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Archive for the ‘Exercises For Abs’ Category the easiest way to get six pack abs The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. In saying the majority of people trying to get six pack abs are insane. Adding 50 more crunches to you routine is not going to get you results. Neither is added an extra 40 minutes of cardio. You need to do something different. If you want 6 pack abs, follow the guidelines below. This is the easiest way to get six pack abs. Ditch the long cardio. The fat burning zone does in fact burn more fat that doing intervals while you are performing the exercise. But in the long run you are wasting your time. Interval training is far better way to do cardio. You will definitely burn less fat while you are performing the exercise, but the after the exercise is completed you will be in the fat burning zone. And most likely be in the fat burning zone for up to 12 hours later. If you stop exercising in the fat burning fat your metabolism drops back to normal. As you can see 12 hour in the fat burning zone from intervals is far more beneficial than the 40 minutes of slow long cardio. Perform compound exercises like squats, lunges, dead lifts, bent over rows, military press and weighted dips. These are extremely demanding exercises and will burn more calories. These exercises also involve balance. And whenever balance is involved, so is your abs and core. Just like with the intervals with cardio, you will continue to burn more calories for many hours after the workout has completed. Because of the demands of the exercises, your body will release a muscle building hormone. One pound of lean muscles expends 35 calories a day. By having more lean muscle you will have a greater metabolism. All this leads to greater fat loss. Make sure that you are on a proper diet and avoid cutting too many calories. You will be working hard and your body needs to refuel. What you are looking for is a diet in which you consume 500 calories less than what it would take to maintain your weight taking in account what you expend with your workouts. You are also looking to vary the amount of calories that you eat each day. If you continuously eat fewer calories your body will try to adjust and actually lower your metabolism. If you vary the daily amount of calories while keeping an overall calorie deficient diet, you will maintain if not increase your metabolism while losing fat. Do not do 100 crunches a day. If you want to increase the size of your biceps you would not do 100 curls with a 5 pound weight. So why do so many people do this with their abs. Add weight so the max amount of repetitions you can complete is 12 to 15. This is the most effective rep range to build was board abs. I know that this is 100 foot overview. But following these guidelines is the easiest way to get six pack abs. If you would like more information on a step by step program to achieve tight six pack abs click the link below. The abs wheel one of the best pieces of exercise equipment around. Basically abs wheel is small wheel with a small bar going through the center. Below is a picture of the abs wheel.
What makes the abs wheel so effective is that you constantly firing your abs muscles. And instead of having 50% percent of your abs muscles fibers firing continuously you have close to 100% of your abs muscles firing on and off. I recommend starting off with the abs wheel on your knees and slowly work your way out. A lot of people like positioning the abs wheel close enough to the wall. This way the wall will stop the wheel before you get over extended. If practiced consistently it should not take you long to start performing the exercise on your feet. Because of the intensity of the exercise you should not perform this every day. Make sure that after completing an abs wheel workout that you take 48 hours of rest. In conclusion the abs wheel is one of the best pieces of equipment to train your abs. And the best part you can pick one up cheap. Just look at the price on Amazon. Now they are some more fancy models. I have not tried them yet so I can give the honest review. I currently use the first model listed. New Lower Ab ExercisesNow Tight Abs Blog is starting a special section on focusing just on lower abs. Visit the Lower Ab Exercises for information getting great looking lower abs. Here are 3 other great best lower abs exercises. Again, these are excellent exercises for strengthening and toning the lower abs. But, you will never see them unless you lose the body fat around that area. The fastest way to lose body fat is strength train you major muscle groups, interval training for your cardio, a well rounded calorie deficient diet and proper rest. A word of caution, these are advance exercises. If you are just starting you may want to start with some other lower abs exercises and move into these after a few months. Now on to the lower abs exercises: Abs rollout – This exercise can either be done with an abs wheel (this is basically a small wheel with handles on each side) or a stability ball. Start on your knees with your hands on the wheel or stability ball. Try pulling you belly button to your spine by engaging your abs and pushing your abs down. This is not sucking in your belly. Slowly roll the wheel out or let the exercise ball roll down your arm. From this point on your hips should always be in front of your knees. Go out as far as you feel comfortable and then return just before the starting position. You want to work at this exercise until your body forms straight line from your knees to your hands. For the advanced, do the exercise on your toes instead of your knees. Reverse Crunch on the Exercise Ball – You are going to need something steady to grab onto with this exercise. At home I grab on to the arm of my couch and at the gym I grab on the side of a squat rack. Start with you lower back on top of the exercise ball and grab onto the sturdy object behind you. Start with your legs straight bending at the hips so your feet are slightly higher than the exercise ball. Slowly pull your knees to your chest and make sure spinal flexion occurs as it would in a crunch. Then slowly bring your legs out to the starting position.
All three exercises will rapidly strengthen your lower abs. Start out slow. Just by doing 10 you will it the next day. New Lower Ab ExercisesNow Tight Abs Blog is starting a special section on focusing just on lower abs. Visit the Lower Ab Exercises for information getting great looking lower abs. Thanks For Reading The Exercise ball is one of the best and unique fitness tools that is out there today. It is also one of the least utilized pieces of equipment. Aquilino Cosani, an Italian engineer, first manufactured the ball to be a toy back in 1963. It wasn’t until a physical therapist, Mary Quinton, utilized the ball for children with neurological disorders. The exercise ball did not make it to the US until the 1970 and it seems that the general public is just starting to get aware of its benefits. What makes the Exercise ball so effective is that it forces the user to use many stabilizing muscle to balance while performing the exercise. This means that more muscle fibers are firing, you are burning more calories and because of the position that you are usually in, it puts a lot of emphasis on your core (rectus abdominis, lower back, transverse abdominis, internal and external oblique’s.) And everyone seems to want to have tight abs. The reason why I wanted to write this article was for one of two reasons. To hopefully motivate to try the exercise ball the next time at the gym or to try an exercise on the stability besides crunches. That is what I meant when I previously stated that this was one of the most least utilized pieces of equipment at the gym. The exercise ball happens to be one most dynamic pieces of equipment at that gives you a huge range of exercise options.
If this sounds too easy add dumbbells for weight. If adding dumbbell weight is still too easy, extend one leg out and perform single leg squats. There are few people that I know who have the leg strength for this exercise. A pushup is another exercise that there are multiple options that can per formed with an exercise ball. You can perform this exercise with your hands on the exercise ball and feet on the ground. Added difficulty would be to place your feet on a bench and keeping your hands on the exercise ball. You can also place your hands on the ground and feet or knees on the exercise ball. To add difficultly you can try diamond push-ups or traveling push-ups. Traveling push-ups is where you move side to side while performing the push-up. You start by doing a normal push-up and then at the top, move the left hand to the right. The right hand then goes out further to the right. You would perform another push-up and move back to the left by moving your right hand to the left and then the left further to the left. These are just two small examples. There are many, many more. I would like to invite you to do some further investigation on this and try a few of the exercises out. There are thousands of examples out there. The benefits will be a stronger core, possibly quicker weight loss and make your body more functional and less prone to injury. New Lower Ab ExercisesNow Tight Abs Blog is starting a special section on focusing just on lower abs. Visit the Lower Ab Exercises for information getting great looking lower abs. Thanks For Reading Tight Abs Blog Before I give you the top lower abs exercises I want to make sure that you know that these exercises alone will probably not give you the results that you want. They will definitely strengthen the lower abs but in order for the lower abs to be seen, the following must be included in your plan:
The 3 best lower abs exercises
All three exercises will rapidly strengthen your lower abs. Start out slow. Just by doing 10 you will it the next day. Check out these Lower Ab Exercises looseitall I didn’t think that I could give you a good answer in a 140 characters. This is what I do and recommend. You should strenght train each major muscle group 2 to 3 times a week to fatigue. You should also do cardio 3 times a week for 20 minutes. They can be done in the same workout or on different days. Here are some examples. Mon – Full body strength train 20 minutes Mon – Full body strength train 20 minutes, Cardio – 20 mintes Mon – Upper body strength train 20 minutes, Cardio – 20 mintes There are different varitions that you can do, but no work really should be longer than 45 minutes. When you do your cardio you will get the best results with intervals. Going hard for 30 secs and then easy for a minute. When lifting use heavier weights with an 8-10 repetition range. You should barely be able to finish the 10 repetitions on the first set. And you will most likely not be able to finish the 10 repetition on the 3 set. If you can the weight is too light. Make sure that you change you change your routine after 4 weeks. Make sure that you are progressing each week you should be able to do more repetitions or more weight. If you plateau for 3 weeks a change is needed. Free weights and body weight exercises recruit the most muscle fibers hence increase the calories expended and raise your over metabolism. If you can stick with these types of exercises. Remember diet is important as well. If your diet has a 500 calories deficient from your metabolic rate (how many caloires you expend a day) and this routine is followed, you should be able to lose 2 to 3 pounds of fat a week. Intensity in the workout and really pushing self for that 40 minutes is crucial. That is why you are only working out for 40 minutes. I guess this may be longer than you wanted but I hope it helps! Good Luck
Here is a progression of body weight leg exercises. This goes from beginner to advance. It may take months to get to the pistols. But with some dedication you will get there! Prisoner Squats Bulgarian Squats Pistols Download Craig’s 4 week workout here. Its part of the bundle. There are probably 100 different ways to do a push-up. I found some videos with some examples. Note the grasshopper pushups are absolute killers. Make sure that you try them out.
The basis of Tabata Training is 4 minutes of intense interval training. What you are doing is taking an exercise we’ll use sprints as an example here. Sprint as hard as you can for 20 seconds Walk for 10 seconds Repeat 7 more times for a total of 8 sets. So what you have is a total of 4 minutes workout time. Tabata Training can be done with a number of different exercises the idea is to use an exercise that gets the whole body involved or at least the major muscle groups.Tabata Training can be done with Barbells, Dumbells, Kettlebells or just Bodyweight exercises. I’ll give you some other exercises and routines to try in a minute but first let me give you some background and how Tabatas work. Tabata Training was developed by Izumi Tabata (imagine that) at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan. They did a study on comparing the effects of moderate intensity endurance(aerobics) and high endurance intermittent training(tabata training intervals) on VO2 max and anerobic capacity. To cut to the results of the study: the moderate intensity group training program produced a significant increase in VO2 max of about 10%, but had no effect on anaerobic capacity. The high intensity group improved their VO2 max by about 14% while anaerobic capacity improved by 28%. The study was done over a six week period. Both groups working out 5 days per week. Modified Chin-Up
To make the exercise harder lower your body
If you are not quite ready for regular pull-ups this is an excellent alternative. Not only does this work your back it also works your core. You can also turn your hands over to an over hand grip to work more of your upper back. Instead pulling to your solar plexus, you will be pulling to your upper chest. |
