Posts Tagged ‘ab exercise’
The Truth about Abdominal Exercises
Anyone interested in fitness wants to have great looking abs – firm, rippled and well-toned, along with a trim waist. Stunning six-pack abs are possible, not doubt about it, but please be aware of the myths about achieving them.
Calories (the measurement of energy) are consumed during exercise. When you consume enough to deplete the available energy, and enough to reduce the sugars that convert easily, the body goes after stored energy. That stored energy is largely in the form of fat deposits in adipose tissue.
That process is not selective, unfortunately. Your body will convert fat deposits at random, and there is no way to control this behaviour. For example, you cannot reduce the fat around your abs only. You can still achieve the same effect, but the ab exercises does not only target that fat.
The actual outcome would be building new muscle mass and strength in that area. That’s helpful for a number of reasons. It keeps a firm, strong layer of muscle which helps keep the stomach and other internal organs well inside the plane defined by your hips. You also get a nice trim, flat look.
Abdominal exercises help in another way, too. Abdominal muscles are much larger that say your jaw muscles, and therefor they also consume much more energy. That means that as you work them, they have to be supplied with more energy to move through the range of the exercise. This results in buring more calories, which again causes a reduction in fat and weight loss.
You won’t find any drug or supplement that can safely or effectively be used as a substitute. You will need to work out on a regular basis, and perform moderate to heavy exercise to achieve this. Currently there is not shortcut if you want a trim waist.
Your age and genetics also play a role in the effectiveness. People differ, and some store fat around the middle more readily that others. Obviously your gender also makes a difference.
Many women in their 40s will naturally develop a pouch in the lower abdomen as their hormones change. Older men (forties plus) are also more likely to develop so called “love handles” since fat is more readily stored in the adipose tissue.
In order to achieve the desired effect you have to approach muscle fatigue. There’s no need to perform a hundred crunches to accomplish that. Done correctly, 20 reps is enough. This can be done without a visit to the gym. Office chairs are great for pelvic tilt exercises.
But for best effect, warm up and try the following:
Lie on your back, with your knees raised and cross your arms across your chest.
Then lift your shoulders off the floor and hold for thirty seconds.
You should already feel the effect on your abs.
Put your hands beside your head to make this more difficult.
Don’t use your hands to lift your head, just keep them still.
Your hands should remain still and must not be used to lift your head.
For maximum effort, put your hands above your head, then perform the same shoulder lift and hold, focusing on the abs.
Feel the burn. Repeat daily for ten minutes or twenty repititions. In a couple of weeks, you’ll see definite results.
The Most Powerful 5 Abdominal Exercises
Every single individual has his own ideas about best abdominal exercises. But there is one underlying fact in all good abdominal exercises.
Make a distinction between abdominal exercises and full body exercises which help burn fat. If you do only abdominal exercises it may prove futile.
Here is a list of exercises which is left out in most of our schedule.
1. Mountain climbers.
In this exercise you first lay down in the push up position and then basically “run” on the spot. Move both your hands and legs as if you are climbing an incline. But you actually are not moving and you stay in the same place. First bring up one leg to your armpit, then switch to the other. This exercise is an excellent fat burner which engages your abdominal muscles. It is also a full body exercise.
2. Static jumps.
This exercise closely resembles mountain climbing. Come to push up position. Instead of alternating between bringing your legs forward, here you “jump” forward with both legs at once, landing your feet beneath your chest while keeping your hands planted on the ground. Kick back to straighten your legs and repeat. This exercise, which is initially tough is a very good abdominal exercise and burns more fat than you could by other exercises.
3. Hanging leg lifts.
This exercise is done hanging from a pull up bar. Hang with your arms and legs extended. Now raise your knees, bringing them in towards your chest. Do not jerk, use a smooth, controlled motion. The exercise i even tougher if you do like this- keep legs straight, pull up your legs in front of you up to your waist levels.
You can also do a few pull ups in between every few repetitions of this exercise.
4. Towel slide.
This exercise is best done on smooth surfaces which may a piece of cloth to be dragged freely, just like a tiled surface.
This exercise is simply explained here- Assume you are using a towel. Get into push up position with your feet on the towel. Now, while keeping your legs and arms straight, slide your feet in towards your hands (until they’re more or less in line with your waist), then slide back into the full pushup position and repeat. Focus on using your abdominals to do this.
The exercises proves doubly beneficial if push ups are done after every 2 or 3 slides.
5. Jack knives.
This is also a best abdominal exercise.Lie flat on your back, legs straight and arms stretched out over your head. Now, lift your legs while keeping them straight, and at the same time lift your arms (also keeping them straight) to touch your legs in the air above your waist. Never ever jerk while doing this exercise. if jerking could not be avoided then you must stop doing the exercise lest the benefits of doing this exercise are lost.
The above exercises are really some of the best abdominal exercises. Incorporate them into your exercise regimen for beneficial results.
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Upper Abdominal Exercises Versus Lower Abdominal Exercises
In fitness training most people have a very vague idea about upper and lower abs exercises. I would set the record straight here. The muscle which actually figures in fitness training programs is the rectus abdominus. Rectus means straight, and abdominus means the abdomen. all together we assume the meaning that the rectus abdominus runs straight down the abdomen. Rectus abdominus is the muscle which gives even the lean person a six pack look.
The rectus abdominus is 1 muscle, but it has tendinous intersections that separate muscle fibers forming distinct sections. Many argue that rectus abdominus is a single muscle and you can’t isolate certain parts of the muscle. Yes, you can’t isolate only one section but you can emphasize one area over another.So the problem comes with people using the terms isolate and emphasize interchangeably.
Our agility, reflex and many other body functions are decided by the thousands of intricately designed nervous system in our body. The rectus abdominus has thousands of nerve endings which look like an interwoven cluster of wires. These nerve endings help in coordinating various movements of the body. The upper and lower abs are also emphasizes when we do various movements.The upper part of the rectum abdominus, the upper abs are emphasized well when the trunk is mover forward as we move it in crunches and sit ups. Ball crunches, crunch machines and ab training machines have good value as a upper abs tightening methods.Apart from upper abs the lower abs are also emphasized while doing crunches. The entire rectus abdominus muscle is trained in any good abdominal exercise when your trunk bends forward or flexed.
The lower abs, which form the lower part of the rectus abdominus are emphasized whn the pelvis moves towards the trunk. This happens in reverse crunches. Leg raises and flutter kicks also work out the lower abs. It is also to be noted that upper abs are worked out in reverse crunches but more stress is laid upon the lower abs only.
I must warn you that these abdominal exercises will not just like that melt our fat away. Doing upper abs exercises and lower abs exercises alone is not definitely going to melt that fat away.. This is known as the spot reduction myth. If you want to lose stomach fat, you should use a comprehensive approach to fitness and healthy eating.
The best way to get a balanced body is to do abdominal exercises minimum 2-3 times a day. You should also do both lower and upper abs exercises every single day.
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Great Way to get Flat Abs – Get the Proper Mindset
Have you lost your six pack abs six-pack–abs.net? Be concerned, but not too much. When you do lower ab workouts and find your abs muscles burning, don’t kid yourself into imagining that you’re en route to ripped abs because you’re not. Spot reduction workouts may tone up the individual muscle, but for certain do not remove the overlaying fat as promised by many commercials. Those meaningless promises will not produce a six pack but burning unneeded body fat by accelerating your metabolism through lifting weights will, that’s for sure.
Sure, if you want to get rid of the big belly to expose the muscle you should start some abs workouts. Spot exercises just do not get rid of a lot of body fat, but can be good in beefing up and toning up the target muscles. Physical Exercises that affect the whole body are more effective. It is easy to get fooled by the commercials with well sculpted exercise models who make the work outs look effortless.
But fundamentally, what you’re buying are their promises to make you appear good. The rest is simply marketing. Targeting muscles for weight loss in a specific area does not work, therefore, machines promoted in that fashion also are not effective in targeted weight loss. Targeting the abdominals serves to make that area toned up and stronger but your actual muscles will stay hidden under fat.
What will melt those fats away is weight training. Exercising the bigger muscles in the body will get the muscles more active, which leads them to use up more energy. As a result of large muscles using more energy, the energy in existing fat is consumed thereby resulting in a decrease of overall fat.
When the bigger muscles exercise at greater intensities they demand more oxygen to carry on working. To continue having the muscles work, the body has to supply them with oxygen and additional blood, at the same time, clearing away any waste matters in the muscles.
This whole rhythm of replenishing and clean-up is meticulously energy-intensive and can endure for a couple of hours after the exercise, resulting in a gain in the body’s metabolism and greater amounts of fat consumed.
Therefore, burning lower abs while doing lower ab exercises doesn’t mean you’re getting defined abs. Target area reduction ideas and infomercials serve to sell you a dream. Weight lifting to increase metabolism and drop fat will turn the dream into reality. Finally, to lose belly fat http://lose-belly–fat.org, think about starting some cardio workouts.