Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Exercise Ball Abs Workouts For Everyone



Exercise ball abs workouts are here to stay. The advance of abs workouts and exercises has produced in the way, many tools and equipment geared towards making the most out of physical motion and stress. The exercise balls (also called Pilates balls or Swiss balls), are perhaps the perfect equipment to work our core are, by giving it strength and good looks.

When you do traditional abs exercises, you are working only one part of your abs for the most time (either your rectus abdominus, the transverse abdominal muscles or the obliques) but with exercise ball abs workouts, you are working a bigger group of muscles at the same time. This makes them a complete solution to develop the core section.

Try these two exercises I show you here and you'll start seeing amazing results and triggering muscles you didn't even know you had!

Abdominal Curl with Exercise Ball

With the abdominal curl with an exercise ball, you are going to work the whole muscle groups on the abs. It is one of the most complete exercise for abs out there.

1. Lie on the exercise ball, parallel to the floor. Knees forming a 90 degree angle.

2. Slowly and with control, lift your shoulder upwards without bending the hips.

3. Slowly go back to the starting point.

4. Repeat for a full set.

Exercise Ball Abdominal Roll-ups

This ball exercise targets the obliques, the rectus abdominus and the hip flexors.

1. Kneel and position the ball in front of you.

2. Lie on top of the floor.

3. Reach out, letting your hands touch the ground, rolling the ball towards your thighs.

4. Walk your hands until the chin touch the ball, while keeping at all times the abs contracted and the shoulders aligned with the hands.

5. 5. Pull forward the ball with your legs, and then bend your knees towards your chest while the ball is rolled beneath the exerciser until the knees touch the chest.

6. Go back to start and repeat for a full set.

Try these instructions, and you'll be surprised how effective exercise ball abs really are. Remember to be constant and complement exercise with a good diet. Good luck!

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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Fastest Way To Get Six Pack Abs Effectively



We are all trying to aim for the fastest way to get a six pack abs effectively. And many people will choose to go to a fitness center to get a fit body. In the fitness center, most people would focus on getting a toned abdominal. One of the most effective ways of training abdominal muscles is to do crunching exercise. Research has shown that we should lift our legs between 30 to 45 degrees. Our hip muscles will begin to take charge of the crunch movement when we lift our legs beyond 30 degrees. Crunches with bent knees and unsupported legs maximize abdominal activity without risk to the lower back.

Focus on the quality of abdominal movement by doing the exercises slowly, with control. Try to visualize your abdominal muscles contracting tighter with each exercise, stressing the importance of the contraction. Try adding light hand held weights (2 to 4 lb) to some of the exercises only when you feel you really need that additional challenge.

During the design of an abdominal workout, choose between 5 to 10 exercises. Perform 8 repetitions of each exercise before going on to the next exercise. We should add variety to our workout every 2 to 3 weeks. This is to vary the type of muscle contraction used (shortening, lengthening, and static). Shortening contractions are more useful in training abdominal muscles than lengthening contractions.

Perform the abdominal exercises with accompanying music. Slow and controlled movement is the best when we exercise. When the music is too fast, we may not be able to perform each repetition to achieve its full effects. So we should never let the music dictate the tempo of the exercise.

It is important that we train our abdominal muscles at least 3 - 5 days per week. Unlike other muscles, we seldom fatigue the abdominal muscles enough so that they need an additional day to recover. So we should always do some abdominal exercise on a daily basis to counteract the excessive tightening of your lower back muscles and hip flexors. Although the abdominals are a troublesome spot for many people, these points will us to get the fastest way to get a six pack abs effectively.

For you are seriously trying to slim your waistline, stop piling on the fats, get discipline, enforce determination and get your own personal health magazine washboard abs at http://www.trainthoseabs.info

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Easy Way to Show Off Your Six Pack Abs - Lose Your Belly Fat



Have you noticed that almost every member of your local gym has some sort of abdominal exercise in their routines and yet somehow, they never quite own those desirable 6 pack abs?

Have you been religiously doing your abdominal muscle exercises? Are your abs showing to your satisfaction? No? Why? The fact is that your ab muscles are one of the easier muscles to build. So naturally you would wonder why is it that so many people have such a hard to developing them.

You may think that you don't already own those six pack abs but the truth is that you already do. The problem is that your belly fat is covering those abs. If you have a body fat ratio higher than 12%, it will be virtually impossible for you to show off those sexy abdominal muscles. In order to get more defined abs, you have to burn off as much fat as possible. You will be able to own those rippling washboard abs when your body fat is less than 10%. So if you have fat on your belly, forget about abdominal exercises and burn off the fats first.

The second reason why you may not be developing great abdominal muscles is because you may be doing the wrong exercises and/or working out with bad form. You may have low body fat but if you are doing exercises with bad form, you are not going to see good results and you are also risking injury.

Let's take a look at some of the most popular abdominal exercises. People are packing in the gym doing hundreds of these exercises not knowing that really don't do as much for your abs as you might think. Don't believe me? When you do your sit up or leg raisers, place your palms on your hip on the area connecting to your thigh and perform the exercises. What do you feel? Those are you hip flexor muscles and those are the ones doing most of the work. If these are the muscles doing most of the work, how can you expect to get strong ab muscles??

So you decide your going to just do crunches instead right? That's fine but the problem is that most people perform crunches incorrectly too. In doing the crunch, you are supposed to squeeze your abs hard so that you are crunching them. Hence the name, "crunch." In order to squeeze your abs hard, you have to curl up like a prawn and breath out all the air in your lungs at the top position and then squeeze the muscles so hard that you feel a burn. That will take a few seconds to crunch out all the air before you lower to the beginning position again. If you are just going up and down rhythmically, it will be nearly impossible to do your crunches correctly. It is extremely hard for an average person to do ten properly performed crunches, no less hundreds of them.

Here is the bottom line, doing hundreds of crunches is not going to get you the results you are looking for. Start working on burning fat and doing your workouts in correct form. In no time you will start seeing your abs show.

For more information and helpful tips, check out my Website

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Lose Your Belly Fat And Show Off Your Six Pack Abs



Have you noticed that most people will never fail to include abdominal muscle exercises in their routines and yet somehow or other, they can never own that coveted 6 pack abs?

Have you been religiously doing your abdominal muscle exercises? Is your abs showing to your satisfaction? No? Why? Do you know that your abdominal muscle is one of the easiest muscles to build but yet why is it that most people have difficulty in developing that 6 pack abs?

Here is the truth. Those of you who are working out your abs regularly do probably own that much sought after six pack. Yes, you do. The only trouble is that your belly fat is covering them. Your abs will not show up well if you have a body fat ratio of more than 12%. The more fat you burn off, the more defined your abs will be. You will own that rippling washboard abs when your body fat is 10% or less. So if you have fat on your belly, forget about abdominal exercises and burn off the fats first.

There is another reason why people put in so much effort to develop their abdominal muscle and yet their abs are not showing although they have low body fat. Again, there is a simple explanation. They are doing the wrong exercises and working out in bad form.

Let’s take for example the most common abs exercises, the sit up and the leg raisers. Everybody seem to be doing these two exercises not knowing that these exercises really don’t do much for their abs. Don’t believe me? Ok…try this. When you do your sit up or leg raisers, place your palms on your hip on the area connecting to your thigh and perform the exercises. Tell me what did you feel? Ahhh….you are getting it. Those muscles there are doing most of the work. Those are your hip flexor muscles. Since your hip flexors are doing most of the work, how can you develop your abs effectively?

So you say, from now on I will do crunches instead. Well, I have another surprise for you.

Most people perform their crunches wrongly too. Think about it. Why is the exercise called “crunch”? It is because you must squeeze your abs so are that you are crunching them. In order to squeeze your abs hard, you have to curl up like a prawn and breath out all the air in your lungs at the top position and then squeeeeeeeze the muscles so hard that you feel a burn. That will take a few seconds to crunch out all the air before you lower to the beginning position again. You can’t do this effectively if you just go up, down, up down, up down rhythmetically. So, if you have been doing hundreds of crunches everyday with minimal result, now you know why. In fact, it is almost impossible for the average guy to do tens of properly performed crunches and not to say hundreds of them. The same squeezing principle applies to other abs exercises.

Ok….now that you know why your abs are not showing up well, so get on with burning your fats and perform your workout in correct form. You will then see your 6 pack abdominal muscle in no time.

Chris Chew is a personal trainer of actors, pageant winners, models and other celebs.

He is the author of Burn Fat Build Muscles Fast! and runs a fitness school in Singapore Personal Trainers

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