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 Defined Abs For The Ultimate Body

The ultimate body shape, for men anyway, is the V shape. This inverted triangle shape is a natural shape that the eye is drawn to. The eye and the brain naturally look at the shoulders than rests at the abdominals to ascertain the slimness of that person. The differential between how broad and massive the shoulders are and the tightness and "smallness" of the abs is what the brain uses to perceive the fitness of the individual.

To get the ultimate body, you must have bumpy abs, or what is often referred to as the six pack. Without this detail a muscular body loses its legitimacy. You are often perceived more as fat than muscular until you have that six pack detail. The reason why is because of aesthetics and not muscles. When an area has no features it looks bigger because the eye has nothing to look at in the middle so it naturally follows the outline of that area. Because of this, an area is always perceived bigger when it is featureless, this is a well documented fact and known in scientific circles as an optical illusion.

If you have a thick layer of fat on your abdominals, what happens is that the details or definition of the muscles underneath are not visible. It is just a flat area with the belly button in the middle. The eye naturally traces at the edges because apart from the belly button there is no features to dwell on. This makes your torso look bigger not smaller.

There is a lot of confusion about abdominals. Specifically because what happens is this, we decide we want a nice tight set of abdominals, so what do we do about it? We train them of course. But something strange happens when we train them. The abs start looking worse, our body starts looking worse than before we put in the work! If you have a layer of fat on your tummy and on top of this layer, you enlarge your abdominal muscle group, what happens is the entire area gets bigger!!! But what we are actually after is the V taper. Large shoulders, small waste right? I hope this is making sense to you!

To get a defined set of abs you need to reduce your body fat percentage and not enlarge your abs too much. You want to train them to the point where they are bumpy. But that's it. Any more and your torso becomes too wide and that V shape becomes a square. Build shoulders arms and chest and reduce your body fat. Your abs will naturally show and be the focal point of your physique.

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How To Get Six Pack Abs

Whether you want to get six pack abs, or just looking to lose a bit of extra luggage you're carrying around the mid-section, there are 3 "key" areas you need to focus on to get six pack abs.

Strong abs not only help strengthen your lower back, but also improve upon your posture. Most lower back injuries occur, believe it or not, due to weak abs. Focus on these three areas and over time, you will see improved results.

Key # 1- Proper cardiovascular work

You can have the greatest, most muscular set of six pack abs in the world, but if they're blanketed by a layer of body fat, who cares. In order to rid yourself of the extra body fat around your midsection, you need to incorporate effective cardio sessions into your fitness plan.

You cannot spot-reduce the midsection by doing extra ab exercises like crunches or sit-ups. You first must burn off the body fat through proper cardio to properly define the area. Abdominal training by itself will not do much. Cardio needs to be intense enough to do the trick.

Three to four sessions a week, 20 minutes at a time, of intense jogging, running, the Stairmaster, the elliptical, jumping rope, or biking should be enough to get the process in gear. Swimming, hiking, and taking aerobics classes are beneficial as well.

Nothing beats jogging or running. It is the most intense, efficient, and effective method of burning calories. If running outside hurts your joints, try running inside on a treadmill or outside on a dirt path. It definitely is easier on the body.

Again, you NEED three to four intense cardio sessions a week, at least 20 minutes a session, to help create a calorie deficit and help rid the body of the fat that covers and lessens your chances of getting six pack abs.

Key # 2- Proper Nutrition

Do not sabotage your results in the gym by giving yourself a passport to pig out. Ridding the body of fat once and for all is accomplished by proper nutrition more so than incorporating cardio. At the end of the day, if you have consumed more calories than you have expended, you add body fat. So you need to burn more calories than you consume.

Nutrition is important because you can reduce the amount of calories you take in, therefore greatly having an effect on the amount which you have to expend through cardio. Eat five to six small, well-balanced meals spaced apart about every three to four hours. Try to keep something healthy on hand.

If not, when you become real hungry, you will opt for something that isn?t as good for you. When you become overly hungry, all rational thinking goes out the window. But it is important to get something in you. Not eating on time or at all is almost as bad as eating too much.

Keep protein intake high (approximately 50% of daily calories), carbs moderate (40%), and fats minimal (10%). Muscle fiber is made of tightly-wound protein molecules that is damaged during a workout, so you need more protein than the sedentary person to help that muscle tissue repair.

Carbohydrates have an important role in the body, but do not base your meals on them. Try to avoid simple sugars like cane sugar, honey, fruit juices, syrups, and even a lot of fruit.

Drink at least a gallon of clean water each day as well. It will help in nutrient absorption and digestion and will help flush toxins from the body.

Bottom line, make sure you are supplying your body with well-balanced, healthy food every three to four hours. To ensure you are creating a calorie deficit, you should find out your daily caloric requirements that you need just to maintain your current bodyweight.

Since you are looking to reduce your current body weight by getting rid of some fat, you want to speed up creating a calorie deficit. One way is how we talked about above, doing cardio.

The other is by reducing the amount of calories you consume by 150-200 calories per day off your daily calorie maintanence amount.

For example, if you require, at your age, weight, activity levels, etc...2000 calories just to maintain your current weight, start reducing that number to 1800 to 1850 for a couple weeks.

If after a couple weeks you still do not see results, lower that number again by 150-200. Now you would be at 1600 to 1650 calories.

Again, the key to getting six pack abs is ridding your body of the fat covering the abs.

The only way to do this is by creating a calorie deficit so that your body burns calories for needed fuel. When you burn stored calories, you're burning body fat. The way to properly do this is a combo of increased, intense cardio and a gradual reduction of calories.

Key # 3- Weight training the abdominals

Here is where most people go wrong in their attempt to develop their abs. I often ask those I train, "Would you train your biceps with sets of 50 reps with no weight"? Of course, they say no. "How about your chest, 50 reps with no weight?" Another no. I then ask, "Then why would you do that with your abs"?

Here's an important key. If you want proper ab development, you need to add resistance (weight) to your ab exercises. Abs are muscles just like biceps, triceps, pecs, glutes, whatever. You need resistance to properly strengthen and build them. The same goes for abdominals.

Here are some effective ab exercises to incorporate for proper ab stimulation.

Weighted crunches. Grab a dumbbell, either hold it in front of your face, or let it lie on your upper chest, under your chin, and perform regular crunches. You are now using your abs more to work against the leverage the dumbbell has created. Stick with a heavy enough weight where you can handle 10-15 reps, but no more. Remember, you need to create enough resistance where your abs are forced to work.

Cable Rope crunches--grab the tricep rope, kneel on your knees, and bend downwards, forcefully contracting your abs on the way down. It's basically a crunch, only, you are on your knees. But the contraction is the same. Don't swing with the hips, you are not using the abs very much if you do. Just a slight, 30 degree contraction until you feel the abs contract, hold for a couple seconds, then back up.

Weighted leg raises-- Lie flat on your back, with your hands tucked under your butt. Wrap your feet around a small dumbbell, and perform leg raises. Start with your feet about 6 inches from the ground, then raise them about 12-16 inches from the ground and then back down slowly. These can be done on the end of a bench as well.

Seated ab machine-- once again, do not swing all the way down, just far enough (30 degrees) to fully contract the abs, hold for a couple seconds, then back up. This is very similar to Cable rope crunches.

Stability Ball Crunches-- working on the stability ball will incorporate balance into your abdominal work. They are effective at strengthening your core region, which is your abs and lower back.

You lie down on a stability ball like you are going to perform a crunch. Position yourself on the ball so your lower back is resting on it. Keep your feet close together on the floor making your body less stable (helps incorporate more balance on your part) and place your hands behind your head or folded on your chest. Crunch your upper body towards your knees, exhaling as you contract your abs. Under muscular control, lower yourself back to the original position keeping full tension on the abs.

Regardless of what exercise you do, the key is to add weight/resistance. If not, you will never increase the amount of lean muscle tissue in the area. You only need to train your abs twice a week for maximum results. Once again, treat them like any other muscle group (which means you wouldn't train them more often). Combine this weight training with proper diet and intense cardio and that elusive six-pack is yours to be had!

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