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A six pack; it’s something that we all secretly want and it’s something most people see as a statement of good fitness. Although the six pack is a very attractive (to some!) aspect of the male/female physique the most important exercise you can do to your stomach is to strengthen your core muscles. This is achieved by targeting the deeper transverse muscles that will strengthen your posture and make you much better off in the future keeping back ache and that horrible looking hunch at bay. The correct methods are explained in this article...
All the exercises should be done in sets of 3 and the number of repetitions depends on how many you can manage, so do each exercise to failure and that number will be your repetition count.
For starters try doing a sit up by yourself and focus on your posture as you do it, specifically your shoulders and your stomach itself. You’ll notice that when you do a sit up your abs form a ‘dome’ during the stretch. While this is still a good exercise for your most superficial muscles it neglects the deeper muscles that provide that core stability. The best way to target your deeper muscles is to use a method they use in Pilates; you must consciously flatten that dome so your stomach remains flat as you perform the stretch. This provides a much more difficult stretch that works the much deeper more important muscles.
Another important point is that to ensure an effective exercise of say your abs you must be consciously aware that you are targeting that muscle and minimising the help that the rest of your muscles will naturally give. The sit-up we all know so well is usually done really badly and does little more than knacker your back.
A much more effective sit up should be done as follows;
· Lie down on your back with your legs flat out in front of you. · Bring your knees up towards your bum until you create a 90o angle or a triangle with your upper and lower leg and the floor. · Place your hands behind your head and make sure your shoulders are not up by your ears but are relaxed.
Make sure that you keep your head in the right position by keeping the shoulders relaxed and looking towards where you are curling. Your head does not need to be tightly curled into your body make sure it is relaxed making your stomach do all the work in lifting and controlling you back down.
· Bring your chin close to your chest raising your head of the floor and curl the rest of your torso up towards your knees.
A little known fact, you don’t need to actually touch your knees or bring your whole body to meet the knees; the actual stretch happens much earlier when you are simply curling up where your body is raised just a few inches of the floor.
· So when you begin to feel a strong stretch that you have difficulty holding bring your body back down towards the floor and repeat the exercise.
As always make sure that you are breathing properly during the exercise exhaling as you raise your body and inhale on the rebound.
A word of advice, it’s not any good how many you can do as quick as you can, the key to any exercise is to make it slow and controlled. In doing that you’ll target the right muscles and by doing it slow you’ll work them much more. You’ll find you’ll feel the difference between those done fast and uncontrolled to the opposite.
To target the oblique muscles
Exercise 1
The main exercise is almost same as above however, when you curl towards your knees curl towards just one knee rotating your torso to meet it. Making sure you still follow the same guidelines as before, keeping the stomach flat and the shoulders and head relaxed.
Alternatively you can curl in towards your stomach hold your position when your reach the stretch point and then rotate your body towards each knee respectively. You don’t need to stretch that much further forward.
To perform a set of these do as many as you feel comfortable with.
The best way to work any muscle is to attack it from many sides so as to ensure you are using the full extent of that muscle. So use this in combination with other exercises in the article and the section, making sure you rest for a minute between each set.
Exercise 2
There is an exercise that I found really fun (yes it can be fun!) but you’ll need a partner or you could use something that isn’t going to move if you use it as support like the legs of a chair.
· Lie on your back with your partner standing over your head. · Place your hands behind you so you’re holding onto their legs and while keeping your torso flat on the ground bring your legs up to meet them. · Your partner’s job is to push them hard away from him/her and your job is to control them as they fall down making sure you let them fall and stop them a few inches off the ground. · The point is to oppose the push with your stomach as your legs fall to the ground. · Bring your legs back up and repeat the process.
Exercise 3
Get your partner to push your legs to the side and control them down and back up in the same way as before
Exercise 4
If you come up into the curl position as if you were going to do a normal oblique but instead you reach down the side of your body to try and touch your ankles with your corresponding hand. Alternate this movement quickly as it is difficult not to engage the back during this exercise so the less damage the better.
Exercise 5
This exercise works much better when you have weights, but if you don’t have any then find something heavy. If I don’t have any I use my Medical textbook as it is the most ridiculously heavy thing created purely for our torment…
· Lie on your back and raise your legs so that your upper legs are perpendicular to your body pointing towards the ceiling but your lower legs follow the same angle as your body. · Come up into a curl making sure to flatten into the muscles and while holding the weight move both arms from one side of the body to the other, you should feel them constrict as you do it. · Either hold for a set number of seconds, or keep a rhythm going until failure.
To target the Lower deeper muscles
This is very difficult to explain but I shall try my best …
· Again lie on your back with your hands resting by your side, raise your legs in the air and cross over your ankles bringing the knees close into the body. · What you want to do is engage the stomach muscles making sure to flatten them and try to lift your bum off the floor using your stomach muscles only raising your legs to the ceiling as you do it; it feels as though you are doing a small curl right at the base of your stomach.
Post Exercise Stretch
It is really really important to stretch out the muscles once you’ve targeted them to prevent injury and the pain you’ll experience the next day!
· Lie on your front with your arms at your sides · Place your palms on the floor and push up from them your back should curl and your chest should puff out but your lower body stays on the floor · Your elongating the muscles to stretch them so hold for about 15 seconds Only registered users can write comments.
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