 | Abdominals
Training | | Common Abs Questions
& Answers | If
you are trying to develope a tight midsection or abdominals, you must first understand
a few basic facts. It takes more than doing daily sit-ups. The abdominals may
be well developed, but will not show under too much fat. The fat is a seperate
issue, and may be reduced by controling calorie intake and increasing the total
calories burned. |
What is the best way
to get perfect abs?
We believe the number one way can be found in your
weight training and nutrition. People need to be performing the proper exercises
and performing the proper exercise efficiently. In other words, a ten thousand
sit-ups every night won't do it. Train the abdominals smart! They, too, are muscles
and therefore need the proper nutrition ( protein, carbs andnatural 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 max heart rate). It is recommended you only train our abs twice a week. It
is not recommended that anyone train their abs more than three times a week. We
find that anything more is overtraining. Can I do sit-ups
alone to reduce my gut and build tight, ripped abs?
First of all there
is no such thing as “spot reduction.” Doing thousand of sit-ups will provide 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 controlled reduction in your daily energy intake; in
other words, you have to burn more calories than you ingest. Lower
Ab 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 Ab 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. |
