I recently used Tony Horton’s Ab Ripper X video for a couple of exercise sessions. As the title suggests, it’s an exercise video that focuses primarily on the abdominal muscles. The abs are a group of muscles that don’t require long bouts of work and as such, the routine is really quite short. But was it any good? Read on to find out…
The road to a 6 pack of abs is a tough one. It’s a combination of diet, exercise and genetics that make or break one of the most sought after defined muscle groups. In fact, for some people, it’s just impossible. But it’s worth a shot and although the golden rule is to get lean so the abdominals can peek through the stomach, the abdominal muscles have to first get built up a bit. These two exercises are perfect additions to your routines to help get you down the road to success.
Leg Raises are a great exercise that focus primarily on the lower abs. The easiest variation is to perform them lying on the back with legs out in front of you. Left the legs off the floor, hold for a second and slowly lower them down again. Another variation uses the parallel bars, which can often be found at a gym on the vertical knee raise and dip station. Place the arms on the machine with elbows and forearms holding the body up with the legs dangling. Lift the legs straight out and slowly back down. A third variation is hanging leg raises. This one is done hanging from the pull-up bar. Again, lift legs straight up and then slowly back down. All of these can be done in a typical 3 sets of 10 reps fashion.
Knee Grabs are done lying on your back. Start with arms and legs fully extended and touching the ground. Bend the legs at the knees and bring them up to the chest. at the same time, bring the arms forward, lifting the upper back off the ground and “hug” the knees. Again, 3 sets of 10 should do you well.
Good sit-up tip. Fold up your towel to a thickness of about 1.5 to 2 inches. Place it under your lower back so that it fills the gap between your tail bone and upper back when you’re in the lying position of a sit-up. You will find that the towel will enable you to more easily lift yourself with your abdominal muscles, without having to anchor your feet or throw your arms or head forward to create momentum. The towel also helps to fully extend your abs in the lying position and fully contract them in the sitting position. The towel will also help keep your stinking sweat off the mat ;)
TheDietChannel.com has a few articles on attaining perfect abs. Their latest, 4 Exercises For A Fabulous Core breaks down 4 simple exercises that will no doubt produce some results.
However, according to many other articles found all over the net, overdoing the ab exercises will do nothing to make those muscles protrude like a true 6 pack. Flip over to one of their earlier posts, How to Get Great Abs and scroll down a bit to read the few tips that they have.
1) Spot reduction doesn’t work,
2) Don’t work your abs every day and
3)Follow a balance, reduced-calorie diet. The 6 pack ab secret is that there is no secret. It takes dedication and effort and much, much more than a simple situp routine.
The six pack - a quest to achieve the ultimate look in the mid section. Unfortunately, also probably very very difficult for most of us and probably impossible for some. Truth is that we all have a six pack in there somewhere. And if you incorporate some amount of abdominal exercises into your weekly workout, it’s probably near as good as it gets. However, you can perform zillions of crunches and hanging leg raises and still have nary a one pack. Like most muscle definition, the six pack comes through diet. In order to get that muscle out from hiding, you will have to lose the fat surrounding it. Plain and simple… er… perhaps not so simple. But take it from Tom Venuto, author of “Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle”. He says,
It takes training to increase strength, build endurance and DEVELOP the abdominals, but to SEE the definition in your abdominals - or any other muscle group for that matter - is almost entirely the result of low body fat levels.
And if you’re concerned about his credibility, just take a gander at the pic above.
