The abs are part of your body's core. It is this location on the body that is responsible for almost every movement you make during the course of a day. Every time you sit up to sneeze, raise a glass of wine to toast or swing a golf club, your abs are being used. When it comes to exercising your abs, there are some key points that you need to take into consideration. Without the proper game plan, you can cheat yourself out of a good workout and risk injury.
Step 1
Exercise your entire abdominal area. Doing one ab exercise over and over again will only work one particular area of your abs. Focus on exercises that emphasize your upper abs, lower abs and obliques to make sure you are adequately recruiting as much muscle fiber as possible. Leg raises, reverse crunches, oblique twists, bicycle crunches, sit-ups and Swiss ball crunches are exercise examples.
Step 2
Squeeze your abs forcefully when you do reps. Ab training is not about doing thousands of sloppy reps. Execute every rep in a smooth and controlled fashion, ending with a forceful squeeze. Proper form and quality is way more important than quantity. Aim for 15 to 20 reps with your exercises and use added resistance if you can do more than 25 reps with ease. Perform three to four sets of each exercise.
Step 3
Rest your abs just like any other muscle group. Overtraining can lead to fatigue and muscle injury. Take at least one day off in between each ab training session and do not work your abs more than three times in any given week.
Step 4
Do not neglect the opposite side of your body. Continually working your abs without working your back can create muscle imbalances. Add some back exercises into your training program to balance out your body, such as back extensions, bent-over rows, lat pulldowns and pullovers.
Step 5
Don't be fooled with spot reduction. If you want to get rid of fat on your stomach, ab exercises will do very little. Run, cycle, skate, row, kick-box or play tennis to burn the fat. Utilize ab exercises to strengthen and tone your midsection.
Member Comments