Walking around displaying a ripped six pack elevates your confidence level and shows you worked hard in the gym. The path to get there takes great mental strength and constant discipline with your food choices. Following a healthy diet plan will help you eliminate the fat on your belly and boost your energy levels. With exercise, use a multi-prong approach that involves more than just your abs.
High-Intensity Cardio
Cardiovascular exercise burns calories and reduces fat on your stomach, and all other parts of your body. This is a key component to getting a six pack. To boost your calorie-burning potential, do interval training. Do this by alternating your intensity up and down throughout your workout. By doing high-intensity bursts, you will also be forced to contract your abs more forcefully. This will give you an ab workout by default. Choose any form of cardio you enjoy, such as running, indoor cycling, elliptical training, stair climbing, step aerobics or rowing. Three days of cardio on alternating days is sufficient.
Strength Training
Strength training causes you to build muscle throughout your body. This applies to your abs because of the metabolic activity of muscle. Whenever you gain muscle, you burn more calories at rest and promote faster weight loss throughout your whole body. By doing weight training on a stability ball, you will get the muscle-building effect, and also be forced to contract your abs to remain balanced. Again, this gives you an ab workout by default. Perform exercises like elevated push-ups, seated shoulder presses, back extensions, lying triceps extensions, seated biceps curls and wall lunges. Three days of weight training on the alternating days of your cardio is sufficient. Take short rest breaks in between your sets to keep your heart rate elevated ad promote a high caloric expenditure.
Ab Exercises
Ab exercises themselves tone your stomach and create the definition of six-pack as you lose fat. Instead of doing one exercise, do multiple exercises from different angles to target your upper abs, lower abs and obliques. This will lead to faster development. Reverse decline crunches, hanging leg scissors, bicycle maneuvers, side bends, stability ball crunches and sit-ups are examples. Work your abs three days a week right after your cardio sessions.
Proper Form
When doing your ab exercises, take your form into serious consideration. When lifting your legs or torso, never use momentum. This will take away work from your muscles and increases your chances of injury. Squeeze your abs forcefully for a full second at the mid-point of your rep and exhale as you exert force. Take the stability ball crunch for example: When you rise up, squeeze your abs and hold for a full second, slowly lower yourself down.
Added Resistance
Added external resistance includes ankle weights, weight plates, dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls or anything else that you hold against your body or overhead. Use added resistance to increase the muscle fiber recruitment on your abs and promote faster gains in definition.
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