10. Breathing: It is often preached to exhale on the contraction and inhale on the
negative portion of the repetition. However, you can produce stronger muscular
contractions by holding your breath during ab exercises. For example, try exhaling
only after you've nearly reached completion of the exercise.
9. Concentration: Michaelangelo did not sculpt his masterpieces with his eyes
closed, so what makes you think you can sculpt abs with your eyes closed. As hard
as it might be, look at your abs during the exercise. Not only does this improve
concentration, but raising the head or shoulders during some exercises causes
greater resistance which in return leads to greater muscle growth.
8. Body Fat: Everyone has abs, some people don't see them because there is a
layer of fat around your waist. On the days you are not lifting, try some cardio and
look into some thermogenics. There are many articles on fat loss on
Bodybuilding.com, so look through them and determine which diet and exercise
routine will work best for you.
7. It's quality, not quantity that counts: For those of you who can pump out 1000
crunches in 5 minutes, here's a toast and a tip of the hat. but I really don't care.
Train the abs like every other muscle. I only give my abs 8 repetitions of each
exercise and they look pretty good, I think. Training your abs for long distance
repetitions will only be training their endurance, not their strength - and it's the
strength that shows.
6. Feel the searing burn: Although you do not necessarily have to feel the burn on
every repetition to know that you're stimulating muscle growth, it's a good mental
factor to feel some resistance. For resistance, wrap leg weights around your ankles,
do sit-ups with a weight on your chest, cancel out regular crunches and do
weighted, overhead pull-down crunches on a weight bench.
5. Abs don't cost money: Return that sh*t you bought from that television
commercial that aired at 3:00 in the morning. To train abs, you do not need one of
those roller things or special contraptions. The products on television are good, but
only to a certain point meaning that there is little room for added resistance. All you
need is a mat and something to hang from to get great chiseled abs.
4. Lower Abs: Leg raises are a favorite lower ab exercise of mine. Yes, once you hit
a certain point, the resistance might be gone but, never fear because there are
different variations and movements that you can do to excite muscle growth. For
instance, try doing leg lifts off a higher bench, thus increasing the total movement
you have to do to get one repetition. Another tip for leg raises is at the very top of the
movement (where you body looks like an "L") try to touch the ceiling with your toes
without lifting your shoulders off the bench. What this does is incorporate two
exercises into one movement and also adds a punch at the end.
3. Mid Section Abs: I have totally neglected the standard sit up for training abs.
Instead, I replaced the standard mid section routine with an oblique routine. You can
read more about this in my previous article Awesome Abs. Fact is, is that you really
don't need to directly train the middle abs, you know, the section between your lower
and upper abs. Training lower, obliques and upper abs will undoubtedly hit the mid
section without you knowing it.
2. Upper Abs: Again, I rarely. I mean once in a blue moon, do regular crunches. I do
not like the fact that you can exceed 8 repetitions without adding weight. So for the
upper abs, I do several sets of weighted overhead pull down crunches. The upper abs
are probably the hardest to stimulate. But just focus and concentrate on them
throughout the exercise.
1. If you want them, act like you got them: It may sound stupid, but after you
complete a full set, pose and contract your abs. Yes, I said it, pose! As long as your
mom doesn't catch you posing in the mirror, it will be all good. Posing contracts the
muscles further and helps separate the muscles to give them that more defined,
ripped look.
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