The Best Way To Get Abs For Women

While it is important to incorporate abdominal exercises, such as crunches, into your strength training routine, this will not always define your abs. The best way to make a woman's abs appear is to decrease the amount of body fat that is present in the midsection. Since you cannot spot reduce body fat in the midsection, you must decrease the overall amount of body fat that is carried. This is accomplished through both diet and exercise.

Step 1

Consume a clean diet to aid in obtaining a flat, tight abdominal area. Tosca Reno, author of "The Eat-Clean Diet," suggests eliminating processed foods and replacing them with lean proteins (turkey breast, chicken breast, egg whites), complex carbohydrates (oatmeal, sweet potatoes, rice, vegetables) and healthy fats (olive oil, flax oil, natural peanut butter). It is also important to consume five to seven small meals a day. This will help stabilize your blood sugar, which in turn will reduce cravings and help you lose fat.

Step 2

Perform interval cardio to help the body burn excess fat. In order for your abdominal muscles to show, it is important to participate in a cardiovascular exercise that will jump-start your metabolism. Interval cardio is an ideal form of exercise that will give you results in less time than traditional cardio. The Mayo Clinic states that interval training burns more calories and improves your aerobic capacity in less time than traditional cardio exercise.

After warming up, interval training is done by alternating between moderate intensity and high-intensity exercise. For example, if running is your exercise of choice you would alternate between walking/jogging and running/sprinting. Your intensity level and interval time should be based on your personal fitness level. Interval training can be done two to three times a week, with rest in between training days. Workouts can last anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes.

Step 3

Select ab exercises that will be beneficial to your goals. Exercising your ab muscles helps give your abs shape and definition. While there are many ab exercises to choose from, it's important that you choose exercise that stimulates a large area of the rectus abdominus and the obliques. In a study completed by ACE Fitness, it was determined that the top five most effective ab exercise are the bicycle maneuver, captain's chair, crunch on exercise ball, vertical leg crunch and reverse crunch. All of the listed exercises reportedly generated the most overall activity in the obliques and rectus abdominus, making any of them a good choice of abdominal exercise.

For best results, abs should be trained two to three times a week with at least 48 hours between each training day. When training your abs it is important to perform slow and controlled movements and complete two to three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions for each exercise that you perform.