Secondary Abs Training
Ab training is involved in every movement you perform. When you’re running it uses your abs, when you’re walking it uses your abs, when you’re playing gold it uses your abs, when you’re doing a bench press it uses your abs and when you throw a punch it engages your abs. This is why good strong abs are so important, but it can also be used to our advantage to help make training them a 24 hour affair and to train them all the time in the gym.
Training just one muscle group is incredibly difficult, so much so that doing so requires specifically designed ‘isolation’ exercises. During most exercise however at least two muscle groups will be involved. For example when doing a bench press, the pecs are the focus of the exercise, but the triceps, shoulders, traps and abs will also be involved. These are then referred to as the ‘secondary’ muscle groups when doing that exercise.
As it happens, the abs are secondary muscles in just about every exercise. This means that any exercise, no matter the body part you’re focussing on, will provide training for the abs. For some exercises this is more true than for others and some will involve the abs as secondary muscles in a big way. This is particularly the case with calisthenics exercises, as they often require core stability to balance the body weight. This includes press ups and pull ups, both of which require a lot of involvement from the abs.
This then of course needs to be factored into how you train your abs. If you’re aiming to give your abs a chance to rest between workouts, then you should follow an abs workout immediately up with a session of pull ups and press ups. At the same time though, if you feel your abs could do with a bit more work that week, you can use exercises that train your stomach in a secondary manner when training other body parts.
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Running Tips and Variations Part Two
A good running playlist or soundtrack can also greatly improve the value of your runs. These should include tracks with inspiring lyrics (such as Survivors Eye of the Tiger or Kanye West’s Stronger) as well as a steady beat that you can use to time your running. Studies have shown however that the most effective play lists of all work by starting off with a slow tempo and then gradually increasing in speed as you run. This way the body gets more and more worked up until you’re running faster than you knew you could. The music should then slow down or peter off towards the end.
Also not to be underestimated is the importance of warming up and cooling down and stretching. This will prevent injury by getting your muscles and tendons used to movement, and will also get your body used to the movements. By cooling down and stretching at the end of the workout you can then also drain lactic acid from the muscles and prevent soreness the next day.
While all these things will improve the effectiveness of your ‘standard’ runs, a host of variations can also be used to give yourself a very different kind of workout. For example, in interval training the athlete sprints for short distances then walks for a bit further. This actually increases the body’s production of growth hormone leading to increased muscle mass and fat burning. At the same time it can provide a more difficult cardio workout and will burn more calories in a shorter space of time. A similar variation ‘fartlek’ (time play) training uses a whole range of different speeds used intermittently.
You can also make running more difficult by increasing the resistance – by running up hill, through sand or in shallow water. This forces the muscles to work harder and uses up more energy (and so calories). Similarly by running where the air is thinner you can force your body to work harder to extract oxygen and so increase you lung capacity and ‘VO2 Max’.
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Running Tips and Variations Part One
Running is one of the surest ways to burn fat and so expose a ripped six pack, so to improve your running technique and get the most out of your exercise is one of the best ways to improve your progress in getting good abs. See how that works?
Running may seem like a fairly simple task to understand, but there are many variations that can get more from your work and many tips and hints that can be observed to help you run faster and longer. First the tips.
Firstly it’s important to invest in a good pair of running shoes, which can help you to run faster and protect your ankles from twisting, your feet from injury and your shins from splints. A really good pair of shoes will be designed specifically for your foot and for the biomechanics of your stride (the exact way in which you run and your technique). Many sports shops offer this service and will tailor make running shoes at affordable prices.
If you suffer from shin splints, bad knees or week ankles then you may find that you still have problems. However this doesn’t mean that you need necessarily give up running. To pad your feet and protect them from damage one obvious technique is to run on grass. Running around a field for example can be just as beneficial as running around town. When running in doors make sure you put at least some incline on the treadmill – if you do not it will put unnecessary strain on your knees and ligaments.
If problems persist, one option that might work is to get specially made insoles such as ‘Springbak Speedsoles’. These slip into your shoe under your normal insoles and are alleged to improve speed and jumping height as well as eliminating splints.
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Quick Diet Fixes
Taking on a whole new diet can be hard work, but in many cases it’s not really necessary. To lose weight doesn’t necessarily need to involve vastly editing what you eat or cutting out whole food groups – in fact either of these things can actually cause damage to your health and do more harm than good. Obviously the first port of call is simple to eat less. But this should also be accompanied by some cutting down in the departments of simple carbs and fats (while not eliminating them entirely as they too serve important roles within the body).
The best way to do this is to make simple and easy changes to your routines that allow you to eat the same things but slightly more healthily. For example, when you make tea or coffee make sure you take the sugar out of your tea. Instantly you’ve cut your calories and your intake of simple carbs – particularly if you drink lots of tea. Don’t substitute it for sweeteners either (you’re sweet enough already) as by drinking plain tea you will be able to subtly alter your cravings by helping to get rid of your sweet tooth.
Other similar changes you can make include: swapping your fizzy drinks for fruit juice; drinking less alcohol and choosing spirits over lager when you do; not spreading butter under jam; using less fat when cooking; choosing leaner cuts of meat; choosing whole grain rice and bread and swapping chocolate bars and cakes for yogurts and cereals. All of these little changes can add up to make quite a big impact on your caloric intake, and can also leave you feeling ‘fresher’ and alter your cravings. This is a bottom up approach to altering your diet on a larger scale and is one of the most effective methods to lose weight.
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How to Perform Leg Raises Part Two
This above exercise is a good one as it’s easy enough for beginners, but guaranteed to leave even the most hardened bodybuilder with a burning mid section. Still, if it doesn’t provide enough of a challenge there are many ways to make the exercise more difficult.
One such method is to use an incline bench. These benches are slanted at a roughly 45 degree angle from the ground and include handles to hold at the top. The gym goer then uses them by hanging from the handles by their hands, and slowly lowering and straightening their legs in front of them while keeping them as perfectly straight as possible. Again you can make it holder by adding an isometric hold at the end of each set.
If this still isn’t enough of a challenge the obvious way to go one stage further is to do leg raises while entirely vertical. This will require a pull up bar, and from here the user simple hangs by their arms while raising their legs straight up in front of them in a controlled manner. If this is too difficult however, a good in between version that will place less stress on the body as a whole, is to bring the knees up to the chest while hanging rather than keeping the legs straight. This will move the target area to the central layer of abs and also make the workout quicker and easier. These are called frog kicks and are the crunches to hanging leg raises’ sit ups.
Finally, if you really want to show off you can use the leg raises in Rocky 4. Here Stallone uses a flat weights bench, and grabs hold of it with his hands so that he can rest on his shoulders with his legs pointing straight up in the air. From here he then lets them drop down in front of him and then raises them again. In this position it’s possible to perform leg raises through 180 degrees.
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How to Perform Leg Raises Part One
Sit ups and crunches are all very well, but they quickly become boring and this is actually often a large part of what makes people unsuccessful in training up their stomachs – they simply become bored and stop doing it. A workout that feels challenging and is a bit different can be what’s in order then to kick start that abs workout back into gear and to improve progress no end.
Leg raises offer just the thing and target different areas of the abs in a difficult exercise that can be tweaked and tailored to be harder or easier as you progress. Here the idea is that you pivot at the hips still as you would in a sit up, but that it’s your legs that move rather than your upper body. This will train focussing heavily on the top two segments of the abs and will also work the legs while giving you a full body fitness workout.
The easiest and most basic form of leg raise is to lie on the floor flat on your back with your legs flat, then to simply raise and lower the legs. This is fairly easy and needs to be made more difficult by using isometric holds (holding the legs steadily in place, for example hovering just inches above the floor) or by drawing small circles for long periods of time. Do either of these things for a couple of minutes at a time and repeat three times. This is an exercise used in Pilates and is a great beginner’s workout that works well at the end of a session. Practitioners of this movement might to well to hold onto a bar, sofa or anything else behind them while they raise their legs as they may otherwise find it difficult to stay flat to the ground.
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How to do a Sit Up
The sit up is the most basic of all the exercises focussing on training the abs and could be considered the quintessential exercise for the abs. Unlike the crunch it involves the entirety of the six pack (the crunch only really works the top two) which makes it slightly more difficult, but far more effective in building a rock hard mid section.
To perform the sit up you will first of all require a basic level of strength in that area. Before you begin you should be able to perform a few sit ups with good technique, raising and lowering yourself slowly as opposed to trying to ‘sling shot’ yourself up or arching your back. If you can’t perform the move correctly you will be likely to damage your back and won’t get the full benefit of the movement. Build up some basic strength then with crunches and other more gentle exercises before you attempt to integrate sit ups into your workout.
Once you’re ready to attempt a sit up, you should lie down flat on your back with your feet flat on the floor and knees bent. You see people placing their hands in a variety of places, but the most effective approach is to put your hands either by either ear, or crossed over on your chest. It is important at the same time that you do not link them behind your head as this will cause you to ‘pull’ on your head and neck which will place unnecessary strain on it and on your back. At the same time ‘pulling’ on your neck is a form of cheating that will mean your abs are less isolated in the movement getting help from the rest of your body.
From here your job is just to sit up in as controlled a manner as possible, pivoting at the hips and with your back straight until your chest touches your knees. Hold the top position for a count of two then lower in a similarly controlled manner.
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How to do a Crunch
The crunch is a great beginner’s workout for the abs that also has value for those who are experienced in working out and training their stomach. Due to its relative speed, and it’s focus more on the lower abs, it can be a great way to give the abs a very target workout in a short amount of time. At the same time for those just starting to lose weight and tone their body, it’s a simple enough movement that almost anyone can do it unlike sit ups or leg raises.
To do a crunch you will need to be lying flat on the floor on your back. Your feet should also be flat on the floor and up close to your body with your knees bent all the way. If you are going to struggle a lot on the crunches (remember it will also get harder as you go on) then you may benefit from having something to hold your feet in place. This can be achieved by tucking your feet under a sofa or by getting a friend to help them (which can also be good from a motivational point of view). The hands will go either crossed over the chest, or lightly touching either side of the head. It’s important not to link them behind your head or you will pull on your own neck which can lead to injury. At the same time, having your hands behind your head can lead you to swing your body more into the movement, which will take some of the effort away from your abs making it less of an ‘isolated’ workout.
From this position then the idea is to ‘crunch’ yourself up, bending across the stomach and gently touching your knees with your head. This should be a fairly quick but controlled movement, and trainees should ‘squeeze’ their abs by tensing them as they repeat the movement.
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How Many Times a Week Should You Train Part Two
In some cases bodybuilders will opt to train two body parts in one session, or when training for a competition might give themselves two workouts in a single day. The idea though is simply to give the muscle as much of an intense workout as possible, and then to give it the large amount of time required to recover. Recovery time mustn’t be neglected however as this is actually just important as the workout itself and will also require lots of protein to help build the muscle back up stronger after the stress its been under.
It’s how all this relates to abs however that provides the controversy, and whether or not abs should be trained in this way is something that divides many trainers and bodybuilders. To train the abs once a week with intensive session the same way as you would for the biceps will cause difficulties in walking and doing other exercises as they’re involved in every movement. This could very well lead to over training. At the same time while strong abs are desirable, if they get too strong they will look bloated rather than ripped and won’t be what many people training their abs are going for.
One option then is to leave out abs training entirely and to instead just work out the other muscles. The idea here is that training the other muscles will train the abs through their involvement in every movement. This way they will get large but not bloated, but at the same time they may not be particularly visible as they won’t have been specifically toned.
The other option is to go the entirely different route and do a ‘light’ abs session on every single workout. Bruce Lee actually trained his abs every single day without giving them a chance to rest at all. While this may go against conventional wisdom, it nevertheless resulted in one of the most ripped mid sections ever seen.
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How Many Times a Week Should You Train Part One
Precisely how many times a week you should train your abs is a subject that’s hotly contested among experts. However the reality is that different methods will suit different people, depending mostly on their goals but also on their level of experience.
When you’re first starting out and aiming to simply lose weight and tone your muscle, the most simple way to begin is with a full body session, most likely using calisthenics. Using a split programme to focus on certain muscle groups won’t do much to lose fat and will be too intense on each muscle for someone who’s just starting out (many trainers and bodybuilders aiming to impart wisdom lose site of this fact however). A full body calisthenics routine including lots of sit ups and pull ups for the abs on the other hand can be a great way to give the whole body a shock while using movements that anyone can benefit from, that burn fat as well as toning muscle and that don’t require any equipment (another benefit is that calisthenics train the core stability and every exercise will therefore train the abs). This should then repeated three times a week with at least one day’s rest in between each session. Over time this can be increased to four or five days. You should notice considerable improvement in your general fitness and muscle tone over time.
Once this becomes easy however you will need to start looking at using a more technical and tailored workout routine. This will most likely be what’s known as a ‘split’ routine. This involves doing heavy training on just one muscle group each day – for example using five different exercises of 3-5 sets to failure on just the dumbbells – and then allowing the muscle group all week to rest. While you rest the biceps you then focus on one of the other distant muscle groups, for example the legs or triceps.
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