Hot answers tagged abdominals
16
Probably the biggest problem with the age old crunch is that it is not functional. The crunch flexes the trunk and primarily targets the rectus abdominis, not the transversus abdominis or the obliques. If you want a flexed trunk when you stand up then doing lots of crunches will give it to you.
However, if you want an elongated mid section with strong ...
11
I've watched part of the Ab Ripper X video, and reviewed all the exercises involved, and while I've not tried the program particularly, I have used several of the exercises that they have in their routine in my workouts in the past and can say with absolute certainty that the exercises will build muscle and burn calories.
How many calories you will burn I ...
11
I'm going to start out with the bottom line, then fill in the missing pieces:
A 6-pack has everything to do with the amount of body fat you have. Whether that 6-pack is impressive or not has to do with muscle mass.
The magic threshold you want to get to is under 10% body fat. The best, most tried and true method to deal with body fat is to get your ...
10
Abs are muscles like any other muscle in your body. What's different is the typical exercise regimen. Most people train abs with crunches, sit-ups, etc., which are tantamount to a very high-rep exercise with low weight. Compare with a bench press where you're doing at most sets of 10-12.
This high-rep exercise is probably not too effective for much more ...
10
If your problem is simply fat, just regular weight loss will get you there, like md5sum said.
If your problem is (either or additionally) abdominal distension, there are some exercises you can do to help with that and some foods/drinks to avoid.
10
Rippetoe & Kilgore describe in Practical Programming why many trainers--particularly strength trainers, and most particularly weightlifting trainers--eschew crunches:
The lower back is supported from the anterior by the abs, and ab work done correctly, protects and assists lumbar stability. "Done correctly" means that the abs are strength-trained, as ...
9
First, congrats on your progress. I bet you look much better than before, and your looks will continue to improve while you lose more weight.
Getting abs to show though, is rather hard. In fact, surprisingly hard.
As a comparison, I am 176cm also. I got my weight down to 68kg before all abs started showing when contracting them. In order for me (and you) ...
9
You don't list your age or gender — but the general answer is that you can't spot fix/reduce, you need to reduce and improve overall condition and reduce overall weight. Everyone stores fat differently and the spots you've indicated will be the toughest/last places for you to see improvement. My recommendation: if you're seeing improvement in your fitness ...
8
When you row, you do trunk and hip flexion, which are the ab-targeting motions of a sit-up; however, the resistance is in the opposite direction as in a sit-up. This means that you'll actually target the low back, glute muscles, and hamstrings (these muscles do hip and trunk extension--scroll down to below the "Thoracic, Lumbar" header for images). That ...
7
Here's my exercise routine:
Wake up after a good nights rest
Walk myself into the kitchen and
cook a healthy breakfast
Pack a healthy lunch to eat while at
work
Hit the gym/dojo on the way home
from work
Eat a healthy dinner and don't snack
too much before going to bed
Get to bed early enough to get a
good night's rest
Success! Notice that my exercise ...
7
The basics of getting abs
Abs come from low body fat and large core muscles. Ultimately weight doesn't matter, though checking your weight can help with achieving the low body fat.
To get abs, you need to first need to cut enough fat that your muscle tone becomes visible. This is best achieved through the combination of healthy, disciplined, and ...
7
Why would Vince be so anti-crunch?
I wouldn't say Vince is anti-crunch so much as he is anti-novice. The distinction here is that Vince would assume if someone were to do crunches as part of their routine, then that person is a novice and does not belong in his gym.
Is there any merit to this belief?
Yes. Ask anyone in the world and chances are ...
6
From what I know of the p90X program, it's an intense program based on High Impact Interval Training (HIIT), that alternates exercises every 3-4 weeks to keep the body's adoption to the specific set of exercises from happening. The few people I know who have tried it have seen results, but none have stayed with it long term - the problem with fad exercises ...
6
The truth is that anatomically, the abs are a collection of interrelated muscles. The primary function of your abdominal muscles, along with the obliques and back muscles is to keep the spine in an anatomically correct position.
Exercise is specific, in the sense that the stress you apply forces an adaptation only to the muscles that were stressed. When ...
6
Adopt a combination of HIIT and strength training. Don't run 8km every day, it's completely useless and simply wears out your body for no good reason. You need to get your testosterone up to build muscle and reduce fat. I don't know if you're male or female, but it doesn't matter. The only way to do that is with exercise of very high intensity. Avoid ...
6
First off, lets clear how these things work. They use EMS (Electrical Muscle Stimulation) to contract your muscles.
I quote from an article that talked to a physiologist.
"These devices tend to only activate the surface of the muscle," Swoap says. The electricity causes tingly-feeling contractions around your middle, but it doesn't reach deep. To ...
6
Crunches CAN be an effective tool, however there comes a point where they do more toning and conditioning than they do size building.
The function of the abdominals is to curl the torso "forward" and "in" (These are subjective to the position that you start in). If you take your lower ribcage and try to picture touching that to your hips, causing your upper ...
6
The main difference is the amount of calories that the athletes expend.
You see the olympic athletes' abs despite their relatively undisciplined diets because even at 12,000 calories per day, they are not overeating. Their physical activity requires all that fuel. Thus, their body fat percentage stays low.
Their abs are also more prominent because for most ...
5
Some of the more advanced versions of leg raises are:
windmill
inclined leg raises
hanging leg jacknife
And when you get strong enough, you can do weighted versions of these. You can use a dumbbell in between your feet for the weighted version, just be careful though.
5
You aren't making them any more difficult, but you're making it a little more difficult for your body to process the food, not on the chemical level, but rather on the physical level, you know, with all the motion around your stomach and with your intestines, etc.
Basically, if you have a 'strong stomach' and you don't really feel anything wrong while ...
5
Is ok for that increase in fat percentage for the start. I have been through that too. Now my body fat have drop to 7% after 8 month of training. You just have go through this stage and u will find your abs start forming. Anyway is better to control ur diet. Get tips from some body builder on what type of food that will be better.
5
Swimming is an excellent cardiovascular workout. You can give a very strong effort, and since there is minimal body impact, you can give a pretty intense workout just about every day. It most definitely will help with fat burning, assuming that you are eating an appropriate, healthy diet.
It will assist in muscle building, but only so much as it takes to ...
5
In order to use your hips to get your legs up, they need some opposition. This means all the muscles all the way up to the bar have to be active and involved in some way. Simple check is, if you feel your entire trunk equally involved, oblique muscles working just as hard as your center line, you have enough shoulder activation. If it feels like you're ...
5
You squat, deadlift, and press. While these each stress specific muscles more than others (presses working more shoulder strength, deadlifting working more legs and back, et cetera), they are all whole-body exercises that work the core. If done heavy, these exercises demand and develop a significant amount of core strength, including the abdominals, as ...
4
As Berin noted, bodybuilding cutting techniques are applicable here. In one week you really can't lose any appreciable fat, but what you can do is try to drop water weight. A few tips for this:
Stop taking creatine about a week before
Limit fluid and sodium intake, especially during the last 24 hours
Eat a high protein diet (can act as a diuretic)
Day of: ...
4
Rather than purely consider working your abs alone you should focus more on core strength. Your core includes your abs but also includes down from the chest right to the hips.
Having a strong core will allow your abs to develop and be more pronounced based on the fact that the muscle around and underneath will see development.
In order to build a strong ...
4
The problem with crunches is that they aren't very effective for the purposes that most people choose them:
If you are doing crunches because you want to show off a "six-pack" then you'll never get there, as this is mostly about getting to low body fat rather than building larger ab muscles.
If you are trying to increase core strength, then crunches are ...
4
Funnily, I stumbled over this explanation on the Concept2.com site, which they retrieved from Kinesiology of the rowing stroke by Thomas Mazzone. As you can see and Barbie also explained, the only moment you use your abs, is during the recovery. The rest of the time you use a whole lot of muscles, but mostly the extensors of your back and legs and the ...
4
I'll throw in my recommendation of Tabata again: What is tabata? How effective is it?
Tabata is basically High Impact Intense Training - a series of 4 exercises done with a timer (20 seconds active then 10 seconds rest for each exercise 8 times). You can focus on abs and legs with exercises like: burpees, body weight squats, lunges, etc. The exercises are ...
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