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Everybody wants a tight midsection. In fact, the standard
for midsection perfection has risen to a new level over the
past few years, and flat is no longer good enough. People
crave chiseled abdominals. The obvious reason for this is
that a flat stomach with sharp delineation rivets people’s
eyes to your physique, and a muscular midsection (for a man
or woman) says you’re in shape and ready for action
more than any other body-part.
Abdominal training has come a long way since the days of situps,
situps and more situps. You rarely see trainees performing
this exercise anymore because people realized that the rectus
abdominus’ range of motion is fairly short, and trainees
began emphasizing the crunch to etch the upper abs and incline
or hanging kneeups to hit the lower portion. While the rectus
abdominus is actually one muscle, studies suggest that the
upper and lower sections can work somewhat independently;
the upper abs pull your rib cage toward your pelvis, and the
lower abs curl your hips toward your navel.
So there you have it. Crunches and kneeups, ab article over,
right? Not quite. Ab training has taken a giant leap forward
lately, and anyone interested in the fastest results possible
should be aware of an innovation in this area. It’s
called the Ab Bench, and according to its developer, Fred
Hatfield, Ph.D., its curved back support is what makes it
so special. This revolutionary, albelt simple, alteration
makes the standard crunch movement not only more comfortable
but tremendously more effective because the curved pad allows
you to prestretch your abs prior to crunching into the maximum-contracted
position. With a prestretch you activate the myotatic reflex,
which causes the abdominals to contract with more force so
that you get more muscle stimulation with each rep. When you
do a standard crunch, the floor or bench you’re lying
on prevents you from reaching this prestretch position. In
other words, you’re only working half of the abs’
range and drastically cutting the exercise’s effectiveness.
The Ab Bench solves this problem and makes full-range abdominal
exercise a reality. Once you introduce this piece of equipment
into your ab routine, you’ll never go back to standard
crunches again, guaranteed.
Some experts say that the Ab Bench also works the lower-ab
region when you reach the contracted position and then pull
forward into an upright posture, but beware that the upper
and lower actions are almost pure isolation movements. While
you should strive to isolate target muscles, most bodybuilders
will tell you that isolation exercises work best when they’re
used in conjunction with compound, or multi-muscle, movements.
For example, squats, a compound quad exercise, along with
leg extensions, an isolation quad exercise, make for a much
more effective leg workout than the extensions alone. This
is because the human body’s muscles are intertwined,
and compound movements tend to more closely simulate natural
actions than forced isolation does.
Nevertheless, isolation exercises are very important when
you’re after the most rapid development. Just don’t
neglect compound movements. For example, hanging or inclined
kneeups, in which you pull your upper legs into your chest
and roll your hips toward your abdomen at the end of each
rep, involve both the hip flexors and the abdominals. Follow
a few sets of this compound exercise with a couple of sets
on the Ab Bench, and you have one of the most powerful, efficient
ab routines going. Here’s how that program looks:
Incline kneeups 2 x 8-12
Ab Bench crunches 2-3 x 8-12
If you don’t have access to an Ab Bench, the following
routine will also work wonders on just about anyone’s
midsection:
Incline kneeups 2 x 8-12
Cable crunches* 2-3 x 8-12
*With low-back support from your partner so you achieve a
prestretch.
Work either of these routines For a more in-depth analysis
of ab twice a week with about a minute’s training, as
well as training for the rest between exercises and watch
as other major bodyparts.
Perfect Ab Exercises
Incline Kneeups - Lie on a slant board that’s
set at a fairly high incline. With your legs extended and
a slight bend at your knees, raise your legs up. As they reach
the point where they’re perpendicular to the floor,
roll your hips toward your navel, bringing your knees into
your chest. Hold for a two count, and return to the starting
position. Tip: Exhale hard as your knees come into your chest
to enhance the abdominal contraction.
Ab Bench Crunch - Sit on the Ab Bench with
the arch of the bench against your middle back. Grab the rope
handles, pull them down onto your chest until the cross-piece
behind your head is about one inch from your neck. Anchor
your hands on your chest and allow the weight to pull you
back into the prestretch position as you lift your rib cage.
With a quick twitch, drive down into a crunch position to
where your abs are contracted. Without pausing, pull yourself
forward another inch or two until your body is upright, or
perpendicular to the floor. Slowly return to the starting
position. Tip: Don’t pause at the top; instead, twitch
out of the prestretch position to activate the myotatic reflex.
Cable Crunch - Hook a double-rope attachment
to an overhead pulley. Get on your knees facing away from
the weight stack and hold the ends of the rope behind your
head. Have your partner place his or her hand on your lower
back so that you can arch your back and prestretch your abdominals.
From this prestretch position quickly twitch and drive down
into the abs’ fully contracted position. Hold for a
count of two and then return to the starting position. Tip:
Don’t mimic a situp motion; instead, crunch down, curling
your torso and bending your spine.
The Hard-Body Diet
No routine will etch in delineation if there’s a thick
layer of fat covering your midsection. You must be lean if
you want those abs to stand out in bold relief, and the key
to getting lean is to eat clean.
Clean eating means you focus on consuming the foods that give
you the proper fuel for your particular lifestyle. Bodybuilders
are anaerobic animals, and that means you need foods that
provide you with enough glycogen to fuel high-intensity muscle
contractions and enough protein to repair your muscles after
you train. A diet that consists of 50 percent carbs, 30 percent
protein and 20 percent fat is just about perfect for any athlete
interested in building muscle. For example, six ounces of
lowfat cottage cheese on top of four pear halves (canned in
their own juice, not syrup) gives you 282 calories, 22 grams
of protein, six grams of fat and 35 grams of carbs. That translates
into 31 percent protein, 19 percent fat and 50 percent carbs,
almost a perfect meal as far as bodybuilding macronutrient
percentages go.
If you strive to keep all of your meals close to the above
percentages and then reduce your calories little by little
(say, every week or two) and/or step up your aerobic activity,
you can essentially build muscle as you melt fat. This will
transform your physique and make your muscles more visible
in no time.
If you’re really serious about a physical transformation,
get a set of fat calipers, such as those in the Accu-Measure
Body Composition Kit, so you can monitor your progress. The
scale alone simply doesn’t cut it, especially if you
add muscle as you lose fat. In most cases your scale could
be arrested for fraud! For example, imagine putting on five
pounds of muscle and losing five pounds of fat. You look fantastic
and feel better, but your scale says nothing happened. Talk
about frustrating! When you use the AccuMeasure calipers,
you can actually track how much muscle you gained and fat
you lost, so you know exactly where you stand, no guesswork
necessary.
Lose fat at a moderate pace, methodically and sensibly, and
use fat calipers to monitor exactly where you stand on a regular
basis, and you’ll be happier, healthier and sexier and
those abs will look as if they’ve been doing some serious
battle with a hammer and chisel.
Related Articles
Ab Exercises
Abdominal Crunch
Abs and Obliques
In One Workout
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