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Q: What is the best way to get perfect
abs?
A: We believe the number one way can be
found in your weight training and nutrition. You've also
got to be performing the proper exercises and performing
the proper exercises efficiently. In other words, a thousand
sit-ups a night won't cut it. Train your abs smart! They,
too, are muscles and therefore need proper nutrition (protein,
carbs and natural fat in every meal), proper training
(leg raises and my personal favorite, Swiss ball crunches)
and proper cardio conditioning (at least 20 minutes of
cardio training in your target heart range, which is 220
minus your age then multiply by 75 percent of your maximum
heart rate. We only train our abs twice a week. It is
not recommended that you train your abs more than three
times a week. We find that anything more is overtraining.
All these components combined are the best tips for great
abs.
Q: Can I do sit-ups alone to reduce
my gut and build tight, ripped abs?
A: First of all there is no such thing
as “spot reduction.” Doing thousand of sit-ups will give
you the tight abdominal muscles, but will do nothing to
get rid of the fat on your midsection. Thigh adductor
and abductor movements will give your thigh muscles more
firmness, but they will do nothing to rid the area of
what is commonly called cellulite. The only thing that
will rid the body of fat (regardless of where it is located)
is a carefully orchestrated reduction in your daily energy
intake; in other words, you have to burn more calories
than you ingest.
Lower Abdominal Exercises
Lying Leg Raises
Lie on your back with your hands, palms down under your
buttocks. Raise your legs about 30cm (12") off the floor
and hold them there. Now trying to use just your lower abs,
raise your legs by another 15cm (6"). Do this by tilting
the pelvis instead of lifting the legs with the psoas. Make
sure your knees are slightly bent. If you're big or have
long legs or both, you should probably avoid this exercise.
For people with legs that are too heavy for their lower
abs strength, this exercise pulls the lower back into an
exaggerated arch which is bad (and painful). For reasons
why it's bad, see Question 5. If you have this problem you
can either try bending your knees slightly and making sure
you keep your lower back fairly flat, or just try another
exercise.
Reverse Crunch
This exercise can be done on the ground or on an incline
situp board. All you need is something behind your head
to hold. If you use the incline board, use it with your
feet lower than your head. Lying on your back, hold a weight
or a chair leg (if lying on the floor) or the foot bar (if
using the situp board). Keep the knees slightly bent. Pull
your pelvis and legs up so that your knees are above your
chest and then return to beginning position. This exercise
is very similar to a hanging knee raise, but a little less
intense.
Vertical Lying Leg Thrusts
Initial position: Lie on your back. Put your fists under
your buttocks to form a cradle. Raise your legs in the air
20-30cm (10-12") off the ground, knees slightly bent. If
you feel any strain on your lower back, bend your knees
a little more. Raise your head and shoulders off the ground
slightly if you can to help keep the abs stressed. The exercise
itself has four phases: Raise your legs until your feet
are above your pelvis; focus on contracting the abs. Thrust
your heels to the ceiling, breathe out, keep contracting
the abs raising the pelvis out of the cradle of your fists.
Lower out of the thrust back to your fists, leaving your
feet above your pelvis. Lower your legs back to the initial
position. Legendary Abs II recommends these as safer than
Lying Leg Raises.
Hanging Knee Raises
You need a chin-up bar or something you can hang from for
this. Grab the bar with both hands with a grip a bit wider
than your shoulders, cross your ankles and bring your knees
up to your chest (or as close as you can get). Your pelvis
should rock slightly forward. Pause at the top of the movement
for a second and then slowly lower your knees by relaxing
your abs. Don't lower your legs all the way. Repeat the
movement using just your abs to raise your knees. Make sure
that you don't start swinging. You want your abs to do the
work, not momentum. It's important that you don't move your
legs too far or your psoas muscle will be doing a lot of
work and possibly causing back problems as in a situp. Make
sure your pelvis moves, your lower back stays neutral or
slightly rounded, not arched, and that your abs are doing
the work, not your hips.
Hanging Leg Raises
Just like knee raises except you keep your legs straight.
This requires good hamstring and lower back flexibility,
see the Stretching FAQ for details. Although Legendary Abs
recommends these, The American Council on Exercise's Aerobics
Instructor book warns that they have the same back problems
as conventional situps. This makes sense since, like situps,
the legs are kept straight and the hips move. The Aerobics
and Fitness Association of America (AFAA) also regards hanging
leg raises as dangerous. For safety you should probably
stick to leg thrusts and knee raises. If you do do hanging
leg raises, make sure your lower back stays neutral or rounded.
There is an isometric variant done by gymnasts called the
"L-Support", which basically consists of taking the leg
raise position with the legs held straight at a level just
above the hips. The position is held for 10 seconds. When
you can complete this easily, try a higher position. The
same cautions about back position still hold.
Upper Abdominal Exercises
Ab Crunches
Lying on your back, put your knees up in the air so that
your thighs are at a right angle to your torso, with your
knees bent. If you like you can rest your feet on something,
like a chair. Put your hands either behind your head or
gently touching the sides of your head. Now, slowly raise
your shoulders off the ground and try to touch your breastbone
to your pelvis, breathing out as you go. If you succeed
in touching your breastbone to your pelvis, see a doctor
immediately. Although the actual movement will be very small
(your upper torso should move through less than 30 degrees)
you should try to go as high as possible. Only your spine
should bend, your hips should not move. If the hips move,
you are exercising the psoas. Do these fairly slowly to
avoid using momentum to help. You can increase the difficulty
of the exercise by extending your hands out behind your
head instead of keeping them at the side. Make sure you
don't jerk your hands forward to help with the crunch, keep
them still.
1/4 Crunches
Same as an ab crunch except that you raise your shoulder
up, instead of pulling them toward your pelvis. You can
do these quickly, in fact it's hard to do them any other
way.
Cross-Knee Crunches
Like ab crunches, take the lying, bent-knee position, but
this time crunch diagonally so that you try to touch each
shoulder to the opposite hip alternately. At the top position,
one shoulder and one hip should be off the ground.
Pulldown Crunches
Drape a towel or rope around the bar of a pulldown machine
so that you pull the weight using it instead of the bar.
Kneel facing the machine and grab hold of the towel and
put your hands against your forehead. Kneel far enough away
from the machine so that the cable comes down at a slight
angle. The exercise is the same movement as an ab crunch,
but using the weight instead of gravity. The emphasis is
still on crunching the abs, pulling the sternum (breastbone)
towards the pelvis and making sure you exhale all your air
at each contraction.
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