Secrets To 6 Pack Abs
Hey there. I hope those of you in the US had a great 4th of July Weekend. For everyone else I hope it was just a great weekend. If you are like me you are ready to hit the gym hard this week after all of the food this weekend. Last time I explained how you train for stability and then move to mobility. If you missed the article check it out here:
http://www.myworkoutcreator.com/20100627/stabilize-before-you-mobilize/
Once you have developed a strong, stable core you can begin to perform more advanced training methods to help shape up your six pack. If you are on this mailing list then you most likely are looking for tips on how to get a flatter stomach or more defined 6 pack. This is a goal that I see with my clients, friends, and family more than anything else. It is a very difficult goal to achieve, but it is attainable. You just have to be willing to work very hard and commit to a good program. If you truly want to see serious results on your abdominals you first have to commit to a solid nutrition plan. If you are not following a good diet program it won’t matter how well you are training. The nutrition aspect of ab training we will save for another post. This post is going to explain what you NEED to consider for a better 6 packs.
One of the biggest mistakes I see with ab training is that people will just try and kill their abs. I hear people tell me that they do 100 crunches a day or some other crazy number. What most people don’t seem to realize is that your abdominal muscles are the same tissue that is in the rest of your body. Would you want to do 100 squats everyday or bicep curls? Hopefully not. The most important thing you can do for abdominal training is to place proper overload your ab muscles.
There was a study in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning that looked at traditional ab exercises and their effect on strength. They used exercises like curl ups and bicycle crunches for the study. They performed what most people will do for an ab workout, which is 3 sets of 20 repetitions. What they found that this type of workout had no significant effect on abdominal strength levels. This is an issue most people suffer from with there entire exercise program. There is not significant overload. If you want to see your ab muscles you need to create an increase in size in the muscle. This sounds scary to some but it is something you really need to do for a flatter and more defined stomach.
To increase size and strength of muscle fibers you need to be providing proper overload onto the muscle. For some this means performing harder exercises and for others it might mean you have to add external resistance, such as a medicine ball or resistance band. To create this overload on the muscle we need to train our ab muscles just like we would train any other muscle. Try finding exercises where you fatigue after 8-12 reps for 3-4 sets. This type of training will be much more effective for abdominal training.
Check out this weeks free featured workout the Core Mobility Workout. This is an example of a workout that uses tough exercises and added external resistance to create a challenge ab workout to help you get closer to that six pack. Remember to view the workout you must sign up for a free account.
Have a great workout!
Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
