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Posts Tagged ‘Workout Exercises’

Using Resistance Bands in Abdominal Exercises

November 25th, 2009

Using resistance bands can be an effective component of any workout routine, and abdominal exercises are no exception. There are a number of exercises targeting the midsection that incorporate resistance bands. Resistance bands come in a variety of difficulties, usually indicated by the color of the band itself (e.g., green can be little resistance, yellow may be medium, red for difficult, etc.). Choose a resistance level that is appropriate for you, then move up as necessary. Do not overdo it by immediately grabbing the most advanced band you can find, as this can lead to injury. As with any workout routine, be sure to consult a professional before beginning and always warm up properly to avoid injury.

Seated Crunch

This exercise provides the same benefits as the basic abdominal crunch, but with less neck strain and without the possible discomfort that comes with lying on the floor, since it uses a band rather than gravity to provide resistance. For this abdominal exercise, you will need to be sitting in a straight back chair which you can somehow loop your band through. Sit up straight with your feet flat on the floor and about as wide apart as your hips. Contract your abdominal muscles, and slowly bend forward to about a forty-five degree angle. Repeat for an entire set. Be sure to keep your feet on the floor and your back as straight as possible.

One-Arm Band Pull

Put the chair away and stand up, again with feet hip width apart. Put your hands above your head, holding the band about eighteen inches apart. Keeping your left hand overhead, bring your right hand out to the side, elbow bent at about a ninety degree angle. Hold your left arm still as you contract your abdominals and lower your right arm until your hand is in line with your chest. Hold this position, then slowly return. Repeat for an entire set, then switch hands. Keep your back straight and avoid bending or leaning at the waist. For an additional challenge, do this exercise standing on one foot. Perform the exercise with both hands while standing on your left foot, then do it all again on your right foot.

Twisting Roll-Back

For this abdominal exercise, you will need to sit on a flat surface, preferably the floor. Use a mat or towel for cushioning to ease possible strain on your tail bone. Sit down with your legs bent and heels on the floor. Your toes should be pointing up– do not put your feet flat on the floor. Loop the band around your feet, put one end in each hand and put your hands together. In a rolling motion, lower your torso toward the floor about forty-five degrees. As you do this, twist to the right and spread your hands to the sides. Hold for a second, then rotate back to the middle and raise your torso back to start. Your heels should remain on the floor throughout the exercise. Do a full set, then switch to the left side.

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Abdominal Exercises – What You Need to Know

November 1st, 2009

Abdominal exercises are one of the most talk about topics in the fitness industry. Many times at the gym, I hear people ask about what the best ab workout is. The market is flooded with ab machines or gadgets as everyone seeks to have ripped or six pack abs.

Unbeknownst to many people, most of the abdominal exercises found on the internet, in magazines, fitness books, etc are not the best way to achieve six pack abs. Most people already have some decent abs hidden by excess stomach fat. The key to having visible six pack abs is to lose excess belly fat that is covering them up.

You should not focus on abdominal exercises unless you have low body fat. Instead, you should concentrate on losing body fat through a combination of high intensity and full body workout. Exercises that work large muscle groups of the chest, back and legs are the most effective for losing belly fat. Performing these multi-joint exercises in high intensity super-set, tri-set or circuit fashion maximizes your metabolism and accelerates fat burning.

What is another common mistake that most people make when performing abdominal specific exercises? They do hundreds of crunches, sit ups and other useless ab exercises that provide the little resistance to work against. If you can do more than 20-25 reps of any ab exercises, it means those exercises do not give enough resistance to the abs and so, don’t waste your time! Abdominal exercises that can only be performed in the 6-15 rep range per set provide sufficient resistance for developing visible abs.

Generally, higher resistance abdominal exercises that provide a much larger stimulus to the abs come in the form of workouts that involve raising or curling the legs and pelvis either upward or inward closer to the trunk. These exercises include hanging leg raises or knee raises using a “pelvic curl up” and lying hip thrusts. It is not surprising that the same people can do 50 or 100 crunches but can’t even complete more than 2 or 3 properly executed hanging leg raises.

In summary, here are 2 points to bear in mind:

1. If you want ripped or six pack abs, you must lose the excess belly fat FIRST.

2. When it comes to abdominal specific exercises, always choose higher resistance exercises that involve curling or raising the legs and pelvis upward or inward as these are most effective for developing the abs.

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4 Golden Rules for a Powerful Abs Workout

October 17th, 2009

ADSENSE CODE #3

Time is something you don’t want to waste during your workouts. I see too many people at the gym using up workout time doing pointless and ineffective exercises that will NEVER produce results. Now some things you can’t do without – like a warm up. Your chances of injury are multiplied many times over when you don’t take the few minutes required to warm up. Some simple stretching and calisthenics – like squats and lunges – are fine for your warm up. Once you’re ready to begin your abs building workout, there are four golden rules that you need to remember – whether you are designing your program, or having a trainer design it for you:

 

1. Stability ExercisesAfter you complete your warm up, stability exercises are next. These use only your body weight as resistance. You need to do these exercises intensely – don’t stop with a set number of reps. The rule is do your reps until you can’t do another one. Stability exercises include crunches, flutter kicks, reverse crunches, or other exercises that you don’t need any weights or other apparatus to accomplish. 2. Stability with Resistance ExercisesTHe next rule is to follow immediately with stability + resistance exercises. These are basically the same exercises that you have done before – but with WEIGHT ADDED. Some examples of stability with resistance exercises are an incline bench crunch, a weighted crunch or a weighted straight leg crunch. 3. Core Strengthening ExercisesThe next rule is to follow with core strengthening exercises. these include the most complex movements of all. The require exact body position and execution.Some core strengthening exercises that you can do lying down are the Plank, the Side Plank, and the Superman. Core strengthening exercises that you do standing are cable torso twists, woodchoppers, and “around the world.”4. Unbalanced ExercisesFinal rule: finish your workout with unbalanced exercises. These are the hardest part of your total routine. The idea here is to do an exercise that actually throws your body out of balance. For example, you might get into a push-up position with your body straight, then lift one arm toward the ceiling and open your entire torso to that side. Repeat on the other side. Very hard to do, even if you’re in awesome shape!You can’t do many reps of the exercises and you shouldn’t. Five or ten of each unbalanced exercise is enough. Remember no workout “works” unless you eat the right foods and build up your workouts porperly.Be sure to keep these 4 golden rules in mind when developing your workout routine. And if there’s a 5th golden rule, it’s that your form must be absolutely perfect. That’s the only way to design an effective workout that will definitely build goregous rock hard abs.

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Ab Workouts Do not Get Rid of Stubborn Belly Fat

October 5th, 2009

Most people are constantly searching for the best ab workouts to lose belly fat or gain six pack abs. They believe that some miracle ab workouts can help them get a flat stomach. While everyone has varying amount of excess body fat in the abdominal region, the best way to burn off extra belly fat continues to elude most.

The truth is ab workouts do NOT get rid of belly fat. They only tone and strengthen the underlying abdominal muscles. The main focus should be on a full body resistance training workout that maximizes your fat burning and metabolism boosting effect.

Doing lots of slow cardio isn’t an effective and efficient way to lose body fat either. It does not create the greatest metabolic or hormonal response. Studies have shown that people who performed cardio-based workout routines lost significantly less body fat compared to people who did mainly resistance training based routines. Some even gained body fat on the cardio-based workouts! What you really need is a complete training program that focuses on training the entire body with resistance training and multi-joint exercises in a higher intensity fashion.

The key secret to losing excess belly fat is a combination of healthy diet and high intensity full body workout. This is much more effective than doing endless crunches, sit ups or leg raises. In fact, abdominal exercises do NOT burn stomach fat.

Don’t even waste your money on ab gadgets, machines or belts… they don’t work either. If you had been suckered into buying any of them, you were ripped off!

I see people giving incorrect advice on ab training in fitness forums. Consequently, many still believe that they have to do hundred reps of ab workouts to lose belly fat or get six-pack abs. Don’t listen to this type of advice!

Nevertheless, a certain amount of ab specific exercises is beneficial when combined with a proper full body workout. Ab exercises help to strengthen and tone abdominal muscles, support a healthy back and improve posture when done correctly. Remember, ab exercises do not reduce belly fat and should only form a very small part of your workouts.

The 2 most important aspects are full body training workouts and a healthy and balanced diet. Many of the full body exercises also indirectly work the abdominals and core due to the stabilization required in some of the more difficult variations.

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abs workout routine abs workout plan abs workout video abs exercises

October 4th, 2009

ADSENSE CODE #5

abs workout routine     abs workout plan    abs workout video abs exercises

Each exercise is to be done for 3 sets each of as many repetitions as you can perform in good form. Typically, I end up doing anywhere from 15-50 repetitions. I focus more these days on feeling the repetition and the burn than actual amount of repetitions. Remember that you get better results from performing 15 impeccable and well controlled repetitions than 50 sloppy ones.

There are many ways to perform this routine. I like to do a superset of exercises 1 and 2, rest 30 seconds, superset 3 and 4, rest 30 seconds, superset 5 & 6, rest 30 seconds and perform exercise 7. After exercise 7, I rest 1 minute and start the sequence again two more times for a total of three sets.

This is just the way that I like to do it. You may want to do it in the more traditional way of doing 3 sets for sit-ups (with no more than 60 seconds of rest in between sets) and after those three sets, move on to the next exercise, etc. It is really up to you. My personal goal is to be able, at the end of 12 weeks, to do the seven exercises in a big giant set all at once.

Modifications For Absolute Beginners

Note that this is an advanced abdominal routine. I would not recommend it to absolute beginners. Beginners would be better off just performing 1 set of each exercise with a minute of rest in between sets for 6 weeks. After 6 weeks, they can move up to 2 sets for each exercise resting a minute in between sets. After remaining at this new challenging level for 6 more weeks then they can move on to the advanced routine thereafter.

When To Perform The Routine

You can perform this abdominal routine at any time that is convenient for you. Even in the late afternoon as you watch the news.

Ideally, I like to do abs followed by cardiovascular exercise first thing in the morning and weight training in the afternoon. That way I get to spike up my metabolism twice a day. If due to schedule conflicts I can only do one session on a particular day, then the order below is the way in which I do it all at once:

* Abdominal Routine (Great warmup before the weight training session)

* Weight Training

* Cardiovascular Exercise

Typically, however if I have a full day ahead of me, I rather just perform weights and cardio in the morning and then abs at night whenever I get home since the abdominal routine is easily done in the living room. In this manner, I do not have such a big exhausting session first thing in the morning and I still get two metabolic spikes.

Abdominal Workout Frequency

You may perform this routine a minimum of 3 days per week with the maximum being every day. However, keep in mind that you will not get to see your abs unless you are eating slightly less calories than your body burns. Remember that I am not talking about starvation here.

I am referring to 5-6 small meals a day composed of roughly 40% carbs, 40% Protein and 20% Fats each as advised on my Bodybuilding Nutrition Basics article. People with higher metabolisms may need a bit more carbohydrates however. In addition, ensure that you are doing at least 3 days of cardiovascular exercise work.

Workout Modifications

If you cannot do an exercise due to lower back injuries, for instance, then feel free to substitute it for an exercise that does not bother your back.

If on the other hand, if you have a healthy lower back and would like to add a bit of mass to your abs, I would just do this routine three times a week but use some resistance in the exercises.

Instructions For Quickest Results

Assuming that you are an advanced bodybuilder, the quickest results will come from performing this routine on a daily basis in conjunction with aerobic exercise first thing in the morning with weight training performed later in the afternoon.

Conclusions

I cannot overemphasize enough that if your bodybuilding diet is not dialed in neither will be your abs no matter how much cardio or exercise you do. So stick to your diet, weight train hard, and bomb those abs. Come Spring and Summer and I guarantee that if you have paid your dues you will have a better midsection than the one you have now.

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