Get Six Pack Abs

What is it about abdominal muscles that make them so admired and coveted? They represent a very low fat body percentage and a strong muscular core. For the ladies, this can means that they can sport a flat athletic stomach. For the males 6 pack abs is the ultimate goal for an attractive and powerful centerpiece for the ideal body. The side effect of these physical attributes is an increased confidence for engaging in social and physical situations.

Myths and fabricated theories have flooded the market with the ulterior motive of convincing the general public that they can achieve sexy abs via yet another new method. Television adverts have become well known for promoting equipment such as ab machines, ab loungers, rollers, sliders, chair, that can target the stomach muscles with minimal effort. To cater even more to the desire of those wanting maximum results for little effort are devices that apparently work you out while you do absolutely nothing, such as vibrating equipment/belts. On top of this we have fat burning pills and powders that can just be eaten with meals, a much more tempting idea then eating a well balanced diet.

The fact is, if any of these so called breakthroughs worked, there wouldn't be so many of them. There have been people with strong looking abdominal muscles well before any modern gimmicks hit the market so how did they do it? So to lose the belly fat, it all comes down to diet and exercise and although that statement sounds like an old cliché it's a fact that people are constantly striving to bypass. It doesn't have to be a harsh reality; it just requires an understanding of how your body works and how it reacts to exercise and diet.

Ab exercises

You should reduce your focus on conventional abdominal exercises like sit-ups or other types of exercises that are associated with targeting and defining rock hard abs; you’ll reach your goal if you focus more on full body strength training. It will strengthen your core so that your back supports your abdominal muscles and the hard work on your entire body means that your resting metabolic rate will be much higher for much longer (often days) as apposed to the weaker and shorter increase achieved from the exercising of smaller muscles.

Just as there are exercises recommended for strengthening the abs, there are also some very popular exercises used today that you should actually AVOID because they maybe place dangerous strain on the back. Right now though, we’ll just take a quick look at just 3 of the ab exercises recommended.

Hanging Leg Raises (with hunched back)

• Hang from the pull-up bar, hands shoulder width apart
• With knees slightly bent, raise your legs until they almost touch the bar, curling your pelvis as well, your back should round as you curl your pelvis up
• Back should NOT be arched as is commonly (and incorrectly) carried out

Reverse Crunches

• Start with your back on the mat, feet flat on the floor and knees at a 90 degree angle, palms on the floor by your hips and your head and shoulders slightly lifted off the ground
• Slowly crunch your lower body off the ground by curling your pelvis back toward your head.
• Do not use momentum; use your abdominal strength to perform the movement.

Abdominal Crunches

• Start by lying on your back on the mat, both your arms straight back over your head and your legs about a 45 degree angle from your vertical.
• Bring your shoulders off the ground and arms forward while simultaneously bringing your legs and hips off the ground so your arms and legs just cross over

Abdominal exercises play just a small part of revealing your. If you want six pack abs, you need other exercises that focus on full body. An explanation as to why full body training is important can be found here. Here you will find some of the best full body and ab workouts, definitely a great resource to check out.

Diet

It's important to know that there is no way that you will have visible abs if your diet isn't in line with your exercise regime. Why? Because you can have strong large tone abs that are still hidden by a layer of fat! Just like with exercise, it is important that you establish a new mindset while displacing the many myths created by the dieting industry.

A very basic example for a typical well balanced day of eating for a much leaner body will consist of:

• Morning: High fiber cereal,  skim milk, eggs, cheese, ice tea, cottage cheese, yoghurt, berries, almonds
• Day: Chicken breast wrap with avocado, salsa, lettuce, cheese. Fruit, tea, peanut butter, bread, berries and skim milk
• Night: Organic meat, sweet potato, steamed vegetables, mixed greens salad, virgin olive oil, cottage cheese, fruit, milk.

A much detailed explanation of what foods are important and why in our diet, along with more then 70 much more detailed meal plans can be found here.

If you have a thorough understanding of why you need to eat the way you do and what exercises will be conducive to muscle building and fat loss, achieving killer abs will be far easier for all of us regardless of our lifestyles, budgets and genetic makeup.