Possessing a slim and tight six-pack for your midsection is key for looking good on the bodybuilding stage, or just at the beach. However, many bodybuilders will train the muscle group like any other. The truth is that the abdominals are built like no other muscle group, and must be trained differently as a result. Let’s examine some of the keys to effective abdominal training. Keep an open mind, as many of these techniques won’t apply to other muscle groups. Machines work! If you spent your leg and chest workouts hiding from free weights and relying solely upon the use of Hammer Strength and Nautilus machines to get the job done when it comes to stimulating the muscles, you wouldn’t see all that much muscle growth. However, the use of crunch and leg raise machines, as well as ...

If you like this article, click here to share:

In a perfect world, we could all count on two hours each day in the gym to allow us to train to our heart’s content. We would always have the time to properly warm up, stretch, train with 15 to 20 sets, stretch and cool down, shower and head home with a cold whey shake.  Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. In our real lives, we have to make trade-offs involving our time, and often that translates to leaving some of our favorites from the gym.   It’s very easy for off-season bodybuilders to leave cardio off their menu when time is short. They’ll also shave off stretching, warm-ups, and other parts considered non-essential. And, when time is very short, it is the very important muscle group known as the abdominals that often take the hit and ...

If you like this article, click here to share:

Are you looking for an abdominal routine which will allow you to separate your upper and lower abdominals so that you may focus upon each of these groups more effectively? Then you’ve come to the right place. Check out the following workout for alternating your abdominal training focus! Monday Start your day with six sets of crunches. You should be lying on the floor with your legs elevated, sitting up on a bench. You won’t have the full range involved with traditional sit-ups, but it’s nothing to worry about. You’ll see far greater results from the limited range crunch, which takes the back out of the movement and forces your abdominals to do the work. Each of these six sets should be completed to ‘maximum’, or as many repetitions as you can fit into a single set. ...

If you like this article, click here to share:

We can all agree that for most bodybuilders, training abs is usually 9th or 10th on our list of priorities. We often focus so much of our energies upon developing these larger muscle groups, which allow our bodies to grow and our body weights to climb. Abdominal training, for some, is relegated to the pre-contest phase. Some bodybuilders even design it this way, as they feel training abs only serves to develop a thick midsection. Other bodybuilders will make an effort to hit the abs year round, but they will fall short of a truly well developed midsection because they just throw a few sets of crunches onto the end of some of their workouts each week. It is only the thoroughly devoted bodybuilder with a thorough, complete routine that is able to best develop the ...

If you like this article, click here to share:

The abdominals are unlike every other body part. With muscle groups such as chest, back, or shoulders, you make the best gains from a series of heavy sets. You lift as much weight as you can for 6, 8 or 10 repetitions, and you only complete a total of 8 to 20 sets per muscle group. The abdominals are very much different. You see much better results from abdominal training when you train them more frequently, with little to no weight, and much higher repetitions. Here are a few other tips to building the abs with lots of sets and fewer setbacks! Upper and lower days You should be training your abdominal muscles every 48 hours. The first workout, on Monday for example, should entail mostly upper abdominal exercises such as the crunch. The second workout, ...

If you like this article, click here to share:

Bodybuilding is the art of the illusion. The biggest man doesn’t always win. Rather, the man who looks the biggest, while displaying superior conditioning and presentation, usually wins. Very often, the most complete middleweight wins amateur shows, while the lankier heavyweight has to settle on his class win. One of the most important illusions that bodybuilders can present onstage is the V-taper. Simply put, the V-taper is the illusion that occurs when the waist is narrow and the shoulders are wide. The upper body resembles a letter “V”. An effective V-taper makes the physique look more athletic, and makes the chest and thighs appear larger as well. To achieve a v-taper, one must work to ensure the waistline stays small in the off-season yet appears muscular on the bodybuilding stage. Upper abdominals Most bodybuilders know how to train ...

If you like this article, click here to share:

Q:  Ab boards... I see some guys using them and some guys not using them, and the ones who use them seem to have better abs. Are ab boards the best thing for building abs? A: Not necessarily. Truth is, ab workouts should focus on isolation. However you are able to achieve that isolation is what you ought to go with. Some people can really bear down on their abs on an abdominal board that has a slight foot elevation. But remember, you can lose isolative focus on anything - the floor, a board, or in some other crunch position. It's all dependent upon motion that is unnecessarily into the mix. So ab boards, being narrow, often keep the mind visualizing staying balanced on the board while crunching, so crunching is often executed more carefully than it would be on the floor. There ...

If you like this article, click here to share:

Many new entrants to the gym will walk into the gym with the exciting goal of doing crunches until their abdominal muscles are a svelte collection of rippling muscles, cut out of the former dough that was their midsection.  They’ll enter the abdominal training area – despite being 30% body fat – and do an hour of crunches, several times per week.  Over the months, their midsections will become harder – under the fat – but to the naked eye, they’ll still be sporting the same spare tire they started with.  And in some cases, it might stick out a bit further, due to the increased size of the abdominal muscles underneath the layer of fat. There is no such thing as spot reduction.  Is it a myth?  The body fat, which covers your body, does so in a fairly uniform fashion.  ...

If you like this article, click here to share: