The Correct Angle For Building Your Abs

Using the weight of your body during ab workouts is a great intensifier in the contractions your abdominals take in as you curl them. As a variation of the regular ab crunch, try these more difficult but nonetheless effective ab workouts by increasing the angle of resistance your body encounters as it makes its way up during movements. Doing crunches on a decline may tire your lower back easily, so make sure that you do the ab workouts on an angle which is as steep as your body can comfortably take.

Doing ab workouts on a decline requires you to position yourself on a decline bench which is initially set at an angle of 30 degrees, and then hook your feet under the foot bar; in this position your knees would be bent at an angle of 90 degrees.

Place your fingertips at the sides of your head as you relax your neck. Your back should not be against the bench but slightly raised from it; this is the best starting position in your ab workouts. Begin the ab workouts by slowly and carefully curling your chest in towards your thighs, contracting the abs on the top, then slowly and carefully going back to your first position.

As your line of sight is practically lower than your midsection during the ab workouts, it would be advisable to focus your eyes on your knees in order to maintain your stability and avoid jerking your body sideways as you perform the movements.

Also take note that you hinge your crunches from the middle of your abdomen, and not from your hips, in order to maximize the contractions in your ab workouts. If by chance you would like to improvise on the use of a decline bench, you could place several weight plates beneath the end of a flat bench, or you could hook one end of a flat bench over a racked barbell before positioning yourself the same way in the previously mentioned ab workouts.

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How To Get Flat Abs

How can you get flat abs? Actually, it's not that hard. Let's think about it for a minute - the reason your abs are not flat is because of two things. Firstly, you may have high levels of body fat. Although in men and women body fat tends to deposit on different parts of the body, the stomach and abs is a common location for both genders. A little beer gut or a little extra paunch around the waist makes your stomach rounded, which isn't good when you want to get flat abs.

What can you do? Well, let's go through a few simple changes to your lifestyle that'll show you hot to get flat abs in no time. The most important thing is to reduce your body fat levels, and that requires a two pronged attack.

The first prong is cutting down on your calorie intake during the day, so that means eating less sugary sweets, foods and drinks, avoiding fatty foods like triple cheeze pizzas or pork pies, and choosing low-calorie, diet, light or fat free alternatives wherever they're available.

On their own, each of these little changes might not seem like much, but when you combine them all you can drastically reduce your bad calorie intake during the day, and that's how to get flat abs. Without so many calories each day, your body will turn to its long term storage for energy - your body fat, and that means you'll lose weight naturally.

The second prong of this attack to get flat abs is to encourage your body to reach for those long term stores through regular exercise. Jog for 20-30 minutes a day, or do 60 minutes of brisk walking, or even swap the car journey to work for a bike ride twice a day. Regular exercise will burn off calories, reduce your body fat levels and flatten your abs.

The second reason why you may not have flat abs is your muscles may not be well toned, so while they're relaxed your internal organs may be pushing out your stomach. Firm muscles with good strength will naturally be tighter on your body and won't sag. By strengthening your ab muscles you'll find it easier to hold your stomach in all the time, and that's the second tip for how to get flat abs.

To toughen up your ab muscles, along with your 30 minutes of exercise do 20-30 minutes of ab exercises such as situps, crunches, leg raises and torso twists. You can find information about ab exercises online, in your local library or bookshop, or even by asking a personal trainer at your local gym for a short routine you can do at home without any equipment.

If you want to get flat abs, you need to firm and tone up the muscles. Once your abs are stronger, you can hold them in all day without even noticing. Making these small lifestyle changes doesn't have to be a big deal. A few little alterations to your daily routine and that's how you get flat abs!

It's all very well getting your diet right, eating healthily and losing plenty of bodyfat so your abs are on show, but if you don't workout properly you'll never get flat abs that look as good as the guys in the bodybuilding magazines. David Spencer is a fitness nutcase, and has spent years learning about weight loss and bodybuilding, and he recommends The Truth About Six Pack Abs training program - http://TheTruthAbout6PackAbs.com

How to Get 6 Pack Abs

We’ve all seen them in magazines, in commercials, anywhere we go it seems – the models and fitness gurus with the 6-pack abs. There is probably no greater indicator of sex appeal than abs of steel. So how do you get 6 pack abs? You can with a little bit of discipline and a lot of hard work.

Granted, you probably won’t receive the chiselled features you see in the ads but you can lose the fat and work the abdominal muscles into shape. All the hard work in the world won’t guarantee a 6 pack because it’s impossible for some people to achieve it. The muscular structure, just like everything else in the body, is different for everybody. Some people will get a 6-pack, while others have to be happy with a 4-pack or an 8-pack.

The first thing that needs to be done is lower overall body fat. This means 10% or less for men and 14% or less for women. This can be done in two ways, and these two ways should be used together. Exercise is a must and should come in the way of cardiovascular exercise. These are the exercises that get your heart pumping and more than likely, your body sweating. They are often high intensity and include things like riding the stationary bike, running, or spending some time on the elliptical machine. This exercise should be used in combination with resistance training. This is using either free weights or weight machines to build and define muscles. This will lower the body fat and make those abs more noticeable.

To help get you started on the road to lowering your caloric intake and get that 6 pack abs, here are some tips:

· Eat about 15% - 20% below your current calorie level
· Eat 5-6 small meals instead of 2-3 large ones
· Include some high quality protein with every meal
· Choose natural, complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, vegetables and brown rice
· Avoid simple carbohydrates such as white sugar and white flour

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The Quick and Easy Way to Tone Up Your Abs - Part 1

All About Abs

What You Really Need to Know About Abdominals: Two Key Concepts You Must Meet to Let Out the 6 Pack

Introduction - Understanding the Abdominals

Congratulations!

You are about to learn about a region of the body that almost everybody wants but somehow the secrets escape them. The weight loss industry may be a billion dollar a year market but a close second is all the late night infomercials about abs, 6 packs, 6 second abs and how to get ready for the beach and show off that region.

When it comes to abdominal training there are two basic areas of confusion. First, the myth exists that a 'specific' region exists like the 'lower abdominals.' Many people will claim their upper ab region is developing just fine but the lower abs are not responding to training. They are looking for a magic lower ab exercise that will target that region. If you do a search for any muscular images of the abdominals, it's clear that the rectus abdominus (a long winded name for the abs) is just a single muscle running from the sternum to the pelvis. These 'lower abdominals' simply don't exist.

The reason the lower region seems to be less responsive to training is that it is a natural fat storage area! Simply put, your entire ab region is probably responding to overall training but the lower region is simply not showing because it is covered up by a layer of fat. That area just happens to be the place that fat is the last to go. Very simply, the lower abdominal area is benefiting from your crunches and reverse crunches. The problem is, you just can't see it!

TEST: If you don't believe this then try this simple test: lie down on the floor in a typical crunch position. Place one hand on your lower abdominal area and the other on your upper abdominal area. Now perform a slowing crunching movement. You will feel both areas contract simultaneously as you curl up.

The second area of confusion revolves around exercise selection. Almost everybody still continues to perform hanging leg raises, knee-ups or similar exercises in an attempt to target the 'lower abs.' While these exercises do affect the abdominal area, they are not the best selection.

It's easy to clear up this exercise selection confusion if you understand the differences between the hip-flexion and trunk-flexion. A muscle called the psoas and related muscles (this is located deep against the spine) are responsible for hip-flexion while your abdominals are responsible for trunk-flexion.

Hip Flexion: Occurs when your lift your knee (or knees) towards your chest. For example, when you do a hanging knee-up, you will feel a burning sensation in the lower abdominal region (this alone convinces most people it's working that area). What is actually happening is the psoas is being stressed. You'll never be lean enough to see this muscle! Of course the abdominals are involved in this exercise for stabilization but it's not the primary muscle and so it's not the most effective. Other concerns revolve around the psoas being overworked that can lead to back problems.

Trunk Flexion: Occurs when you perform an exercise where the pelvis and sternum approach each other during the movement. At this point, you are in a state of maximal trunk flexion. Going any further and you'll engage the psoas muscle and you will be using hip-flexion (like in a full sit-up). When you train your abdominals you need to flex (or contact) your trunk.

FACT: For effective abdominal training, stick with trunk flexion movements (crunches and reverse crunches).

This series will focus on trunk flexion exercises so that tension is directly on the abdominals as that is the primary muscle we want to work. [Other muscles involved in stabilization will be involved but will not be the primary focus.]

That's all! The abdominals are just a muscle like everything else. There's nothing special about them that makes them any harder to obtain or develop then any other muscle group. Still, there are thousands of messages on community forums and fitness gurus everywhere get hundreds of messages a day regarding this. Not to mention the countless ab technology products that appear in stores every year promising a faster, easier way to get ripped abs. The purpose of this report is to tell you exactly step-by- step what you need to do to get ripped abdominals.

The Myths of Ripped Abdominals: - Countless crunches - Working them out every day - Strange machines or dangerous exercises - Fad diets - Fat burner pills - Marathon cardio sessions - Targeting lower and upper regions

The Secret of Ripped Abdominals: - Low percentage of body fat - Having the muscle to show

Did I just blow the end of the story for you? Hopefully not.

Key Concept #1: You Must Have a Low Percentage of Body Fat For starters, if you have a layer of body fat covering the region, you will never be able to show the abs. For men, this is the LAST place the fat will disappear from which makes it the hardest body part to show.

You "get abs" from reducing your body fat and you reduce body fat mostly through diet and cardio..

And yet, somehow this concept escapes people. In order for the abs to show proudly, you must have a low percentage of body fat! There's really not a whole lot more to it.

Men: 10% or lower Women: 15% or lower

Why is that so difficult for most people?

Simple. In order to get your body fat that low you must be absolutely focused on your diet and fat burning metabolism. 99% of people (including myself) are not as perfect on the diet as to burn off our natural body fat stores. So in order to get rid of that last layer, you must burn off the last remaining body fat stores. And to do that you must have great nutrition habits (above and beyond just being active).

Key Concept #2: You Must Have Abs to Show

First off...

If you are 110 lbs and just skin and bones and 3% body fat but no muscle really, then it's not a surprise why your abs aren't popping out every time you take off your shirt. There are a few people I've run across that are well below the 10% body fat limit and yet they are puzzled when their abdominals don't show. That's almost as easy as 1+1. You MUST have abs to show!

You can have a low body fat percentage but if you don't have anything to show, you'll just see a flat stomach (which is good) but no definition and certain no 'packs.' There are also individuals who have 15% body fat but their abs are so developed they can show off a 4-pack. While they don't have that low of a body fat percentage to classify as 'ripped' they do have great development and certainly the muscle is there. Just think what it might look like on them if they were to be 10% or lower?!

That's where ab exercises come into play. Performing key abdominal exercises is a key to developing the trunk region to the fullest. Many people are looking for the illusive lower ab exercise or performing exercises they believe to target a certain region but are really working the wrong muscle. Having abs is as simple as doing the right core exercises. That will be part of the 6 months of ab training at the end of this series.

Now that you understand some key concepts in order to get the abs to show, let's figure out how to eliminate that annoying layer of fat around them.

Stay tuned for Part 2 that will discuss why nutrition is 90% or More of Your Success.

If you can't wait, the Beginner's Guide to Abdominal Training is just one bonus book in the Beginner's Guide to Fitness and Bodybuilding http://www.beginning-bodybuilding.com