Adequate Abs

After hearing the same questions time after time I feel it is only right to clear up the whole ab issue. I am amazed how often people question me with a bewildered look on their face curious about how exactly to get that coveted "six pack." Here’s where the most important point comes in: it is peoples’ misconceptions about training and dieting that lead them astray. Most often it is not a lack of effort that results in a feeling of abdominal inadequacy. On the contrary, people rave about the number of crunches they do often numbering as high as several hundred several times per week.

Don’t get me wrong, it takes quite a lot of willpower to do that many crunches in one sitting, but that doesn’t mean that it’s what you need. Through no mistake of their own, and most often in taking advice from friends, people feel that in order to get the most defined stomach they have to do countless crunches or sit-ups in order to both burn the existing fat in that region and also build muscle.

This skewered perception about the types of exercises to do is often coupled with a misconception about frequency of training. Along with the multiple repetitions that people feel the need to perform there is also a sense that in order to tone the abs most effectively you must train them many times per week. This is simply not true. To have great abs there are two requirements.

The first is good muscular development of the rectus abdominis, (the muscles running from the lower belly to the bottom of the chest, aka the “six pack”) and the second is a low body fat percentage. In order to achieve the first requirement you must realize once and for all that the abdominal muscles are just like every other muscle in the body insofar as they need similar training to elicit a particular response. If you want to increase muscles definition it is a good idea to increase muscle size. (As long as you don’t add fat size as well) This is done by challenging the muscles with a weight and rep range that allows for adequate tension to be held on the muscle without sacrificing form. Ideally you should use a weight that is challenging for 8-12 reps.

There are literally dozens of effective ab exercises and only a few need to be completed during each workout. Despite the multitude of exercises, (which I will discuss specifically later) it recommended that you limit the frequency and the volume of your ab training. To be precise, abs need only be trained once per week, with three to five different exercises per workout. Going above and beyond this is possible but not recommended as it can result in over training.

Remember the abs are playing a part in many other exercises that you do for other muscle groups and only need limited direct work. The second requirement to have awesome abs is to lower the amount of fat in your body. This can be done with cardiovascular training done 3-5 times per week for one half hour. Ideally the aerobic training should be done with the heart beating at fifty to sixty percent of your max heart rate. In doing it this way you are staying in the “fat burning zone” and are limiting the amount of precious muscle you burn off and maximizing the amount of excess fat you shed. This is the best way to decrease body fat. This is how you allow your body to burn off the excess calories that often result in fat storage in the abdominal region. If you couple this with hard resistance isolation of the abdominal region and healthy eating you’ll end up with a cut midsection full of muscle!

http://www.MyLifeMyBody.com

Your Life, your Body, Make it Better!