The Basics of Getting Good Abs
Getting good abs is a fairly straightforward business that nevertheless stumps a lot of people. In many ways it is less easy to train the abs than the other muscles, simply because those muscles control appendages, whereas your abs are in the centre of your body. What can you lift with the centre of your body? At the same time if you’re overweight it will only make your biceps look bigger, your abs on the other hand will be smothered.
The first and most important way to get good abs then is to lose weight and maintain a low bodyfat. If your bodyfat is bellow 7% then you will have visible abs, even if they aren’t particularly strong. To achieve a low body fat you will have to use a lot of cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise to force your body to burn your fat reserves, while using a low calorie diet to capitalise on that hard work.
In addition to lowering your bodyfat you will also need to strengthen the abs themselves. This will create abs that bulge and can be seen poking through your stomach as opposed to ones that appear as flat lines; which is the difference between someone who works out and someone who just has a fast metabolism.
To train the abs you will have to use mostly calisthenics (to get around that problem of no hands attached to the stomach). This will involve exercises such as sit ups and crunches. Making life easier though, the abs are used in every other exercise you do in the gym, from pull ups to the bench press. Just working out then will improve your abs, even if you don’t specifically focus on that area.
To have good looking abs and a powerful mid section though you also need to focus on the muscles that surround the abs such as the obliques that are situated either side of the abs under the ribs, and the serratus muscles which are just above.
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