One of the major keys when it comes to developing a six pack is the use of effective six pack abdominal exercises. As we have mentioned before, the sit-up is really not a very good exercise for building abs and there are far better solutions.
I should mention at this point that abs are muscles like any other and so in order to work them – and make them grow – you’re going to have to put some seriously hard work in. Sit-ups are nice and easy and you can do them while watching TV or reading if you want.
Proper abdominal exercises for developing a six pack take effort and absolute focus if you are going to get the best results possible.
There are a number of exercises which will help you to achieve your goals but for now let us concentrate on just two which will start you off on the right footing.
The first of these ab exercises is the crunch where you essentially carry out a sit-up but with the major difference being that not only do you keep your stomach muscles tenses throughout the entire exercise but you also carry out the exercise *slowly* so as to put as much strain on your six pack as possible.
The second of these exercises is known as the plank. Imagine the position of a press-up – where your hands are on the ground and your whole body is liften up into the air, held in a straight line. Well the plank involves basically this. Place your fore-arms on the ground (rather than just your hands) and using your arms and toes, push yourself up into the air, keeping your body straight like a plank. From here just hold still for as long as you can.
It sounds easy but again, much more than 30 seconds to a minute can be very, very tough as all your muscles start to shake. Doing 2 or 3 of these in a row, with a short break in between, can be an amazing exercise for your abs.
When it comes to achieving a six pack, your exercise regime is easily as important as your nutrition and so I have a few essential six pack tips I want to give you about resistance training.
You see while many of us do have quite decent abs hidden under a layer of fat, if you want the best stomach possible you’re really going to have to put some effort into your resistance training.
Just to calrify – by resistance training what I mean is the use of resistance – such as weights – to work your stomach hard and so encourage your abs to grow – thus producing an impressive six pack. Because whilst cardio is important to burn off your excess fat, you also need to be putting the effort into toning and growing your abs if you really are going to get the six pack of your dreams.
The first and biggest tip I can give you is to get rid of sit-ups and instead replace them with crunches. Sit-ups, whilst popular, do little to really put the stomach under pressure. And an exercise that is hard to do is the sort of exercise which really builds muscle.
Crunches, when done properly, are tough, and are the sort of exercise that really tests your stamina and helps you build a six pack as quickly as possible.
To carry out a crunch, lie down on your back as if you were going to do a sit-up. Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor which placing your hands by the side of your head. Now you’re ready.
To carry out the crunch, tense your stomach muscles and slowly raise your head and neck up off the ground. Hold for a second, and then slowly let yourself back down again. That’s all there is to it, and while it sounds simple, if you keep your stomach tensed throughout you should struggle to do many more than 10 in a row without a break.
If you’re looking for six pack tips about nutrition then this article will introduce some of the concepts that have helped me to achieve a washboard stomach.
The basic principle of getting a six pack is that of getting your body fat down as low as possible. Body fat is generally measured as a percentage of your body weight. So an average man has a body fat percentage of 20-30%. I know it sounds high but that’s the average.
For most people, a body fat percentage of around 10% is required before one can clearly see a six pack, no matter how hard you may have been working out.
For more precise guidance, you can use fat calipers which are available from a range of fitness stores to measure your exact body fat value. Once you know this (let’s say 25%) and you know you need to get down to 10% you will have a better idea of how much weight you are going to have to shift before seeing a six pack (in this case 15% of your body weight).
Now you have your target weight it is time to arrange your nutrition in such a way as to help you to achieve your goal as quickly and easily as possible. So to start with, we want low calorie food substances that will release their energy slowly over time. Examples of good foods are porridge oats, brown bread, fruit and vegetables. Examples of bad foods are virtually anything sweet and sugary such as chocolate, cake, soft drinks and so on.
Protein is also an important consideration if you are going to be burning off fat while growing your stomach muscles and so a great six pack tip is to max out on lean protein ensuring you eat a decent portion with every meal. So be sure to include items such as chicken breast, turkey breast, seafood and eggs on a regular basis to help provide your body with the nutrition it needs to finally produce that six pack you have been dreaming about.
Ask most people at the gym what they would really like and one answer is likely to stand head and shoulders above the others. Sure, they want to lose weight. Sure, they want to put on some muscle. But more than anything else, people want a six pack. Being thin isn’t impressive. But having a six pack *is*. And there is no real shortcut to it. You can’t have liposuction or take drugs to do it.
Frankly the only way to get a six pack is with hard work – which is what makes them so impressive. And what makes members of the opposite sex find them so attractive!
But how do you *really* get a six pack, and is anyone capable of doing it? Ask most professional weight lifters and they will tell you that most of us do actually have a six pack – it’s just that’s it’s covered in a layer of fat so nobody can see it!
So in order to really “get a six pack” there are two things we need to do. Firstly, burn off fat so that our abdominal muscles can actually show through, and secondly do some resistance training on our stomach muscles to increase the size of them, thus making it easier to see them and meaning we should develop a washboard stomach even quicker.
Burning off the excess fat is the easy part – just eat healthily and take part in regular cardio exercise such as cycling or jogging. However the resistance element is where some significant research needs to be done. You see, contrary to popular belief, sit-ups are possibly the worst way possible to give you a six pack. Indeed, there is considerable science to exactly which exercises to do in order to bring out the perfect six pack abs.