Have you ever wondered if there is a perfect exercise for abs, an exercise that will generate results you are looking for? 

Having a lean, tone, defined mid-section is a goal for almost everyone, and that is why most people want information on abdominal workouts.  But did you know that training your core, which includes abdominals, lower back, and all the postural muscles, can also help relieve lower back pain, improve sport performance, and reduce the risk of injury for people of all ages? 

In this blog, we are going to describe and dissect all the various ab exercises, diets, popular information, and even misconceptions that many people have about improving the way their abs look.

The best exercises for abs are those that engage all the abdominal and postural muscles, including the transverse abdominus, recuts abdominus, obliques, erector spinae (to name a few).  When someone has ’six pack abs’, the person has not only strengthened their abs by performing certain exercises, but also followed a diet and exercise routine that allows them to have a low enough body fat percentage that the abdominal muscles are visible.

Some basic exercises for abs include the plank, the crunch, and leg lifts, all of which can be performed on the floor with an exercise mat.  To perform the plank, simply lie face down and prop yourself up on your elbows and toes, keep yourself in a perfectly straight line, parallel to the floor, and hold it for as long as you can.  Don’t allow yourself to drop your hips to low or stick your butt into the air.  If you experience back pain, you should stop. 

To perform crunches, lie face up on your exercise mat with knees bent, place hands behind head and keep a space between your chin and chest, lift your torso a few inches off the ground and repeat.  To perform leg lifts, continue lying face up but straighten legs and place hands under hips.  Lift both legs up and down in a slow controlled motion.  While a correctly performed plank will activate all the postural muscles, crunches focus on the upper portion of the rectus abdominus and leg lifts focus on the lower portion.  Performing these three exercises for abs is a great start to developing a well-rounded ab work out.

If your goal is to ‘get a six pack’, then you must also eat a fairly clean diet, do resistance training, and regular cardiovascular workouts.  Your diet should be free of fatty and processed foods but loaded with lots of veggies, lean proteins, and whole grains.  Resistance training should be at least three times per week for both women and men, and cardio should vary in intensity, time, and type.

Finding the perfect exercise for abs is actually a process based on your goals.  Having a six pack, reducing back pain, sports conditioning, and injury prevention are all great reasons to learn about how to properly work your core and postural muscles and feel your best.

Technorati Tags: Exercise For Abs

by Mike Geary – Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Instead of the typical ab routines that we see so often with crunches, situps, leg lifts, etc… I like to give my readers better options for metabolism-boosting high intensity workouts that work their entire body while also working their abs… thus building rock hard abs & core, but also creating a much better fat-burning workout than a typical ab workout.

I’m going to show you an example today of one of my favorite “ab workouts” that doesn’t include any direct “ab exercises” at all. It’s in a tri-set format (similar to a super-set but alternating between 3 exercises).

Here goes:

1a. Renegade Dumbbell Rows
1b. Front Squats with Barbell
1c. Mountain Climbers on Floor

A good rep scheme to use with this could be 3-4 sets of 8 reps for each exercise, or more sets for less reps, such as 5 sets of 5 reps of each exercise. Mountain climbers can be done for a time interval (such as 30 seconds) instead of “reps”.

For exercise demos and more, visit: http://www.bit.ly/cS3eaO

Technorati Tags: Exercise For Abs

The captains chair is a piece of commercial gym equipment that is often, but not always, designed to allow the user to perform a variety of body weight exercises.  It’s basically a large metal frame designed for pull-ups, tricep dips, and leg raises.  There are a few variations in design of the captain’s chair, so if you’re looking for it at the gym and you don’t see one similar to that in the demonstration photo, then look for a similar piece with an overhead metal brace that would allow you to do pull-ups on it.  Another variation of the captains’ chair replaces the flat pad you normally lean against with a bosu ball to provide additional support to the lumbar spine.

When focusing on the abs, you can use the captains chair (sometimes called a Roman Chair) to perform leg raises, one of the best lower abdominal exercises.  Leg raises is the second best exercise for abs as determined by ACE.  Beginners often start out by doing leg raises with knees bent, or by raising one leg at a time.  If you are more advanced, you can keep legs straight throughout the entire movement and you can also twist during the movement.  Whichever exercise you choose, they are all excellent lower abdominal exercises.

To use the chair effectively, maintain neutral posture while supporting the upper body with forearm pads.  Proceed to follow the instructions below:

1. Stand on foot rest and position arms, bent at 90 degrees, keeping shoulders down and back while grasping handles to stabilize your upper body.
2. Lean back against support pad and allow legs to hang below you while maintaining the natural curve of your spine.
3. In a slow, controlled movement, contract the abs and raise your legs keeping knees bent at 90 degrees.
4. Slowly lower legs down and repeat 5-15 reps.

You can also perform an isometric abdominal contraction by holding either bent or straight legs in the raised position for a previously determined interval of time.  Just another one of the challenging lower abdominal exercises you can do using a captains chair.

Lower Abdominal Exercises 1

Lower Abdominal Exercises 2

Lower Abdominal Exercises - Twist

The exercise ball is piece an excellent piece of fitness equipment because while it is commonly seen at public gyms and workout facilities, it can also be used at home and be just effective.  Fitness balls are also a great tool to strengthen abs and improve balance which is probably why they ranked third in the study for best exercise for abs. Exercise ball crunches can be done by following these steps:

1. Lay face-up and place the ball under your mid/lower back.
2. Cross your arms over the chest, to support your neck, place arms behind your head.
3. Contract your abs to lift your upper back a 4-6 inches off the ball in a slow, controlled manner.
4. As you curl up, keep the ball in one place & try not to push yourself up with your legs.
5. Lower yourself down slowly and repeat for anywhere from 10 -25 reps.

Exercise For Abs 1

Exercise For Abs 2

Although you don’t need to, you can also come up higher when performing an exercise ball crunch.  Using the ball correctly is more a matter of maintaining balance, stabilizing and holding correct posture while going through the pre-determined range of motion.

Technorati Tags: Exercise For Abs, lower abdominal exercises

If you have extra body fat over your abs, then there is no exercise for abs that will make make that fat disappear.  While a good exercise for ab routine will increase core strength and possibly result in a toning of the abs underneath the excess fat, there is NO exercise for abs that will miraculously burn off the fat of your stomach.

Purchasing the right foods at the grocery store will help you get on the path to clean eating, proper  nutrition, and with proper portion control will result in a visible toning of the abs.   Use this shopping list as a checklist to ensure you have nutritious, wholesome foods in your kitchen when it’s time to prepare a meal or snack.

Protein	Carbohydrates	Fat
Buffalo Cod Crab/Lobster Egg Substitute Egg Whites Extra Firm Tofu Flank Steak Free Range Egg Whites Fresh Fish Lean Ground Beef Lean Ground Sirloin Lean Pork Lean Sirloin Steak Lean Turkey Products L.F Cottage Cheese Ostrich Salmon Shrimp Skinless Chicken Breast Soy Products Protein Powder Swordfish Tuna Turkey Breast Whey Protein Powder	Baked Potato Barley Brown Rice Corn Old Fashioned Oatmeal Pumpkin Spinach Pasta Squash Strawberries Sweet Potato Wheat Pasta Whole Grain Pasta Whole Grain Tortillas Whole wheat bagels Whole wheat bread Whole wheat English muffins Wild Rice Vegetables Asparagus Beans (black, navy) Bell Peppers Broccoli Broccoli Slaw Cabbage Carrots Cauliflower Celery Cole Slaw (dry) Cucumber Garbanzo beans Green Beans Green Peppers Kale Lentils Lettuce Mushrooms Onions Snow Peas Spinach Tomatoes Zucchini	Almond Butter Canola Mayonnaise Cold water fish Flaxseed Oil Flaxseeds Free Range Egg Yolks Natural Peanut butter Olive oil Olives Peanuts Safflower oil Sunflower Oil Tahini Walnuts Fruits Apples Apricots Blackberries Blueberries Clementine Grapefruit Mango Melon Orange Peaches Raspberries Strawberries

Stocking your kitchen with foods packed with vitamins, nutrients, and fiber, makes it much easier to stay focused on your eating plan. Instead of filling your pantry with “junk”, use this list as a guideline to providing healthy alternatives.  It will make every exercise for abs you do more effective and give you visibly noticable returns ie: toning abs.

Technorati Tags: Exercise For Abs, toning abs

The best exercise for abs isn’t really an exercise at all, it’s a well-rounded healthy program that focuses on nutrition, strength
training, and cardiovascular exercise.

If you want your abs to show, take a look at the bigger picture. High intensity, full body workout programs combined with a healthy but controlled calorie diet will stimulate metabolism to reduce overall body fat. To get results, you must basically hit ‘over-ride’ and stop listening to all the misconceptions that have flooded the marketplace.

One overlooked element when it comes to exercise for abs, toning abs, or losing body fat is nutrition. There is so much conflicting information on the market as how much work it actually takes to achieve a certain look that many people become very frustrated and don’t know which program to follow. It is possible to lose body fat in a healthy way, to develop a daily diet and exercise plan that is healthy and allows you to maintain a lean body.

Most often, when it comes to developing your abs, people are led to believe that a simple piece of equipment or an exercise will make their abs look the way they want. And while many of these pieces of equipment probably do help strengthen the abs, they unfortunately do not facilitate the stomach fat loss that’s required to reveal all that hard work.

Another misconception about developing your abs is when it comes to the actual exercises for abs themselves. Again, most products on the market lead people to believe that ab-specific training will allow them to ‘spot-reduce’ (meaning lose body fat in a specific area only). Regrettably spot reducing is not possible. It’s not that crunches, leg raises or even some of the abs equipment on the market are a waste of time. They generally just don’t provide enough of a metabolic response when it comes to burning calories and reducing body fat.

Unless educated as a trainer or fitness instructor, if you have set a goal to get in shape, lose body fat, or develop your abs, it’s helpful to have a structured program to replicate. Choosing a program or teacher to guide you through the process of getting in shape or developing and toning your abs, or whatever your goal can be a little confusing.

Here are 10 tips you can use to choose the right program or to guide yourself. These ten tips are things you should consider as you journey from being over-weight or out-of-shape to feeling good about how you look and achieving your goals.

1. Comprehensive workout programs for gym or home workouts
2. Video demonstrations to demonstrate exercises with proper form
3. Informative articles written by reputable, experienced professionals
4. Healthy Nutrition Strategies and meal plans recommending proper caloric intake
5. Calorie Calculator – helps you understand how much food you’re eating
6. Motivational guidance from a trainer or friend
7. Fitness calculators -help you understand calories burned
8. Strength training guidance and demonstrations
9. Education and how-to for advanced exercises
10. Self-Motivation and Self-Discipline

You see, it’s not just an exercise for abs regime that will be the one ‘cure-all’ solution, but a total change in lifestyle and mental attitude as well. This is what I believe is really the answer to you achieving your fitness goals.

Technorati Tags: ab work out, Exercise For Abs, toning abs