn the poses yourself.


NOTE: the yogi in the these pictures is freakishly flexible! don't try to replicate him,especially in that last pose! I've never seen a person so hyper extended!

Press ups?

Do body support exercises. None of the weightlifting stuff is needed. So...push-ups/press-ups, pull-ups, chin-ups, flutter kicks, and crunches applied with cardio (running, swimming, biking).

Invest in a cheap $20 pull-up bar if you don't have a gym membership.

If you're finding it hard to motivate yourself, just do 20 push-ups each time you exit your room and 1-10 pull-ups/chin-ups before every meal/snack. Then, do 100 crunches before you enter the shower (so, morning and night).

Also, this will help you: Ab Ripper X

Ultimately, abs are made in the kitchen meaning you have to eat a healthy diet. Veggies, fruits, lean meats (chicken, fish), water, and good carbs.

A. Start eating foods that are high in protein and low in saturated fat, for instance, peas, rice, chicken, soy beans, protein shakes.
B. Start doing uphills sprints in small intervals to build your cardiovascular system and lung capacity.
C. Start working your core, exercises to search are: Crunches, Reverse crunches, Twist sit ups, Standing wheel roll out, V-up, Russian Twist, Back Extension, Turkish get up, The Bridge, Super mans, Knee hugs, Leg Raises. These exercises should develop the core if implemented correctly into a core program. Use YouTube or Google to search the exercises and make sure you examine the correct form, it's very important to get form correct.

For instance, a starter abs workout would look like this:
Crunches x 20
Reverse Crunches x 20
Twist Sit Ups x 20
The Bridge - 1 minute
Back Extensions x 12
Repeat Circuit 3 times without rest, take 5-10 seconds rest between each set.

Right nutrition and a lot of cardio would play a big role in getting the abs really showing. Here's a suggestion: if you are going to go through all the hard work to get sick abs, why not go get total body fitness and good muscles showing all around too? It's worth considering. Wolfheart's suggestion is a pretty good one. One thing i have enjoyed is researching every type of fitness and diet I could find. I would suggest adding to Wolfheart's suggestion the following: adding pullupsX7(per circuit) and pushupsX22 per circuit(handstand pushups if you can handle it). Once you are handling the workout fairly well, try adding a time limit for each station(pushups=station, crunches=station, etc.), say a minute for each, and continually increase the repetitions you can do in a minute per station.
If you are not at the fitness level it takes to do Wolfheart's workout, that's perfectly okay. Just work towards it, and don't get frustrated(very important) If you are, that's great. If you are a reader(I don't know if you are), The Art of Expressing the Human Body is a suprisingly comprehensive book about fitness, muscle building, nutrition, cardio, exercises, and exercise science. It's a book by a bodybuilder written on firsthand research on Bruce Lee's knowledge of fitness(mostly from Bruce Lee's journals). A very readable, concise (and understandable by a normal person) book too.
My two paragraphs are good advice if you are willing to go that extra mile.

If you're not naturally lean, you got to run to get abs. It will strengthen your core, plus burn away the fat covering it. Someone mentioned Ab Ripper X, and is a great program for getting abs, but if you have fat over them, it won't matter how big they are until you burn the fat.

Everyone is right. Its about diet. Get rid of the fat and you'll see abs even if they aren't all that built up. Keep the fat and they won't show through no matter how much you work them out. Videos like RevAbs can help build them up and they've got the whole program to help you get thin too.

Diet is one of the most important aspects of weight loss, along with weight training/resistance training You have to be in a calorie defficent to lose weight, and a calorie surplus to gain weight. Whenever you lose weight, you lose both lean body mass and fat tissue. I believe the fat that you store just underneath the skin is called andipose tissue. This is where triglyceride fat is stored (I think). The fat around your internal organs is called visceral fat.These from what I've learned, cushions your internal organs and such. Too much visceral fat is not good, too little is not good either. Your body needs some fat. Bodybuilders who bulk and cut (They get in a calorie surplus to gain mass, both lean body mass and fat), and then lose the weight while training to maintain the muscle that they gained. This is the cut part. Using this method it is possible to get extremely lean, it's what bodybuilders do for competitions. Most professional body builders I've heard are not in professional ideal shape until they are 3-5% bodyfat in men. This is extremely low. And not healthy. Like the other person said, if you want "ripped" abs like you see so often in the media, its unrealistic and you need to get your body fat extremely low to unhealthy levels. Models who do shoots who are bodybuilders often to get 5% BF just for the shoot, its not healthy to stay that low for long, and then gain fat to stay around 9-11%.