6 Pack Abs (General Fitness Tips)

Member Name: Recon

Product:	General Fitness Tips
Date:	06/02/08 (939 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tone your body, Look good, Feel good, Healthy

Disadvantages: Hard work but worth it, and don't give up!

It is every man's dream to obtain 6 pack abdominal muscles. I have been working on mine for a while now and they are starting to come through. In my review, I hope to give you the best tips for 6 pack abs as well as a good toning overall. Not only are these exercises for men but for women too, however some may be pushing women a bit much at first! Always start easy and work your way up, and you won't find it as hard but the results will show very well.

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My Recommended Routine
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To obtain 6 pack abs, not only do you need to work your stomach muscles a lot, but you need to be fit in general or they will not show! If you have a 'pot-belly'-, then the chances of your abs showing is impossible as there is too much fat and flab over them. So, part of my routine will include general exercise to keep you fit and healthy without putting on weight. Apart from that, my routine goes through a number of different exercises that help to keep you in tone and also strengthen your muscles. Below is a record of my typical daily routine in the way of exercise. I don't always get round to doing it all, but I do make an effort.

Running/Swimming
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Any exercise will do really, but you need to do something to keep you fit in general and to keep you from gaining any weight. I suggest swimming as the BEST exercise, however running is easy as you can do it anywhere and don't need a swimming pool. Make sure you slowly ease yourself into tougher workouts, such as timing yourself and pushing to improve times of the same runs by 10 seconds each time. You can also try doing longer runs or more lengths in a pool for the same amount of time. Always ease yourself into exercise, but stretch yourself to achieve the best you can do.

Press-ups
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At the moment, I do 20 press-ups a day along with all my other exercises. Press-ups help to strengthen the abdominal muscles when you hold yourself in the lower position when your arms are bent for a second. They also work your upper arm muscles, which are used to support your weight when you go down. Start with even 10 a day, or more if you are fitter. I find the best way to do it is to do them slowly and properly and on the last one, I hold it for as long as I can (with my chest touching the floor), until I cannot any longer, and I leave just enough strength to heave myself back up and straighten my arms. This really works your body and holding exercises and returning back to the original position after quick reps is the best way to go about GOOD and EFFECTIVE exercise. The proper way to do press-ups is to have your hands at shoulder width, just below your shoulders, straightened. Your backside is kept down, in level with your back. Your legs are extended right out behind you, and you balance on your toes and arms, which are straight. You then bend your arms and lower down until your chest almost touches the floor, and then you hold it for a split second and lift yourself back up. Make sure you apply the weight evenly to both arms even if you find it hard, or your shape will be different on one side to the other! This is the best way and the proper way to do press-ups, and will give you the best results.

Leg Raises
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These are very effective on your abdominal muscles. The position you must get into is to have your back flat on the floor, with your head on the floor as well and your hands beside your body or under your neck against the floor. When you start, you keep your legs off the ground the WHOLE TIME! You bring them in towards your body, lift them up and go round in a circle back out, making sure you tense your stomach when you bring in your legs. Extend them again and go out and round, not letting them touch the ground to repeat. It sounds hard, but really isn't. You can easily do about 20 of these a day, and I am currently doing 60 a day in two goes. Once again, I think it is very beneficial to hold your legs off the ground when extended on the last rep, which really improves the results as it works your muscles to the max.

Sit-ups
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I actually find that the leg raises work better with me, but the most obvious exercise for abdominal muscles is sit-ups. Sit with your back flat on the floor, head down, but legs bent quite a bit. You then tense your muscles as you lift yourself out whilst exhaling, and then inhale on the way back down to repeat. Do quite a few of these everyday to improve your abs. The most effective but difficult way to do this is to do it off the side of a bed or sofa. Make it so that your body is half on and half off the bed/sofa. When you go down, hold it for a second and then lift yourself back up (making sure you don't fall off the bed). They are much harder to do, but are great exercise and really improve the work on your abs, because you are relying on them or you will fall off that sofa or bed!

Weights
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To improve your arms, the best way is to do weights. However, exercises such as press-ups do improve the tone of your arms in general too, at least they help. Buy any good weights, and start with light ones. Depending on what kind of tone you want, you will either want lighter weights, or heavy ones and maybe a bench for when you get good. If you want a nice tone for endurance exercises such as long distance running, then faster but many more reps of lifting weights is ideal (which are lighter). If you are looking for a really muscular look for pure strength, then heavier weights are needed for slower exercises, but lifting much heavier weights. Start light and go for the heavier ones later on no matter what you do. The best exercises are the simple bicep one, where you hold the weight and lift it up towards your shoulder from in front of you. These work your bicep muscles on your upper arm. Other good ones include where you hold the weight(s) out to the side, and slowly lower them before lifting them back up and straightening your arm out. There are many others too, such as lifting them above your head, holding them there for a second and slowly lowering. ALWAYS be SLOW when doing weights, and don't quickly move them, as you aren't working your muscles anywhere near as effectively as doing them slowly and holding them for split seconds in certain positions.

Diet
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Perhaps one of the less obvious things is to maintain good health with a healthy diet! This will help to keep you in good shape, and very healthy. Try your best to have 5 portions of fruit/veg a day. Also, make sure you don't eat too much junk food such as pizza, pasta and burgers. Try to eat more things such as fish and fresh meat. Balance your diet well with things such as nuts for fibre, and dried fruit is one of the BEST foods for health! One tablespoon of most dried fruits such as prunes will supply one portion of fruit - that's how full of goodness they are. Make sure you also have lots of fibre in your diet too, which is found in most cereals and some healthy snack bars too. Stick to the healthy options and you will be fine.

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{ C O N C L U S I O N }

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Stick to my routine and I am sure you will have a nicely toned body in no time! REMEMBER: Achieving a nice tone with muscles and even a 6 pack takes time! Don't give up, and keep working and it will soon start to show! I thought the same thing when nothing seemed to be happening, but now I find the exercises and amounts I started with so easy, and my tone is starting to look good too! Make sure you keep fit with some general exercise such as running or cycling is good too, which I didn't mention before. Keep your diet balanced and try to eat as much goodness as you can, and don't pile on the pounds as your abdominals won't even show!

Thanks for reading, hope this helped.

- Recon -

Summary: My routine here should provide you with good ideas of exercises to imrpove your body.