The only other changes I will make is that I will be doing back lifts to strengthen my back because you don’t want to get injured. Very important. The other change is that I will be training every other day, but train to failure.

It doesn’t matter how many repetitions you do as long a you don’t get to failure in the first 2 sets. We want those sets to work at warming up your abdominals. The other thing I would like to introduce is to do the exercises slowly. If you can do a full repetition from start to finish within 2 seconds and maintaining tension around the abodominals area in that time, that’s the best way. The last set of course where you train to failure, you just go until you cannot do another repetition. Remember to keep a record of your workouts.

Also, for the whole set, your abdominals should not relax until the end of that set. See my workout below for more details.

This is the 4th of June and my six packs have gone backwards for several months so it’s a good idea to test out their theory and see where I will get to. Anyone else wants to have a go, please feel free and report back your results.

My new workout will look like this :-

3 exercises :-
(1) Crunches (3 sets – with last set to failure)
(2) Reverse Crunches (3 sets with last set to failure)
(3) Back extensions (3 sets)

What I am trying to prove is that you can have only a few exercises lasting about 30mins but if done correctly, can still reap rewards.

One look at their abs told me all I needed to know. How can you show your abs if they are covered by layers of fat?

I bet they haven’t heard about the slogan – “abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym”.

Someone was asking me the other day – “how can I grow my abdominal muscles the same way that I am growing my other muscles, and what exercises for abs should I do?”

Pondering on this question for a while, my brief answer to him is – you need to do everything that is required and not just do one thing. Training is one part of the equation but the other parts, and let’s face it – they are all equally important if not critical to your development, is (1) recovery through rest and sleeping and (2) your nutrition program.

Failure to do ALL of those things will make your exercises for abs routine, ineffective.

To which he replied – “but one person in my local gym eats everything he likes to eat and he trains just as hard as me but, he got the results and I don’t”.

To cut the story short – I nearly gave him a cuff around the ears. But, it is still a valid question which we will explore further, in another post. The bottom line of it is, you should never compare yourself and your training to someone else. You are build totally different in your physiology and behaviour. He may well be blessed with good genes but not you.

Copying someone’s training methods is only okay when you are starting out but the level you must always strive for, is to find out what works for you.

To start with, the best exercises for abs to me will have to be crunches, reverse crunches, v-sits, leg raises, side bends and twists using a stick.

They are also easy to do and they can all give you better results if you do them using the ball, or an inclined bench, and this is true especially with the crunches.

Crunches on the ball stresses all your abs muscles but especially the upper abs. Crunches on the ball will exercise all your frontal areas including the deeper muscles. They can also affect your intercostals to an extent. Those are the muscles around the sides going up to your back and rib cage.

Reverse crunches train mainly the lower abs and so as leg raises. These are two of the best exercises for abs if done correctly. If you don’t do them right or tend to overextend your movements, then there is a chance the hip flexors and muscles of the hips will be worked, lessening the impact on the lower abs. Reverse crunches is not easy to do but if you master it, it will pay you dividends.

V-sits is best for all around complete abs workout. This is definitely one of the best exercises for abs and it is just a graceful and nice, natural movement to execute. Some people finds the v-sits difficult but that’s okay you don’t have to do 100 reps per set. If you can manage 20 or even 10 per set then that’s also okay. Keep at it and you will be hitting 30, 40 or more in no time.

The last 2 good exercises for abs I want to discuss is the twists and side bends. Side bends according to some people may tend to build too much of your intercostals hence making your waist wider but that’s probably a load of crap. Do more than a few hundreds per set to give your ab muscles a good workout.

There are other good abs exercises which I haven’t covered here so we’ll leave them for next time.

Okay so you may be thinking nah – ‘you are going overboard’, think again. You may know a lot about fitness and abdominal muscle building methods and exercises. But not everyone is like you.

I know it’s not rocket science to create your own workouts for abs but you can still seriously injure yourself if you don’t think or understand what you are doing. Getting injured folks is not nice. Trust me, that’s the worst thing you can allow to happen to your body. It will put your training back a few weeks or worse.

If you don’t have a choice but to design your own workouts for abs, don’t lose heart. If you are not a fitness enthusiast or not in the industry then read up widely on the subject. Buy books, better still go online for tons of free information, go to the library. Read all you can about body building or muscle building exercises.

Then when you feel you have got the grasp of the basics with a bit more, sit down and start designing your abs workout. 

Here are the kind of things I think about when I am writing my own workouts for abs or writing workouts for my clients.

What kind of results do I want and how fast I want them?  This will then decide how much time I need to commit to it.  Two kind of results I normally go for will be to build more abs muscle mass or just to lose fat and go for firm toned look. 

Have fun creating your workouts for abs – we’ll cover a bit more later because I got to go.

Abs definition routines should be low intense, use higher reps and sets, and contains more cardio type exercises.  They are designed primarily to burn fat tissues between your skin and the underlying abs muscles resulting in better muscle definition.  In fact, the fat is actually lost around the whole body, not just the abdominal areas.

Remember to incorporate aerobics exercises as part of your toning abs workout.  Some of the best are brisk walking, light skipping, jogging and swimming.  Treadmills, exercycles or low intense circuit training are also good.

 When you tone any muscle groups including abs, those muscles should already have existed, otherwise what is there for you to tone right ? Just common sense.
 
So before you look at toning abs, you have to have some ab muscles first.
 
If you have not got any ab muscles, have a look at some of our programs on Fast 6 Abs website or even on this blog.
 
Most fitness trainers never try and define their muscles while they are in the muscle building phase of their training.  So it’s not unusual to see a buildup of both muscle and fat during this stage.  Then on the last stage of their training, they perform toning abs exercises to trim away the fat leaving their ab muscles exposed.

Remembering that the goal is to reduce your overall body fat composition, you can help your case by reducing your daily intake of calories.  If you need help working out the calories of the food you eat, sign up to one of the online websites, there are quite a few of them around.

To recap, a program designed for toning abs should have more exercises per muscle group, twice as many or more reps or sets, have very low intensity, more aerobics based exercises and should have minimum rest between exercises. 

Keep the intensity low and try not to do any high intensity body building work while you are training for abs muscle tone.