Abs Workout Guide

The abdominal muscles, also known as the abs, are among the most popular area of desired improvement for most. Whether wanting to get a 6-pack, tone some flab, or flatten the abs, most people can admit to having a desire to change the appearance of their stomach. Abs workouts are pretty simple, and if you follow a few steps then you should see big improvement over time.

Before explaining the steps in achieving great abs, you need to understand the abs and where they are.

When people think of their abs, they think about the middle section below the chest and above the waist, the lower parts below the waist and in front of the hips, and the sides (nicknamed "love handles" by many). While they are not all technically abdominal muscles, they can be considered abs, or better yet "core" muscles. The abs are located right in front of your organs in your midsection. They provide a majority of your stability, power, strength and support for any movements you perform. Therefor, they must maintain a decent level of strength. Sedentary, or just lazy, people tend to have under-worked abs, and they are very weak.

The most important thing to understand about abs is that they are covered by stomach fat. Everyone has fat on their body, and must in order to survive. Excess fat is frequently stored around the center section of your body, and hides your abs. One goal to a nice set of abs is to reduce this body fat.

The abdominal muscles will become very strong with dedicated work, and therefor will exert great pressure on the front side of your body. Your lower back muscles will try to compensate for this pressure, and in the process can ache. It is important to understand that while you want a great looking front, you must work your lower back as well.

There are 5 steps to good looking abs.

Step 1: Eating Right

Step 2: Cardiovascular Exercise

Step 3: Resistance Exercise

Step 4: Abs Exercises

Step 5: Stretching

The most important thing in the quest for good looking abs is eating right.  Bad eating habits are the most obvious cause of excess body fat, and this body fat hides your abs.  Eating right can help to reduce body fat, and let those abs show.

First thing you need to do is start eating 5 mini meals a day.  It seems like eating more often would be bad, but if you eat 5 small meals a day then you are sending your metabolism into overdrive.  This causes more body fat to be burned and your abs show quicker. 

Second, you need to keep your sugar intake as low as possible.  There are numerous artificial sweeteners out there, but odds are that they are not going to keep you healthy for long.  Your best option is to cut out as much sugar as you can, and when you do eat any, make it natural sugar...preferably in the form of honey, molasses, or raw sugar (aka turbinado).  Stay away from corn syrup, especially high fructose corn syrup, at all costs!

Third, you need protein at least 3 times out of your 5 mini meals.  Look for proteins that are low in saturated fat and cholesterol.  Good choices are chicken breast meat, egg whites, and tofu.

Fourth, you need to keep your calories relatively low to see some body fat loss.  A quick way to know your calorie needs is to multiply your weight by 10.  You should shoot for about 100 calories less than this number.  Make sure you eat a majority of your calories in the first 4 meals, focusing your 5th meal (dinner/evening meal) on protein and veggies, which are lower in calories.

Fifth, you need to drink lots of water. LOTS!  You need to take in 80 ounces of water per day.  Try to space it out evenly through the day.  If you are exercising, you need an additional 20 ounces during your workout, and if you are going to be outside in the heat then you need even more.  Water is the vastly underrated, but it is extremely important for your body.

If you want abs, you have to loose body fat. If you want to loose body fat, then you have to do cardiovascular exercise, also known as cardio. So its simple, Cardio = Abs.

Cardio exercise burns a lot of calories, and many of those can be fat, as long as you go long and hard enough. A casual walk for 30 minutes will not cut it, but a challenging jog for 30 minutes will. You need to feel like you have done work for work to actually happen. So many people go to the gym and do 30 minutes on an elliptical and barely get a workout. You should be sweating, breathing heavily, and your heart rate should be elevated. 30 - 45 minutes is the ideal duration for a cardio workout. First thing in the morning, before you have had anything to eat but after you have had 8 - 10 ounces of water, is the best time to do cardio. You burn the most calories of fat at this time. Start out doing shorter durations and less intense workouts, and slowly build up. You might feel great working out really hard one day, but if you push to hard too quickly then you could get injured. Start doing cardio 3 times a week, slowly building up to 6 - 7 days a week. Alternate what you do for your cardio to prevent injury.

You should always see a doctor before starting any exercise program to make sure you are fit to perform them.

What is resistance training? It isn't lifting huge weights while grunting, screaming and spray spit all over the gym. Resistance training is simply training using the muscles for a shorter duration, typically till fatigue sets in. Resistance training can be performed for all muscle groups, and has a huge benefit on getting great abs.

Muscle on your body burns a ton of energy (calories). The better your muscle is conditioned and the more you have, the more it will burn. If you do resistance training on a consistent basis, and improve your muscle condition, then you can strongly assist your quest for nice abs.

Getting a professionals help is a great idea, and a personal trainer can help you get things going, such as one at Elite PT Experience. If you don't have that chance, then a simple workout as follows would work well.

Monday: Upper Body
Tuesday: Lower Body
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Upper Body
Friday: Lower Body
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Rest

You should do about 5 - 8 exercises total for each day. Do exercises that work the big muscles primarily, and odds are you will work the smaller, secondary muscles as well. Choose a weight that is challenging for 12 - 15 repetitions. Your rest days are just as important as your workouts because your muscles only recover when at rest. Skipping rest days will only ruin results you could be getting.

You should always see a doctor before starting any exercise program to make sure you are fit to perform them.

Abs exercise are important, but they alone are not going to give you a good looking set of abs. You must combine them with the other steps to be successful. A thousand crunches a day will do nothing for your quest, except for over-train your abs and cause no progression at all.

Pairing your abs workout with your lower body resistance training days is the best option. Lower body exercises work the abs, so it makes sense to pair them together. You should perform 4 exercises on abs day. 1 for upper abs, 1 for lower abs, 1 for obliques and 1 for lower back. Examples of exercises:

Upper Abs:

• Crunches
• Sit Ups
• Stability Ball Sit Ups
• Stability Ball Crunches
• Abdominal Machine

Lower Abs:

• Flutter Kicks
• Leg Raises
• Hanging Leg Raises
• Hanging Knee Raises

Obliques:

• Floor Rotations
• Stability Ball Rotations
• Side Crunches
• Side Leg Extensions
• Cross Over Crunches
• Bicycle Crunches

Lower Back:

• Floor Cobra
  
• Floor Back Extensions
  
• Roman Chair Back Extensions
• Machine Back Extensions
• Reverse Back Extensions
• Stability Ball Back Extensions
• Good Mornings
  

Do 3 sets of 12 - 20 repetitions, or until you feel a good burning sensation in the muscle. Don't be tempted to do them every day, as abs need to recover exactly the same as every other muscle group.

You should always see a doctor before starting any exercise program to make sure you are fit to perform them.

Stretching is the most underrated exercise in the gym, but it is incredibly important.  Stretching the muscles, before and after exercise, helps prevent injury and speed up recovery.  It is an extremely simple thing to do, and it doesn't make sense why so many people skip over it.

Before you exercise, you should warm up for 5 minutes.  This should light cardio exercise, such as walking on a treadmill.  After that, you should lightly stretch the muscles you are going to work for about 5 minutes.  After you exercise, you should cool down the same way you warmed up, and then stretch for about 10 minutes.

This adds some time onto your workout, but preventing injury and speeding recovery are very important.  Keeping your muscles stretched out ensures that they are not too rapidly pulled or stretched during an exercise and injured.  Also, the stretching afterwards helps to push lactic acid out of the muscles, which helps you recover faster.

You should always see a doctor before starting any exercise program to make sure you are fit to perform them.

Most people have unrealistic goals for what they can accomplish in the gym. It takes time to build muscle and lose body fat. The fad diets, commercials, and diet pills claiming to loose 5+ pounds a week are misleading and unhealthy. You should only loose about .5 - 1.5 pounds of weight a week if you are doing it properly. This will make sure that you loose mostly body fat and not precious muscle. If you loose weight to rapidly then you will loose a lot of muscle, and that means that it will be harder to keep body fat off.

Give yourself some time, follow the 5 steps, and be patient. You will see abs soon enough, and not only will they look great, but you will have set your body up to keep them around with minimal effort.

If you are having trouble, you can try to join a fitness bootcamp like Elite Personal Training Experience's Elite Bootcamp.