Discover an advanced ab workout and key mistakes in advanced ab training. When it comes to training the abs, there are a lot of great exercises and also a lot of bad exercises to be aware of.
1) Sit-ups. If you are wanting to develop a six-pack or maybe even an eight-pack, sit-ups aren’t going to help much. I’m not saying sit-ups are a bad exercise, they just aren’t the best options creating a well-developed six-pack. If you are trying to develop your abs, and your workouts just consist of a bunch of sit-ups, then you are basically just wasting your time because a sit-up can only do so much for your abs.
With a sit-up, you are basically working all the ab muscles whereas the reverse crunch works specifically the rectus abdominus. You could do oblique exercises that work the V-line that gives you that nice V-shape to your abs. So, I’m not saying that sit-ups don’t work, I’m just saying there are better options.
2) Leg lifts. With leg lifts you often see people lying on the floor with hands below the butt to support the back. Then they lift the legs up bringing them toward the head. The issue here is you aren’t really working your abs hardly at all. For most of the movement, you are working primarily the hip flexors. This is a common problem when trying to work the lower abs with leg lifts.
The problem is the abs don’t turn on until your legs reach 90 degrees to your body. When you get the butt to come up off the ground, your spine curves and you finally get the abdominals to contract.
So, if you are finding that your legs are fatiguing faster than your abs are, you are using the hip flexors. Make an adjustment by bending your knees and starting the knees near the chest. As you bring your knees closer to your head, you’ll feel the abs turn on.
3) Ab wheel. Most people cheat at this difficult exercise. You don’t want to be cheating through the reps. As you go down on the ab wheel, you are trying to lengthen and strengthen your ab muscles. When you come back up you are curling and flexing your abs. Really focus on using your abs and not your arms to come back up.
4) Russian Twists. Many people make the mistake of not finishing far enough. Focus on getting the shoulders rotated far enough to feel your obliques and serratus get worked really good.
5) Mountain Climbers. This is a great lower ab exercise to ad to an advance ab workout. However, many people create trouble because they get lazy. You should be driving your knees up as far as possible with every knee drive. So, stop being lazy with your mountain climbers.
6) Breathing Correctly. When doing a crunch, focus on contracting your abdominals. Also, to take it to the next level, you need to focus on the exhale. You should exhale with every rep. Exhale on the way up, inhale on the way down. And it’s not breathing with the chest, you want to be breathing with your belly. Also, inhale through your nose and exhale through your nose or mouth or both.
I hope these tips are helpful and help you take your ab training to the next level.
Best Tip Ever for a More Advanced Ab Workout
The following is a simple tip to take your advanced ab workout to the next level. When you head to the gym, you know ahead of time what you are going to do. If all you do is go do your workout, but you don’t focus on what you are doing, then you really aren’t doing anything.
The way you fix this, is by focusing on your breathing. Involve your breathing and you will make every single rep better. You want to focus on every single contraction. For example, when doing crunches, focus on the abs pulling you up while you also focusing on the breath. As you come up, breath out and feel the crunch. You can apply this breathing to any exercise. For example, with the reverse crunch, breath out then pull (contract) the lower abs.
So, next time you head to the gym to do an advanced ab workout, really focus on your breathing and get the most out of every single rep.
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