If you’re having a hard time getting your abs to come in, make sure you’re not passing by the squat rack on your way to the exercise mat to do countless crunches. Squats and deadlifts essentially work your abs just as well (if not more) than standard crunches.
If you’re looking for a solid ab routine to supplement into your workout, try this one from Men’s Fitness.com. It’s basic and you can do it on your off days.
Tons of people waste their money on expensive abdominal equipment every year, not knowing that some of the most effective AB exercises can be done without the aid of any fancy, high-priced machines.
According to several online sources, the bicycle maneuver is the most efficient ab exercise that we can do, because instead of only targeting one group of muscle, it can hit the entire abdominal family. ?
How to do the bicycle maneuver:
Lie flat on the floor with your lower back pressed to the ground. Put your hands beside your head. Bring your knees up to about a 45-degree angle and slowly go through a bicycle pedal motion. Touch your left elbow to your right knee, then your right elbow to your left knee. Breathe evenly throughout the exercise.
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Now with any abdominal work, the most important thing to remember is that diet comes first. It makes no sense to work your abs once or twice a week and not have the proper diet. You might as well not work your abs at all.
After sifting through a magazine about a month ago, I came across an abdominal exercise that I hadn’t done for awhile: the hanging leg raise.
For about three weeks now, I’ve done the hanging leg raise at the end of my workouts, every few days. It has done wonders for me, not only targeting my lower abs, but also working my entire midsection. A bonus is that it has also helped me with my grip, which is obviously used in other exercises.
While this exercise is great for strengthen your midsection, don’t forget that abs aren’t made in the gym; they’re made in the kitchen. Like Mike Furci always says: Working your abs is not the key to attaining abs.
Let me start by saying, “there is no such thing as spot reduction”.? In fact, it’s so important let me repeat it,”THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOT REDUCTION”!? Now that you know a scientific fact, look at what you’re doing in order to get a wasboard set of abs.? Many of you work your abs 3 – 4 days per week while some of you work them everyday.? I would like to put an end to this craziness once and for all.
The key to a washboard set of abs is?diet.? Without adjusting your diet, you can do abs until your blue in the face and it wont make a bit of difference.?
Our inability to process carbohydrates in large amounts is the result of millions of years of evolution. According to many experts man evolved on a diet consisting of 65% – 80% protein coming mainly from fish sources. The rest was a mixture of grains, nuts and fruit if available. For millions of years, man didn’t have candy, pasta, cereal or other highly processed carbs. We’ve only had refined sugar as part of our diet for a mere blink of time. You can begin to understand why carbs play such a big roll in obesity, diabetes and heart disease. We just do not have the ability to eat carbs, especially simple sugars, in the amounts that we do.
So, if working your abs has nothing to do with a lean midsection, why should we work abs?? You should work your abs for functional strength and injury prevention.? A strong set of abs is the best prescription for a healthy back.? However, working the abdominals only is not effective.? You need to use exercises that target the entire core.? In short the core consists of abdominals, obliques, hips and low back
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