Effective Abs Exercises - Part II

It is important that you combine the following ab workouts with the others we have previously discussed for more intense results.Alternate exercises which target the front midsection with ab workouts that target the sides.The most common ab workouts revolve around the basic crunches, though variations are made to target nuance areas around the abdomen.

A great thing about the abdominal crunch in exercises is that it focuses the strain all in one small area - that is, the midsection, by controlling contractions.The following ab workouts are designed for a better-rounded abdomen, and also to expose those enviable muscles called the six-pack.

Intense exercises, coupled with an over-all body shaping program, will give proportion to the entire body.Try the following ab workouts to burn that beer belly and reveal that six pack.

Wood chop ab workouts are exercises designed to target your side abdominals.This is a great way for beginners to try out since it involves simple movements while giving great contractions to your abdominals.You begin your exercises by attaching one end of an exercise rubber band to something stationary and sturdy, and then wrap your hand around the other end for increased tension.

Continue your exercises by grasping the end of the rubber band with both hands, and then begin a lunging position, reaching down with the arms.Keep your arms straight the entire time you do your workout, rotate and lift your body sideways while doing a diagonal motion.

Repeat your exercises by returning to starting position and moving to the other side.Trying out this workout tightens your side abdominals if done properly, and preferably regularly.In addition, these ab workouts must not be overdone as it may cause possible irreversible damage to your abdominal muscles.Overdoing your regimen may cause muscle damage and other injuries.

The recommended regimen for your ab workouts would be to perform several exercises, at least three to five at a time, two to three times a week with a day's rest in between ab workouts.The purpose of this is to make sure your abdominals get the most contractions during your regimen while giving them time to relax, thereby reducing muscle tear and other injuries which may be experienced when overdoing ab workouts.

You can start your ab workouts by doing two sets of ten to fifteen repetitions per exercise.As you progress in your exercises, you can move to three sets of twenty repetitions, and so on as you become accustomed to the increasing strain.

Remember, you should not do all of the available exercises in your regimen as there may be strain to your muscles; too much of it results to tissue damage.You can try out these simple exercises and incorporate them in your ab workouts.

In the "Alternating superman" workout, you begin by lying face down on an exercise mat with your arms stretched way above your head, just like superman.You continue your regimen by raising your right arm and left leg about five to six inches off of the floor, or preferably as far as you comfortable can.Hold this position in your exercises for three seconds and then relax your body.Repeat your ab workouts by doing the exact same process with the other arm and leg. In side bend ab workouts, you begin by holding a dumbbell with your hand, then stand with your feet shoulder width apart and knees slightly bent.Continue your ab workouts by placing your left hand behind your head and slowly bend sideways to your right side while lowering the weights to your knees.Finish your regimen by returning to first position and repeating with the other side.

James never thought he would be a personal gym trainer when he once weighed 311 lbs.He is now a total fanatic about muscle-building and crunches his way through his CSI. Now doing freelance teaching to people who require proper healthy diets, he always advocate his motto of "not giving up".

Get to know more about Ab Workouts Here!

Positive Attitude For Achieving Six Pack Abs

When you are negative it affects your body in so many different ways. You become stressed and tense and may find that you can’t concentrate and focus. You may quit during your exercise program because you don’t see any results yet. This may take you longer to achieve your six pack abs that you wanted to have. Without a positive attitude your dream to be toned, healthy and in shape may be replaced by sadness because you were unable to achieve your goal. You need to tell yourself that you can achieve anything you put your mind to.

You have probably heard the old saying “Its mind over matter”. This means that you can convince yourself of anything if you want to. Exercising and losing weight is no exception to this rule. If you want to get six pack abs you can do that just by convincing yourself that you are worth it and you can do anything you want to do. A positive attitude on any situation is a lot easier to deal with than if your had a negative outlook on everything. The first thing you need to realize is that you are worth every effort you put forth in order to take care of your body. Anytime you can improve your health and make yourself look and feel better you know you will have positive results.

You will also have greater success if you have a positive attitude. Negativity can prevent a positive result. If you are planning on losing weight, toning muscles or achieving six pack abs, think positive and know that you can do it.

Download your free report today and discover the SHOCKINGLY simple abdominal workouts, exercises and nutritional advice that will shed pounds from your stomach & transform your flabby belly into firm & flat six pack abs. Visit http://www.firmupyourabs.com to download your free copy

Toning Your Abs

If you are serious about toning your abs, you need to do a lot more than just a few sit ups every night. You need to focus on a lot more than just muscle development and weight loss if you want to achieve your goals. The first thing you need to do is educate yourself about what goes into the most effective ab workouts, and which workouts are simply a waste of time!

The first thing you need to know about toning your abs is that there is more than just one set of abdominal muscles that need to be worked on. In fact there are three, and each of them require equal amounts of attention or your entire workout plan can be rendered ineffective. The three muscle groups you need to concentrate are your rectus abdominis, your obliques and your transverse abdominus.

The rectus abdominis is the muscle group that is most commonly associated with the “six pack” although it is not the only one responsible for ripped abs. We’ll get to this part of toning your abs later, but first you need to concentrate on your transverse abdominis. This is the muscle that runs underneath your rectus abdominis and wraps around the lower part of your rib cage. Apart from protecting your internal organs, this muscle is responsible for both your core strength and your core stability.

This part of toning your abs is the most difficult, but is the most essential part of having a well developed abdomen. Doing deep breath-and-release exercises or water exercises are both good ways of developing your core abdominal muscles. Deep breathing exercises like the Vacuum are done by filling your lungs to capacity, then breathing out while sucking your stomach in. Hold at the point where you feel your muscles tighten for two to three seconds, then release. Do sets of eight if you can, and do them every day!

Training your obliques is something that a lot of people neglect, but they are one of the most important muscle groups if you are toning your abs to look good. Men’s Health Magazine asked women all over the world what the sexiest muscles on a man were, and the obliques came out top almost all over the world. To tone these muscles simply do bicycle twist crunches. Lie on your back in sit up position, clasping your hands behind your head. Bring one knee up to your chest, and contract your stomach muscles to lift your shoulder blades off the ground. Point your left elbow at your right knee, then do it the other way. Try to do six on each side per set if you are looking to lose weight.

When you are toning your abs, the rectus abdominus muscles are actually the easiest to work with. Performing three sets of the double vertical leg lift will give these muscles definition within a few weeks. Lie on your back and lift your legs 90 degrees to the ground. Cross your ankles, and clasp your hands behind your head. Now contract your stomach muscles to both lift your feet towards the ceiling and your shoulder blades off the ground. You should feel it start to burn all over your abdominal region.

This exercise is one of the most effective for toning your abs, especially if you want to lose weight in your belly area. Doing longer sets with shorter time intervals can really burn fat, and if you do three sets of these every night you should start to see positive results in as little as two weeks.

John Ripper is a fitness freak. Discover free tips and tricks to get six pack abs at Toning Your Abs

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

Learn the Truth About Weight Loss and Getting Great Abs

Debunking The Ab Myth

Ab training has been done to death but it's time to take another look. Why? Because people are still training their abs wrong so all that ab training information must not be doing the job.

1 - No Spot Reducing - Endless crunches will not melt away the fat from your midsection. It just doesn't work that way. And despite the "burn" of high rep ab exercises, you barely burn any calories while doing those endless crunches.

Your fat burning time is best spent elsewhere on more effective training. You also don't work the ab muscle intensely enough to develop it.

So endless high rep crunches fail on both counts - poor muscle building and poor fat burning. Two thumbs down as the cliche goes.

2 - The Abs are a Muscle and should be trained as such. You don't need high reps and lots of sets to work your abs. This just leads to overtraining.

Now, abs are a more endurance oriented muscle so slightly higher reps may be more effective. However, you should keep the reps at 20 or lower and work on increasing the resistance.

Yes, you should be increasing the weights on ab exercises, just like your other exercises. The stronger your abs, the better they will look when the fat is stripped away.

Ever see a really thin guy with a flat stomach but no abs? The abs haven't been trained and aren't developed enough to stand out even when the fat is stripped away.

3 - Don't train the abs - What the heck do I mean by this? Well, your abs get a lot of indirect work from other exercises so you really won't need more than a couple of hard sets of weighted crunches to work your abs.

Your abs are a factor in exercises such as squats, deadlifts, seated or standing presses, dumbbell pullovers, pulldowns, etc. Don't believe me?

Next time you work out, do a few hard sets of standing stiff armed pulldowns on the lat machine and tell me your abs aren't sore the next day. I did them yesterday and my abs are more sore than my back today.

If you want to develop a flat stomach with your abs visible, you need to treat your abs like a muscle and train that way. And you need to strip away the fat with a proper training and nutrition program designed around total fat loss, not trying to spot reduce through endless crunches.

Is there anything out there in the fitness world suffering from more misinformation that how to get abs?

The number of ab machines constantly coming to market is mind boggling. Especially considering that they aren't needed and won't give you the results that you want.

Let's set the record straight on ab training right now and give you the real information you need so you can say no to the next infomercial ab machine and yes to actual abs.

1 - Training your abs consistently will eventually give you the flat stomach or six-pack that you want.

No. It's not gonna happen if your abs are covered by a layer of body fat and doing endless sets of ab exercises is not the way to rid yourself of that excess body fat.

2 - Train your abs everyday for best results.

Again, no. Your abs are a muscle, just like your chest, lats, arms and so on. You should train your abs just like these other muscles, with progressive resistance and high intensity - then allow them to rest and recover. Never train your abs more than 3 days a week.

3 - You need to do hundreds or reps and feel the burn to get great abs.

Yep, again the answer is no. The abs a muscle just like I mentioned above. To get six pack abs you need to strip off the fat, but you also need to build the abs to get them to really pop out.

If the muscle isn't developed, you'll just have a flat stomach but no abs. The name of the game is progressive resistance for sets of 8 - 20 reps, just like your other muscles.

4 - Train the abs with lots of sets and high reps to burn off stomach fat.

You guessed it. This is also false. Spot reduction just isn't going to happen as much as we'd all like it to. You can't burn fat on your stomach by doing endless crunches.

You need to put together a proper weight lifting program, nutrition plan, and cardio in order to rid your stomach of that stubborn layer of fat and bring yout your abs.

Gregg Gillies

Gregg Gillies is a speaker, consultant, fat loss expert, trainer and author. He teaches fitness via his articles, books and courses at his web site http://www.buildleanmuscle.com . He is the author of two books: Complete information on his books, along with lots of free articles are available at his site. And while there, don't forget to sign up for his free newsletter, "Fit Physique".