Building Abs

Every man’s dream is to take off his shirt and have an amazing set of six pack abs. These are the ultimate symbol of fitness and strength and the number one thing that most women say makes a man sexy. Stick with me and I will tell you about the best ab workout to get the coveted six pack. Check the links within the article when you are done reading for some more helpful information.

You have to understand how your body builds muscle, abdominal muscles included, if you want to have ripped abs. Just like any other muscle, you need to stimulate muscle growth by lifting heavy weights. You wouldn’t expect to do curls with 10 pound dumbbells 100 times and get massive biceps, you would use a heavy weight and do 10 reps or so until you couldn’t do any more. You would probably repeat this a few times and have your bicep workout consist of 3 sets of 10 repetitions. Does this sound familiar? I bet it does.

Abdominal exercises for men who want to sport a six pack need to follow the same premise as building muscle anywhere else on your body. The way you do this with ab exercises is to find exercises that you can use weights with. One good exercise is to use a weight plate while you do decline crunches. Try to do 3 sets of 10 to 15 repetitions. When it is no longer challenging with one weight, add more weight. If you are doing leg lifts to build your lower ab muscles, use some ankle weights to make the exercises more difficult. Remember, do exercises that are challenging enough that you can’t do very many. This will force your muscles to respond by growing bigger and this will make your abdominal muscles bigger and that is what you need to sport a six pack.

Now, ab exercises alone aren’t enough to help you get a six pack. You need to be able to see them as well. This means you will have to reduce your belly fat. If you have a body fat percentage of 15%, you certainly won’t be sporting a six pack. This means you will have to eat well and do calorie burning exercises in addition to your muscle building exercises. However, if you are willing to put the time into doing quality abdominal exercises and eating a healthy diet, you can be rewarded with the ultimate fitness prize – a perfect set of six pack abs.

Before you start any exercise or diet program, you should check with your doctor to make sure there aren’t any health issues you need to consider. This applies even if all you are doing is trying a weight loss supplement.  In most cases, there isn’t anything that will prevent you from exercising or dieting, but you should check to be sure.

Just about every man would like to lose some weight around their mid-section so they can have ripped six pack abs. Most guys want to get rid of the gut and do it fast. Whether you want to admit it or not, most of us spend far too many months of the year overeating and then scramble at the first sign of warm weather in order to remove what’s accumulated over the time. Unfortunately, if you’re trying to learn how to lose belly fat, it’s not exactly a quick fix.

Most guys look over how tough it is to get rid of that pot belly they have. If the truth be told, a fat belly is probably one of the hardest areas to successfully remove because it’s made up what is known as ‘stubborn’ fat.

The reason is that you’re bodies made up a little bit differently around the mid section are. What’s the reason for this? Primarily, it’s the first place we tend to store fat and where body fat is needed for protection the most – to protect the organs and internal structures. As such, your fat belly is going to do everything it can to hold onto it. This makes it much harder to lose excess weight around your abs.

What you need to do is trick you’re belly by working very hard. That’s not to say it can’t be done – it most certainly can, you just have to have realistic expectations about the time line you will achieve this goal over and how much effort you’ll have to put in.

What is the best ab workout for men that will start burning away the tummy fat? Start off with weight lifting. Go right into the maximum amount of weight you can lift as it will get your metabolism very high. You want to shoot for the 6-10 rep range, as this is most appropriate for metabolic effects.

Second, do cardio workouts for abs.  Don’t do hours on end though, focus on doing sprints. You are better off doing sprints for as long as you can and then doing a more steady paced run after. This will help to release the fatty acids from the tissue (mobilize them) and then burn them off during the steady state cardio. This burst of speed training is way more effective then long runs.

Lastly, check over that belly fat diet. Eating a lot of food with fat or carbs will slow down the process while proteins get burned through faster.

This can be taken too far though – there is no need to exceed 1.5 grams per pound of body weight, but keeping it up around that level is your best approach. Then, fill in the remainder of your calories with carbohydrates around the workout period and fat during the other times.

Being patient and committing yourself to the gym is the only way you will ever get the six pack abs you want.

Men and women can certainly both do the most of the ab exercises out there. Something like love handles though can be a big problem for men and would need to be addressed with extra attention. They should really be called hate handles, cause we sure don’t love them!

In this article I’ll share 3 powerful ab exercises for men that will help you shred that midsection. One of these exercises is purely aimed at fat burning in general, which is critical though if you want your abs to actually be visible.

Forget about abs machines: these exercises will really help you to get ripped.

Ab exercise for the obliques

Part of many a martial art and the cause of a lot of pain to anyone unlucky enough to be on the receiving end, this also makes for a great ab exercise, especially for the obliques.

What I’m referring to is the roundhouse kick, as its known in English. If you’re unlucky enough to have never been involved in any form of martial arts, doing this kick at first might be a challenge, but you just need to take it easy and give your muscles time to get used to the movement. Start out kicking knee height and work up to waist height, where you’ll really start kicking your obliques into shape.

Keep at it until you can do a minimum of 50 kicks per leg. This kick is a great fitness and strength builder and works right from your shoulders down to your abs and legs. Be sure you’re well stretched though.

To shred your midsection

This won’t strictly fall under the category of ab exercises for men as it’s more of a fat burner, but without burning fat you can kiss your abs goodbye anyway.

Sprints remain one of the fastest ways to burn fat. Running through loose sand or up an incline adds even more resistance and power to sprints. Make maximum use of your shoulders and arms when you’re running. This way you get even more benefits as the swinging motion will help tone and firm your midsection.

Hanging rotates

This may be a fairly tough exercise depending on your fitness level, so work up to it if you can’t do it right away. Grab a pullup bar and hang with your arms straight. Turn your lower body to the left at a 45 degree angle. Now raise your knees into your abdomen and swing your lower body all the way round until you’re facing 45 degrees to the right, then lower your legs. Repeat the exercise to the other side.

To add more difficulty to this when it becomes easy, lift your legs straight out in front of you instead of bending your knees.

And that’s it – 3 great ab exercises for men that will burn fat and shrink the obliques while also strengthening your body.

Next, learn the truth about the ab machines seen on TV, and pick up some more of the best abdominal exercises – absolutely free.