Abdominal Muscle Exercises - Learn How To Get Rid of Abdominal Fat Today

Abdominal muscles exercises are the most sought exercises inside and outside the gym because everybody is in dire need to get the flattest abdominals that reflects a flat stomach. It is true that our society today is becoming beauty and health conscious. As a result, there has been an increase focus on exercises and fitness programs which pave the way of the demands and fascination from the exercises in abdominal muscles.

Our abdominal muscles are mainly located between the ribs and hip bone and in front of the body. They works to support the upper body, allow movement and contraction and to hold vital organs on a proper place by regulating pressure from the abdomen. Our abdominal muscles have different vital works under the body and cannot be seen by the naked eye. When you are extremely obese, fats can accumulate in the abdomen, and fats can cover the muscles which then can give you an abdominal fat. In this case, even if you have the best and great muscles in the abdomen, it is useless when covered with fats.

Abdominal exercises or ab workouts are focusing on the abdominal muscles, doing it properly can help you tone and strengthen the abdominal muscles, but when incorrectly done, it may result to unnecessary strain on the back and other muscles of the body.

Spot Reduction? Oh No!

There is no such things as spot reduction for fats, so never believe any equipment that promise to decrease fat around the tummy. Abdominal exercises cannot reduce fat, it will train your abdominal muscles while leaving layers of fat in the abdomen unchanged. Even if you do thousands of crunches and sit-ups, fat will not reduce especially when you have extreme fat accumulation around the tummy, and take note, muscles are lying under the fats, so muscles are evidently seen when fats are gone, and spot reduction is the ways. Diet and combination of exercises are always the best choice.

The Flat-Stomach Myth:

Being obsessed with a flat abdominal area can lead you to frustration, anxiety and even some eating disorders which are not at all healthy. The truth about flat stomach is that it cannot be possible to achieve. In the first place, our abdominal muscles are not designed to be flat. It will always be rounded and not flat and your gender, age and genetics can greatly affect the size and shape of our abdominals.

Again, abdominal muscles exercises are not meant to flatten your tummy, it just strengthen the muscles and building ab muscles little by little. It also allows proper function of the abdominal muscles. Now, when you decide to add exercises for your abdominal muscles in your exercise program, you have to take precaution in choosing such exercises because they can be straining and dangerous to the body.

Tips Before The Exercise...

A proper warm-up before starting the abdominal muscles exercises for 15 minutes is important to prevent muscle strain.
Use an exercise mat when exercising to ensure back safety.
Do the exercises regularly for proper strength training and to build your ab muscles.
Always bring a towel while exercising to swipe off the sweat.
If you are a beginner and would want to do abdominal exercises using gym equipment, ask for an assistant by a gym instructor for proper usage.

The Bicycle maneuver or the TWISTING CRUNCH

Lie flat on the floor with your back pressed against the ground.
Place your hands behind the head and bring your knees as much as possible in a 45-degree angle and slowly do a bicycle pedal motion.
As you do the pedaling, twist the upper body and trunk by allowing left elbow to touch your right knee, then right elbow to left knee.
Perform the exercise in a slow and controlled manner as possible.

Captain's Chair

This is one of the most effective exercises for muscles but the most difficult as it stabilizes upper body. This exercise is contraindicated to lower back problems or for a beginner.

Sit upright on a chair while legs dangling from the chair.
Slowly, lift knees up going towards the chest and hold in that position for a few seconds.
Lowered the knees and get back to the starting position and repeat.

Crunch on Exercise Ball

In choosing an exercise ball for you, you must be able to sit on it and your knees bent and soles of feet resting on the floor.

Roll the ball slowly and lie on the ball with your back until your thighs and chest are parallel with each other.
Placed arms across the chest and chin down to the chest.
As you contract your abdominal muscles, raise your chest at least 45 degrees angle.
To make the exercise easier for you, spread you legs and feet wider apart for total support while lying on the ball.
Repeat many steps as you can.

Among other crunches, these two are known to be the most effective and the safest abdominal muscles exercises that can be done either at home or in the gym.

Vertical Crunch

Lie flat on the floor with your back pressed against the ground.
Place your hands behind your head for proper support.
Slowly raise your crossed legs at the ankles with a slight bend in the knee.
Now, as you contract your abdominal muscles, lift your upper body toward your knees and then lower down.
Do as many steps as possible.

Reverse Crunch

Lie flat on the floor with your lower back pressed against the floor.
Place hands beside your head or place then flat on your sides (whatever you feel the most comfortable).
Cross your feet at the ankles and then slowly lift your feet from the floor up to a 90-degree angle.
Once you are stable and comfortable in this position, press your lower back on the floor and contract your abdominal muscles as you move down the crossed legs few inches from the floor and then up and down again. Make sure feet are not touching on the floor during the exercise.

Next, learn the correct way to Get Rid Of Abdominal Fat and lose weight fast.

Find out which weight loss program is suitable for you through our Compare Weight Loss Programs page here. Click on the above link to discover which programs can help you lose weight today.

How To Get Ripped Abs Fast? - Learn To Get Ripped Abs Quickly!

Do you want to learn how you can have ripped abs fast? Well, most people do, but you will realize that many are not successful in getting them. Studies show that only about 1% of people who want abs actually get the nice looking abs that they want, which is really an amazing statistic. So why is it that so many people fail despite putting in their very best efforts? The answer is because they do not have the right knowledge about how their abs should be trained.

1. How Exactly Are Ripped Abs Developed?

I know that one of my friends has a set of very nice six pack abs, even though he does not hit the gym as often as most people. It is just because he is quite thin, and his abs were nice and ripped. It was then that I spent time researching about abs training in detail, and discovered that a set of ripped abs can only be achieved when the body fat percentage is very low.

2. How To Effectively Burn Fat On Your Stomach?

I also discovered that many people who have at least done some ab training before already have ripped abs, except that they are hidden under a layer of stomach fat! The reason many people fail is because they focus their efforts of abs exercises, which are good for toning your abdominal muscles but very poor at burning stomach fat. If you have some abdominal training under your belt, you should really start focusing your efforts on doing exercises that help you lose overall body fat.

3. How Often Should You Be Training Your Abs?

You should not completely drop your ab exercises either. Perform only a maximum of 20 minutes of ab training at no more than 4 times a week. Anything more than that and your abs may become overworked.

4. What Type Of Exercise Should You Be Doing More Often Then?

The most effective fat loss exercise is high intensity interval training. It refers to start-stop exercise. For example, you could sprint for about 30 seconds, before slow jogging for up to 1 minute to catch your breath. Then sprint again and keep repeating this start-and-stop process for up to 10 minutes. This type of exercising is much more effective than cardio, and has helped me keep my abs in great shape until today.

5. Conclusion

If your body percentage is not low enough, you will never be able to get the ripped abs that you want. There is no need to completely drop ab training as you still need to tone them, but spending too much time of them will not help you lose fat.

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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".