Getting Abs Blog

   The abs are an interesting muscle group. You want to train them hard and develop them, but you really don't want to make them bigger. Building your abdominal and oblique muscles to the point where they get too thick and wide will give you a "blocky" appearance, which isn't that pleasing to the eye. To get the "look", you need to succeed at flattening your abs while still achieving that six-pack definition.

  The first step to flattening your abs is to get rid of any extra body fat that's covering them up. This is usually the hardest part of trying to get ripped abs. Everybody's different, and some of us tend to hold more belly fat than others. The key is to consume a lower amount of calories and have those calories come from the right sources. Clean, raw vegetables and high protein are the best. To really eat right, you can't think of it as a diet, but as a lifestyle change.

  Another key to flattening your abs is to burn away extra calories through exercise and build some muscle to increase your resting metabolism. Performing cardiovascular exercise by jogging, biking, or working out on an elliptical machine four or five days per week for 30 to 45 minutes per session will melt away the extra pounds. Intense weight training for each muscle group should be done three or four times a week to get more muscle mass so you will burn more fat even while you are at rest.

  If you want to flatten your abs, then workouts for your midsection are a must. Since you don't want to over-develop your abs and obliques, shoot for very high rep sets on the exercises you do. Crunches, leg raises, and decline bench sit-ups are all excellent for your abs, while side bends are a great oblique exercise. Your abs will recover quicker than other muscle groups, so train them more often.

  Another thing you can do to help at flattening your abs is to suck in your belly and hold it for 20 or 30 seconds. This will help develop muscles that will help hold in your belly. Do 10 or 20 holds whenever you want.

 It may take a lot of work, but the feeling you'll get from flattening your abs will be worth it.

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   A smaller and tighter midsection is something many of us yearn for. When it comes to training the midsection, we usually think of the abdominal muscles. However, the obliques are also very important to train for a defined midsection.

  The obliques are the muscles on the sides of the midsection of the body. Unfortunately for many people, they are covered by "love handles", which is the fat covering the obliques on each side. By consuming less calories and performing workouts for the obliques, you can get definition in this area.

  Workouts for the obliques should be done with your ab workouts. In fact, you can involve the obliques in many of your ab exercises. Adding a twist when you do crunches, incline sit-ups, and leg raises can do this. You can also lie on your side in a crunch machine to hit the obliques. Another excellent exercise to do during oblique workouts are side bends. You can do them with dumbbells or cables. You perform them by simply bending to one side with a dumbbell or cable handle in the opposite hand. When you do workouts for the obliques you'll want to do all of your exercises with light weight for high reps. Building too much size in your obliques will widen your midsection and can give you a "blocky" appearance.

  Besides workouts for the obliques, diet is the other major factor in getting these muscles to come out. It will take a decrease in caloric intake and an increase in metabolism to get oblique definition. Get rid of the junk food and eat clean. Eating chicken breast, egg whites, and plenty of vegetables will put you well on your way.

  By combining oblique workouts and diet, you can finally get the tight and defined waist you've always wanted.

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While the lower abs are harder to develop, the upper abs aren't so easy themselves. It takes real effort to develop any area of the midsection, and this includes the upper abs. A combination of diet and upper ab workouts are the way to go.

The best upper ab workouts will usually include crunches. They are done by basically lying down on your back and lifting the shoulders up using your ab muscles. You "crunch" the abs, hence the name of the exercise. Your can do them on the floor, a flat bench, a decline bench, a machine, or a core ball. Doing crunches on a core ball is unique because you'll be able to get a stretch in the ab muscles, which can't be done on a flat surface. It's a good idea to have some core ball training in your upper ab workouts.

Another great exercise to perform during upper abdominal workouts is the decline sit-up. This is an excellent exercise for adding a twist to each side on alternating reps to activate more muscles in the midsection area.

It's best to keep your upper ab workouts and your lower ab workouts together. You can start by doing exercises for one then the other or alternate between upper and lower ab exercises.

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