How to get six pack abs

 I know especially around this time of the year a lot of people and newbies to the gym are kind of focusing on you know the abdominal region losing body fat and maybe showing some more shape and conditioning around the abdominal, so I thought hey let's have a look at the topic How to get six pack abs . To kind of show you both exercises that you might know and focus on muscle groups but also to give examples of some of the exercises that you may not be too familiar with to show you how to actually perform them and the benefits that they can give you.

 I'll break that down show you why I think it's a great exercise and also maybe not the best exercise when it comes to really working the abdominals, and then show you six other exercise to focus on different areas of the abdomen.

With that being said let's first of all take a look at the typical crunch how it works the abdominals, how not to perform it and then start to show you some of the other exercises that I'd throw into the mix. So get a mat for yourself, typically when we think about the abdominal crunch it's a movement that looks like this - I'm going to tell how a lot of people interpret it. They sit down, they come all the way up and then they rock back down. Are you working the abdominals there - yes. Are you working them effectively - hmm not really and this is why - by coming all the way down and then using a little bit of momentum and other muscle groups to pull yourself up, you're using the abdominal muscles to lift the shoulder girdle up but then you start to use a lot of ancillary and other muscle groups to finish off the movement and taking away some of the strain from the abdominals.

 Let me tell you what I mean - by getting down onto the floor, abdominals are really contracting in that movement any higher up.... we're taking tension off them and using a little bit more of our erector spinal the muscle opposite the abdominals through the back as well as some inertia to finish off that movement. By the time we get to the top here the abdominals might have tension on but we can't fully contract them the same that we can down here to get six pack abs

 So if performing the crunch - focus like this; shoulders on the mat, hands either out by the temple, crossed over or reaching out towards the knee, whatever is more comfortable for you. I like to have them out here. Fully exhale - and as you do so try to contract the abdominals as though you're about to brace for somebody hitting you in the gut, it's that same technique where you brace the abdominals and contract  to get six pack abs

  Contract, and you want to curl the shoulders just off the mat, so it's this movement my abdominals are fully contract now, so from here to there that's the movement. You want to focus on exhaling getting all the air out the lungs, and back down. Now, why might not this be a great exercise? Well as you've seen it could be a little bit tricky especially if you're just starting out by implementing an exercise regime and if you're not fully focused on the technique and the movement it may not be the most effective to get six pack abs 

 So with that being said I'm going to show you six other exercises that will focus on abdominal conditioning, core strength, great if you have posture issues and just really making sure that you're training the full abdominal region whether you play different sports, you need to improve your posture, or like many of us, myself included, you just want to have more definition and shape in the abdominals.

 First exercise

The first exercise I'm going to share with you to get six pack abs at the gym  is a cable pulldown so let's take a look at that. Once again, this exercise might not look like you are travelling all that far but you will certainly feel it on the abdominals. A lot more activation in the abdominal muscles having to contract to pull not just the shoulders down but that added resistance. This doesn't mean that you can start adding a dumbbell or plate or extra weight when doing the crunch because it's a slightly different movement .With this one I'm putting my shoulders down a Half-moon towards my hips, I'm not just pulling the rope down towards the floor - that starts to work more the intercostals and brings the shoulders into play.

 I really just want to isolate the abdominals, so it's this movement - I'm on my knees, toes up at the top, nice and sturdy and my arm fixture here remains the same. The angle here doesn't change I'm pulling that rope down, I'm not using my arms to pull the rope. So I'm holding on to that with the weight, exhaling & contracting the abdominals and then... It's a small crunch, it's that Half-moon, shoulders coming down towards my hips in that movement.

Second exercise

 We're back down to the mat for our second exercise, and for this one I'm going to show more about the lower abdominals, which let's just be clear - the abdominals one length of muscle, these bands of muscles really all part of the same rectus abdominis here, so any crunch type movement either from the shoulders coming down or the hips coming up - we're working this to get six pack abs 

.The leg raises targets the lower abdominal. The process to for performing this is simple. You just need the floor, your abs and a bit of stamina though : ) . To perform it just lie on the floor keeping your back straight ,  glutes arched and squeezed abdominal . Now slowly raise your straight legs supported by the hips. make sure that your legs are straight otherwise this exercise will make no sense ...! the more you indulge exercises including your legs the more you target your lower abs . 

Third exercise

 A lot of us want to kind of get the V-line so we tend to work more of the lower abdominals and this next exercise is a great one that engages hip action as opposed to shoulder action. We lay flat on our back, the legs come up. The goal here is not to push the legs up towards the ceiling, we're not trying to do this.. All that we're doing is keeping the legs up which is the resistance vertically over the hips, and then we're exhaling, contracting and we're putting the lower abdominals inwards so that the hips curl up off the bench/mat.

 You'll see here all I'm telling  to do is get your toes over the eye line level, so exhale,  curl upwards, legs aren't going up hips are just moving the legs over my eye line level, which fully contracts the lower abdominal region here. Also try not to push down with your hands, my palms are upwards or at the side so it's the abdominals then having to curl and pull my hips forwards rather than just using momentum or trying to swing my legs over and just get that action from that same movement.

Fourth exercise

Medicine ball rotations or V twists, there's a few variations of this one, the underlying principles are the same - we want to keep the hips fixed and then we're rotating our upper torso around, so as long as you're mimicking this movement whether it's by using a cable, some wood chops, you're on a decline bench holding out a plate or a dumbbell, or just sat on the floor keeping the feet supported so that they don't rock up, but if you do really want to progress this keep the feet up in the air and then try to move side to side but as you can see a lot more challenging.

So I like to lock my feet under some dumbbells, keep my hips firmly on the ground, arms fixed and just move that medicine ball from side to side without bending my arms. What you'll see here is the internal and external obliques - so these V sections here. Which really control the rotation of the torso, so this is a great exercise for getting more of that V-cut tapering the waist if you feel like you have a blocky sort of waist part of that has to do with genetics but also adding some rotations in there as well .

Medecine ball like this or a classic favorite from Arnold Schwarzenegger - getting a broomstick or a light pole, not an Olympic bar sat on a bench and just focusing on side rotations. Fully exhaling on each one and really squeezing & contracting the abdominals. Now, if you're unclear on what I mean by contracting, the difference is just by turning and then really getting all of the air out of the lungs and contracting the muscles in the abdomen - that's what I'm talking about when I'm exhaling and squeezing.

 On each and every rep and for this one 20 or 30 repetitions each time so one one two two all the way until you reach your rep target.

Fifth exercise

So exercise number four  on a Swiss ball or stability ball and that's exactly what we're doing with in this exercise; we're stabilizing the movement. We're moving away from solid sturdy ground on the floor and now adding in an element that we need to control by stabilizing our muscles. This brings in a little bit more variety of muscles to help stabilize so they're called ancillary muscles, muscles that will not necessarily be worked through the exercise directly but they're still involved in keeping us stable and you'll see that I'm not sat on top of the ball like this, I'm not trying to do a crunch where the ball is going to move under me.

 So my feet are positioned and anchored securely up against the wall or dumbbells and kind of sat about two-thirds up on the ball therefore I can stretch out the abdomen here, nice stretch in the muscles here, and that same movement of curling my shoulders back in that Half-moon towards my hips. These are one of my favorite exercises for the abdominals.

You can perform this a number of different ways: straight arm like this or using the Abs supports, or even with your arms positioned on one of those dip machines where you can do a dip and then turn around and do abdominal supported leg lifts there. The purpose of this exercise like with exercise number two is to get the hips moving.

 So a lot of the time with this exercise you might see people try to perform it with legs out straight whether they're just bringing their legs up like this or they're trying to bring their toes all the way out to where they're holding onto the bar. Whilst this does work the abdominal muscles I feel it puts too much strain on the lower portion of the back and it's not as effective as bringing your knees up towards the chest

Sixth exercise

Side table lateral pulldowns might seem at first a little bit more of an advanced exercise but simply by lowering that weight and focusing on just the movement alone you can easily make this a great first starting exercise if you're just getting into the gym and learning the ropes on all the exercises. Similar to the first exercise with the rope pull down my arm placement here remains fixed.

I'm not using my arm to pull the rope down I'm merely holding on and the reason I hold on to the handle like this as opposed to a handle because it allows me to keep more of that arm fixture like that. So exhaling it's a very slight movement down. My goal is to bring the elbow down towards my hip with this movement I'm really not trying to go much beyond that, so it's a small lateral motion slightly forwards, you can really see more of those obliques coming in to play.Which I'll alternate with the third exercise, those medicine ball rotations.

So each of these six exercises are a great exercise on their own but I like to group them together in three exercises for one circuit.

 An example being on Monday I might do one, two, three of those first exercises: the rope pull downs, the lying leg lifts and the medicine ball rotation. Two or three sets of each, upwards of 20 to 30 repetitions and then the day after giving a rest so let's say Wednesday I'll come back in and I'll perform exercise number four, five and six. Therefore giving my abdominals plenty of variety and working them from different angles.

 

So let me summarize by repeating the given exercises

·

• ·         The rope pull downs
• ·         The lying leg lifts
• ·         The medicine ball rotation.
• ·         The stability ball exercise
• ·         The reverse crunches
• ·         The Side table lateral pulldowns

So...thanks for reading so far : ) hope this article has been informative to you if it has been kindly share it with your friends and families.

You can also read our article on -Top Ten Muscle Building Tips for BEGINNERS