Key areas to Target and Tips to help you Reach your Goals

Using diet as your only means of weight loss will not give you six pack abs. On the flip side, isolated abdominal exercises will not help you get rid of the weight that can hide your six pack. You must combine diet and exercise in order to have sexy six pack abs.

For the best results, you will want to focus your energy and time on the lower abs. Traditional ab exercises like the ordinary crunch help you gain strength in your upper abdominal area. Work on the lower abs is trickier but it is better because the focus on the lower abs also strengthens the upper abs. Some of the best lower abdominal exercises include the up-side-down bicycle movement, floor leg raises and the overturned crunch.

The ideal abdominal regimen will exercise not only the exterior ab muscles but also the deeper muscles. Simply exercising the exterior muscles will give your six pack some definition. But it’s the complete workout that will offer the greatest results. One tip to achieve this is to mentally concentrate on the inner ab muscles while doing each exercise and your body will respond by working these inner muscles. (Nothing like a little mind over matter to get six pack abs!) You must also remember that “slow and steady wins the race”. You might think that shortening a 15 minute ab routine into eight minutes will get you the same results while saving you time, but this is not the case. Taking the right amount of time and completing each exercise in the proper form can save you time in the long run by helping you achieve six pack abs faster than the speed racer at the gym who is doing as many sloppy crunches as quickly as possible.

You will also find that some ab exercises involve other muscles of the body. This is one of the great things about strength training and also one of its curses. All muscles are connected so when you tone one, you are usually also toning the muscles nearby. The problem is people forget that the main focus of a move may be the abs. This mistake commonly occurs in floor side leg raises. The ideas is that the abs are lifting the leg in the air but too many people perform this move too quickly and end up only toning the leg.

Also, if you experience severe pain in any part of your body from a move, terminate that move immediately. Working through the pain in this situation could lead to a muscle pull that end your workout right then or there or a more serious injury that will sideline you goal of six pack abs for months. A final point to remember is allow yourself light workout days and even a few rest days. This will allow your muscles to heal and will decrease your chance of injury or burnout.