What is the best way to get better abdominal muscles?
94098
First and foremost, stay away from any ab machine.\n\nFor the upper abs, focus on crunches which effectively work the abdominals better than sit-ups or any machine on the market.\n\nFor the lower abs, keep in mind there is very little muscle tissue there so decreasing levels of body fat is the most effective way to bring out the best in this area. Hanging leg raises, v-situps and reverse curls are among some of the best exercise for this region. Always make sure your pelvis curls up to maximize lower abdominal contraction during these exercises.\n\nAs far as fat loss and getting ripped goes, cardio, cardio, cardio. In the morning, on an empty stomach at about 70-80% of your maximum heart rate for about 30-45 minutes. This combined with a common sense diet will quickly shed body fat so you can actually see those abs you've developed. \n\nI would encourage you to seek the advice and guidance of a personal trainer in your area for further education on these principles. Please ensure you start off at a very basic level for crunches and cardio if you are a beginner.\n\nHere's some links to help you out.\n\nAbdominal Exercises\nhttp://preventdisease.com/fitness/Strength_Exercises_abdominals.html
845070
to get a bigger upper body - do weightlifting.. do bench presses for the chest (flat, inclined, declined), lat pull downs, and back exercises.\n\nfor 6 pack abs... do tons of different sit-ups and crunches\n\nno pain, no gain.
314358
The abdominal muscles work just like any other muscle and have to be challenged as such. If you want muscular abdominals, you have to challenge them with resistance and good form just like you would your chest, your back or any other muscle for that matter. Targeting the correct energy system is imperative. This means you should never enter into the aerobic phase of this exercise, ideally keeping it under 2 minutes at most. \n\nThink of rolling a carpet and contracting fully on the top of the movement and squeeze. If you do them correctly, you shouldn't be able to do more than 30 crunches. Any more than that, and you're probably doing them half-azz, incorrectly or with a partial range of motion.\n\nFor the upper abs, focus on crunches which effectively work the abdominals better than sit-ups or any machine on the market.\n\nFor the lower abs, keep in mind there is very little muscle tissue there so decreasing levels of body fat is the most effective way to bring out the best in this area. Hanging leg raises, v-situps and reverse curls are among some of the best exercise for this region. Always make sure your pelvis curls up to maximize lower abdominal contraction during these exercises.\n\nAs far as fat loss and getting ripped goes, cardio, cardio, cardio. Abdominal exercises alone will never burn fat from your abdominal area.  You must do cardiovascular exercise to accomplish this.  Cardio is best in the morning, on an empty stomach at about 70-80% of your maximum heart rate for about 30-45 minutes. This combined with a common sense diet will quickly shed body fat so you can actually see those abs you've developed. \n\nI would encourage you to seek the advice and guidance of a personal trainer in your area for further education on these principles. Please ensure you start off at a very basic level for crunches and cardio if you are a beginner.\n\nHere's a good list of ab exercises:\nhttp://preventdisease.com/fitness/Strength_Exercises_abdominals.html
69097
You should perform a variety of exercises to strengthen or 'tone' your stomach muscles. This includes, incline sit-ups, crunches on a fitness ball, leg raises, etc.\n\nOne of the best ways to tone your stomach though is to perform weight lifting exercies that you do while standing or end up standing while holding the weight. This includes squats, deadlifts, standing shoulder presses, lunges, etc. The exercies require you to contract your abs to support the weight and can provide better benefits than crunches and sit-ups.\n\nCurt
651129
How to get a flat stomach - Ok firstly the idea of localised fat loss is a myth - during exercise fat is burned as fuel from all areas of the body and while working your abdominal muscles will help them to develop, but if there is a layer of fat obscuring these new muscles neither you or anyone else will be able to see them. Therefore to achieve your goa,l any abdominal exercise needs to be combined with a well balanced and nutritious diet to see the fruits of your labour. In addition cardiovascular exercise will speed up this process and help to burn extra fat.\n\nBy far the best exercise to build abdominal muscle and toning the abdominal wall is the crunch - this is actually the main stomach exercise performed by athletes and models.\n\nThe Crunch\n• Lie on you back.\n• Place your feet on the floor as close to your bottom as possible and place your knees together.\n• Rest your hands across you chest and relax the neck.\n• Slowly raise your shoulders off the floor by contracting only the abdominal muscles.\n• Don't come up too high - your lower back should always remain on the floor.\n• Hold that position for a count of 1 and breath out forcefully.\n• Slowly relax the stomach muscles and allow your shoulders to return to the floor.\n• Repeat 10 - 12 times, rest for 60 seconds then repeat.\n\nThe amount of crunches you can do, as with all exercises, varies from person to person... its safest to start off with a relatively low number as to avoid strain and build up to more over time.\n\nFurther Exercises \nThe Plank\n• Lie flat on your stomach.\n• Place your hands at either side of your chest - as if ready to perform a press up - although your should tuck your elbows into your sides.\n• Keeping your back perfectly flat, push yourself up onto your knees - so that your upper body is off the floor, with your hands and knees acting as support.\n• Keeping your back flat, pull in your tummy button as high as possible - as if to suck it in close to the spine.\n• Aim to maintain a normal breathing pattern and hold this position for 10 - 60 seconds.\n• Rest, lie flat then repeat twice.\n\nToe Touch\n• Lie on you back.\n• Raise your arms and legs so they are perpendicular with your body.\n• Slowly curl your torso up and forward, raising your hands as close to your toes as possible\n• Contract your abs and then reverse direction, returning to the starting position.\n• Repeat 10 - 12 times, rest for 60 seconds then repeat.\n\nReverse Curl\n• Lie on you back.\n• Place your hands at sides and bend your knees.\nraise your butt as high as possible while keeping your upper back pressed to the floor.\n• Contract your abdominals and then reverse direction, returning to the starting position. \n• Repeat 10 - 12 times, rest for 60 seconds then repeat.\n\nTwisting Crunch \n• Lie on you back.\n• Bend your knees so your thighs are perpendicular to the ground and fold arms across your chest.\n• Slowly raise your shoulders up and forward toward your chest, twisting your body to the right.\n• Feel a contraction in your abdominal muscles and then slowly reverse direction, returning to the start position.\n• Repeat movement but this time twist to the left.\n• Repeat 10 - 12 times, rest for 60 seconds then repeat.\n\n \n   Home \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n \n The Truth About Weight Loss \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n \n The Truth About Exercise \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n \n Great Workouts \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n \n Exercising With Kids \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n \n Fitness Myths \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n \n The Low Carb Diet Dilemma \n\n--------
104566
running really works the stomach, if you do a combination of crunches, situps, then try twisting your torso when you do a situp that works the obliques, and then lay on the floor and hold your feet a couple inches off the floor and raise them up and when you come down stop a couple inches before you touch the floor that will really work the lower abs
666066
Honestly you need to work on your stomach and chest muscles to get a good core first, no matter how strong your arm is you can't do anything without a good core.  For your arms bicep curls, lots and lots of push ups, bench pressing, some tricep curls and work your fore arms
838316
Try leg lifts. Rest on a raised surface with your legs extended and raise them up and down repeatedly. You should feel all your abdominal muscles tense, including your lower abs.\n\nBest way to improve the look of your abs is to eat healthy to lower your body fat. Avoid transfats completely. They're evil, and have proven to make people fat. They are not part of a natural human diet, and are merely added to processed foods for flavour. Watch your calories. A male should generally have about 2000 calories a day, a female about 1600. Optimally you would have 40% of your calories from carbohydrates, like sugars, 30% from (healthy) fats, and 30% from protein.\nI highly recommend hemp seeds. They are the healthiest natural food source.
163406
Try to do some ab exercises. Crunches, or bicycle kicks are good.
514032
Work on your upper arms and upper abs...you need more muscle.
329656
Definitely sit ups, another thing you can do is pushus, yeah sounds weird but it does help somehow, you can also do this one exercise were you lay flat on your back, then putyour arms andhands flat on the ground as well, and keep them right by your sides without moving them and you lift you legs up 6 inches or a foot, the less you raise them the better the work out cause it really constricts and tightens up your lower abdomen muscles, well you lift your legs up striahgt together and then out them down the same way, don't bend your knees, don't let them drop, and do about 20 of these and then 30 and then 50 etc. as many as you can do as many reps and you will see some awesome results in a week if you do a lot of reps everyday a few times a day. It's the best thing I can think of, apart from running of course
70692
Exercises: Crunches are very effective at toning the abdominal muscles. Do one set of 20 every morning before you get dressed: Lie on the floor with your knees bent. Lock your hands behind your head, and bring your elbows and knees together by flexing your abdominal muscles. Aim your elbows and chest toward the ceiling; lift shoulder blades 2 inches (5 cm) off floor. Avoid fully extending your legs, as this can place too much strain on your lower back.\n\nActivities: Great ab workouts include rowing, tennis and yoga. These activities work the entire set of abdominal muscles, promoting overall strength. (They're also much more fun than sit-ups and crunches.)
703817
Here's my advice and the cold hard truth - if your going to buy an abs machine the only thing its going to do is tighten your muscles if you have some fat in the tummy area its not going to get rid of it. The only way to get rid of the jelly belly is thru total body loss. A good way to have great abs is through Cardio which will trim away the fat and then strength excercises which is good for your abdominal muscles.
650957
1) slow down your reps\n2) lower the reps and up the weight\n3) watch your form and be sure you are isolating the   muscles properly with your movements\n3) break up the crunches into MAX sets of 20 or 30, and vary the type of ab work you do (just straight crunches don't target enough)
75203
There are two keys to defined and strong abdominal muscles.\n1) Low body fat allows for the musculature to make itself visible.  This can be achieved by a combination of weight lifting (which increases resting metabolism) and cardiovascular training such as running, elipitcal, etc.  Of course, consuming less calories is the other side of this equation as well.\n2) Increasing the size of the muscles themselves is also helpful as well as independently healthy---abs are a key "core strength" area that support your entire body in all its movements.  For this I like to do a combination of things:\na) crunches where you lift your head and upper body up while also raising your legs, so that both ends of your body can "meet" in one smooth simultaneous motion (many gyms have this as a machine with weights)\nb) leg raises all the way up to my head when hanging by my arms from a pullup bar\nc) SPRINTS!!  This is VERY underrated:  if you do a series of sprints (100 meter, 200 meter eg) you will notice GREAT ab results.  Go to a track, run a 100 meter dash as hard as possible.  Walk for 200 meters.  (wash =)) and repeat like 6-8 times and you will feel a great ab soreness the next day. \n\nGood luck.
692416
Squads are good for the lower stomach. \nAnd for the upper arms do the following below: \n1.Biceps curls (2minutes) using five lbs dumbbells:\n2.Lateral raises (2minutes)using five lbs dumbbells:\n3.Triceps stretch (4minutes) using five lbs dumbbells:\n4.The plank (3minutes) lie flat on the floor, on your stomach prop your upper body up on your elbows, forearms facing front. Next, come up slightly onto your knees, toes on the floor. Finally lift up onto just your toes, keeping abdominals tucked to support your lower back, hold as long as you can, then relax back down onto the floor.\n5.Modified push-up (4minutes).
640419
Crunches are great for abs.Lie on your back bring knees to chest and hold them there,now try to rise your shoulders off the floor.Backwards leg lifts are great for toning your backside.Get on all fours and extend one leg,bending it at the knee,while leg is bent push your heel upwards.Lunges are also great.Stand with feet slightly apart,step forward with on leg,bending at the knee with both.You should do at least 5 sets of 10 on these.If you feel you can do more,Go for it.GOOD LUCK!!!