Abdominal Exercises Progression

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Because of tradition, abdominal exercises are often executed in long sets of 50, 100, or even 200 repetitions. Friends even turn it into a contest:- “I did 4 sets of 200!”- “Really? I did 6 of 300.”

Who would get the best results from their abdominal exercises in this scenario? No one. Here’s why.

Long sets of abdominal exercises are not optimal if you want six pack abs. It’s basic physiology: muscles grow better on heavy, medium-repetition (about 8-12) sets. Would you train your chest using 4 sets of 200 repetitions? I thought so. Abdominal muscles are no different, and they need to grow if you want them to show.

But let’s say you can do 12 crunches. Do you stop there (since sets of 8-12 work best)? Of course not. You need to make the crunches harder by increasing the weight you lift every repetition. But how? By positioning your arms differently. Following are 3 arm positions you can use with all abdominal exercises to make them harder and more effective at building six pack abs.

1. Arms along your sides. Can’t get any easier.

2. Arms crossed across your chest. Intermediate difficulty.

3. Hands behind your head.

4. Arms overhead. Can’t get any harderwithout adding external weights.

5. Arms crossed across your chest, with some external resistance (a plate or a heavy book, for example).

So, keeping with the crunch example, once you hit 12 repetitions with your arms along your sides, start your next set with your arms crossed across your chest.

Again, once you can do 12 repetitions with your arms crossed across your chest, start your next abdominal exercise set with your arms overhead.

Once your can do 12 repetitions with your arms overhead, you’ll want to use some form of external weight (dumbbell, plate, dictionary, etc.). You can hold it across your chest (some people feel more comfortable that way) or at arm’s length, overhead. The same principle also applies to all abdominal exercises: when you hit 12 repetitions, increase the difficulty by changing your arm’s position.

Next time you’re about to start a set of 200 crunches, try crossing your arms across your chest. See how many repetitions you can perform this way, and how the burn in your abdominals feel. Then drop me a line at my website below.

Lose Your Belly Fat And Show Off Your Six Pack Abs

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Have you noticed that most people will never fail to include abdominal muscle exercises in their routines and yet somehow or other, they can never own that coveted 6 pack abs?

Have you been religiously doing your abdominal muscle exercises? Is your abs showing to your satisfaction? No? Why? Do you know that your abdominal muscle is one of the easiest muscles to build but yet why is it that most people have difficulty in developing that 6 pack abs?

Here is the truth. Those of you who are working out your abs regularly do probably own that much sought after six pack. Yes, you do. The only trouble is that your belly fat is covering them. Your abs will not show up well if you have a body fatratio of more than 12%. The more fat you burn off, the more defined your abs will be. You will own that rippling washboard abs when your body fat is 10% or less. So if you have fat on your belly, forget about abdominal exercises and burn off the fats first.

There is another reason why people put in so much effort to develop their abdominal muscle and yet their abs are not showing although they have low body fat. Again, there is a simple explanation. They are doing the wrong exercises and working out in bad form.

Let?s take for example the most common abs exercises, the sit up and the leg raisers. Everybody seem to be doing these two exercises not knowing that these exercises really don?t do much for their abs. Don?t believe me? Ok?try this. When you do your sit up or leg raisers, place your palms on your hip on the area connecting to your thigh and perform the exercises. Tell me what did you feel? Ahhh?.you are getting it. Those muscles there are doing most of the work. Those are your hip flexor muscles. Since your hip flexors are doing most of the work, how can you develop your abs effectively?

So you say, from now on I will do crunches instead. Well, I have another surprise for you. Most people perform their crunches wrongly too. Think about it. Why is the exercise called the ?crunch?? It is because you must squeeze your abs so are that you are crunching them. In order to squeeze your abs hard, you have to curl up like a prawn and breath out all the air in your lungs at the top position and then squeeeeeeeze the muscles so hard that you feel a burn. That will take a few seconds to crunch out all the air before you lower to the beginning position again. You can?t do this effectively if you just go up, down, up down, up down rhythmetically. So, if you have been doing hundreds of crunches everyday with minimal result, now you know why. In fact, it is almost impossible for the average guy to do tens of properly performed crunches and not to say hundreds of them. The same squeezing principle applies to other abs exercises.

Ok?.now that you know why your abs are not showing up well, so get on with burning your fats and perform your workout in correct form. You will then see your 6 pack abdominal muscle in no time.