The Secret To Razor Sharp Abs

The side abdominal crunch is the equivalent of the basic crunch ab workouts which you perform on your back, though this exercise focuses more on your oblique abdominals. It is one of the more solid ab workouts because it is simple and effective. There is no reason for underestimating this exercise, though, as there is much more than meets the eye with the side crunch. Performing them with focused intensity can give your side abdominals a formidable load, even if you are an advanced body builder.

Position your self for the ab workouts by lying on the floor with your back against it and your knees together and slightly bent, just like how your form should look like in a regular ab crunch. Put your feet on the floor, and then place your left hand at the side of your head, while your right hand is positioned on the right side of your midsection area. Then keep your knees together as you let them fall to the right, as your head and chest faces up to the ceiling. Breathe in and brace your body for the ab workouts.

Begin by breathing out, and then curling and crunching your chest toward the hip that is faced up. Though your lower trunk is faced to the right, make sure that you curl your upper body straight up during the ab workouts. Cap off them by slowly returning to your starting position.

Complete an entire set of about ten to 15 repetitions of this exercise, and then roll over and do the same movements with your knees and lower trunk facing the other side. If you would like to add range in the motion, try placing a half foam roller beneath your lower back or your hips, or do the exercise on a Swiss ball or on a Roman chair.

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Exercise Equipment For Toned, Sexy Six Pack Abs

With today’s technology there is a piece of equipment for almost everything. Equipment can make doing something easier and faster. Exercising is no different. You can use a tread mill for walking and you can use an exercise bike for stationary biking. But when it comes to working out your abs, there is not a lot of equipment that you need.

Some people use an exercise ball that helps them to stretch their abdominal muscles and become more flexible as they target the abs. This strengthens the abdomen and allows you to tone with every exercise. Choosing an exercise ball that fits you is a great way to get the most out of your exercise ball. Before purchasing a ball, you need to check the size by sitting on the ball. Make sure that your hips are slightly higher than the knees but not much.

Use the ball when strengthening the abs to tighten and tone. You can do exercises such as the Ball Crunch which requires you to lie down on your back and bend your knees. Squeeze your thighs and hold the ball between your legs. Lock your hands behind your head and lift the upper part of the body toward your knees. You should feel the tight feeling on your abdominal muscles. Now, release and lie flat on the floor again. Hold and release 10-12 times. Be creative on your exercise and work your abs the way you want to. If the exercising becomes painful, stop immediately.

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The Real Reason Hundreds Of Crunches Won't Help You See Your Abs

I’d like to share with you a bit of insight I had during my weekly stroll today.

Today I was thinking to myself as I do from minute-to-minute and I was reviewing some training manuals I had read recently and how I could best help my clients achieve their fitness goals faster.

While I was walking, I noticed we had a bit of rain lately and there were a few ‘splackles’ of mud puddles remaining. I don’t know about you, but I get inspiration from the weirdest stuff…

In this small mud puddle, I saw a hint of a pen. Yes, just a simple writing utensil. It was barely peeking through the surface and for some odd reason, I thought of exercise. Abs to be specific.

I thought, “It’s funny...there’s a perfectly good pen and it’s covered by all that mud. The pen probably works just fine, but as long as it’s covered by all that mud, no one will ever see it.”

This analogy then made me think as to why people come to me with questions about their abs. The questions are usually, “I do hundreds of crunches a night, but I never see my abs,” or, “I run all the time but my abs never show up.”

Here’s the answer…

It doesn’t matter how many crunches you do or how much you run, if you have a layer of fat covering your abs, you won’t see jack. I can do 1000 crunches a night if I want to but if I put on a sweatshirt, how can you tell I have a six pack?

Think of the pen and mud example: Here you have a perfectly good pen, but it’s covered with mud.

Say for instance that instead of the pen being there, there was a beautiful sculpture of a swan made out of diamonds. The swan was so beautifully crafted that even the flawed diamonds in the sculpture are perfect.

Now, as this beautiful, eye-pleasing sculpture is sitting here, how beautiful would it be if I backed a dump truck next to it and proceeded to cover it with a ton of mud?

It wouldn’t matter how beautiful the sculpture is because until you move the mud, you won’t see jack.

So it doesn’t matter how many crunches you do, it won’t matter until you remove the layer of that that’s over it.

You’ll only lose fat by doing the following things:

1. Cleaning up and watching the foods you eat

2. Building muscle to raise your metabolism and burn more fat constantly

3. Doing effective cardio to help burn the excess calories.

That’s it in a nutshell.

I mean think about it, if you’ve been doing crunches for about 3 months and you’re not seeing any results, it’s obviously not working. There isn’t an ab-fairy that’s going to pull out its magic wand and magically give you abs (but it would be nice wouldn’t it?)

There’s only three thing you need to do - clean up your diet, build muscle, and burn off more calories than you need per day.

Crunches don’t burn a lot of energy. You can do crunches until you’re blue in the face but you won’t see a 1-pack unless you burn off the excess fat that’s covering them.

No ab-lounge, cross-crunch, or ‘ab doo-hickey’ can promise you that.

Online home fitness specialist and fitness author and author Lee Smith specializes in helping people get in shape in the comfort of their own homes. For more incredible tips and tactics like these and a free subscription to his "Successful Fitness Strategies" newsletter, visit http://www.howtoachieveyourfitnessgoals.com.

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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