The True Life of Abdominal Exercises

There is rarely more buzz in the fitness and exercise industry that for that which surrounds abdominal exercises. A simple web search reveals hundreds of different gimmicks, machines or gadgets that have flooded the market to satisfy the wants of people looking for flat abdominal, or for the six pack abs that everybody wants.

My concern is that the majority of the abdominal products advertised are based on a faulty theory, and so they are not often the best way to get the six pack abdominal look. Let’s take a look at the myth, firstly if you want to see your six pack abs the highest priority for you if to lose the fat over the top of them. I you have been training for a while more than likely you will have some decent abdominal muscles, they are simply covered up by the extra fat.

You will have better luck, getting your abdominal flatter, by focusing more of your training time doing high intensity whole body and multi joint exercises, instead of doing hundreds of reps of abdominal exercises. This type of training is best as bigger exercises use more energy and create a better hormone effect leading to the burning of more fat over time.

Using exercises that target the big muscles of the legs, chest and your back give your more benefit for the effort you put into your training metabolically, and lead to more abdominal fat loss. Using a combination of these big exercises with high intensity training using super sets, or circuit training increases your metabolism more and gives a better fat burning hormone response from your training.

This is the biggest reason most people don’t get the six pack abdominal they want, the best way to get great abs is not what it seems!

When you have dealt with enough fat and want to start bringing out your abs, another mistake I see all the time is in not using enough resistance, while doing hundreds of crunches and other pointless abdominal exercises that don’t challenge your abdominal muscles much at all. To properly develop your abdominal muscles, you shouldn’t waste your time with exercises where you can do more that about 20 repetitions, if you can do more than 20 repetitions there is not enough resistance for the exercise to be effective for your abdominal muscles. To train the abs better give your body enough resistance so that you can only do 6 to 15 repetitions and feel the difference.

When looking for higher resistance exercises for the abs they usually involve curling the legs and your pelvic up to your core. Some great examples of these exercises are knee raises (while moving your pelvis up) and hanging leg raises. I often find that even though someone can do 100 crunches they can rarely do 1 or 2 complete hanging leg raises with good form.

If you honestly do want firmer more defined abs, remember that the more important thing to do is to lose the belly fat. Then when you are doing your abdominal exercises use the higher intensity high resistance exercises like the leg raises to work the abs in the best way possible.