One of the toughest areas of the body to work is the abdominal muscles or the "abs". This is the most common complaint for everyone, not just for those here but everyone. The abs are probably the most important part of the body, but also the least understood and therefore the least exercised. Strong abs improves good posture, can reduce back pains due to that bad posture, and aid in the use of both the upper and lower extremities.
The biggest complaint is the inability to see definition to the abdominal muscles. This is generally caused by a layer of body fat covering the stomach. Through diet and exercise this fat can be thinned enough to see the fruits of your labor.
Going along with this is the complaint of the waistline, love handles, and basically weak ab muscles. There are easily hundreds of exercises and variations of those exercises meant to "blast" your abs. So what works, and what is a waste of your time? In all honesty, it comes down to what you can do and how often you can do them. I believe in doing core muscle exercises as part of my normal regiment.
For a good collection of effective ab exercises, check the link below from About.com.
http://about.com
The best way to show off those abs is to lose the belly fat. I'm not a big fan of the numerous diet pills, but dietary supplements can be beneficial to losing weight while building muscle at the same time. Introduce cardo to your exercise routine or increase it if you already incorporate it. This means increasing the time of your cardo, not the necessarily the speed or intensity.
What does this mean? Run 5 miles instead of 3 miles but at a slower pace. Swim a few extra laps, or if biking is your thing, add an extra 50% to your normal distance. The important thing is that you are burning body fat.
Diet follows very closely here. If you run and burn 300 calories then fill your tank with junk food, you are sabotaging yourself. The greatest benefit to doing cardo exercise is that the metabolism is kick started and will continue to be for most of the day. This should not be an excuse to take in 500 calories of junk food with the promise of working harder tomorrow.
What do I mean by "junk food" anyway? I call food without a specific dietary benefit, junk food. This includes but is in no way limited to, fried foods, "Big Macs", ice cream, and of course candies and pastries. Having said that, I also live by a motto, "take all things in moderation, especially moderation". After all what is the point of being healthy if you can't eat the things you want. Like going to you child's birthday party but not eating a piece of cake because it might make you fat. This is taking a diet too far.
One day of eating junk food does as much harm as one day of eating salad would benefit you. In fact, it is often suggested to have one day a week to be a day you can eat what you want. This shakes up the metabolism and can actually aid in over all weight loss.
After all, no diet will works if you can't stick to it. This will lead to weight loss and the reduction of body fat. Combined with regular exercise, this will lead to improved abdominal strength and definition.
13 years ago
6 comments:
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My neighbor told me a about a new technique that is suppose to be good for the abs. It is very similar to a push-up, however instead of using your hands, you use your forearms and elbows. Also, you do not move up and down as do for push-up, you stay stationary; elevated, but stationary. The average time to stay elevated is between 30 - 45 seconds. Have you heard of this?
you are referring to a core muscle exercise called the plank. These type of excercises are very good to add to any ab routine.
I do the plank with a count to 30 and then again with my feet elevated.
Great. Thank you for the info. I will begin to incorporate plank into my exercising. Do you think plank is more effective than push-ups?
Well, push ups have their place. It really depends on what results you are looking for. You can do another modified plank exercise where you are in the push up position but hold youself up for a count of 60. Then do it again with your feet elevated.
I'll have to try the plank some time.
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