Killer Ab Workout!

Whether you're a male or female, a well conditioned midsection is a sign of health, vitality and strength.

The following ten ab exercises, in combination with an ab friendly fat burning diet, will give you a flat, tight, defined set of abdominal muscles, giving your body an overall impression of fitness and muscularity.

For each of the following crunch exercises, the standard position is as follows:

1. Sit cross legged on the ground.
2. Raise your elbows above your head.
3. Grab (or try to grab) the opposite shoulder blades i.e. grab your right shoulder blade with your left hand and vice versa so your arms are crossed.
   
4. Relax your head and neck so they are cradled in your crossed arms.
5. Holding your arms in this position, lower yourself on the ground

Repetitions

Start with about 5 repetitions of each of the exercises, totaling 50 repetitions for the entire routine. As you progress, work your way up until you reach 20 reps of each exercise, totaling 200 reps for the entire routine.

Try not to rest between sets, but if you do, limit it to 10 seconds.

Once you reach 200 reps for the routine, you should have strong and well defined abs. If you cannot see them still, it's most probably due to excess body fat concealing them. Continue with the exercises, but focus more on the diet aspect.

Form

Good form is essential with these exercises. Keep your head and neck relaxed at all times, and keep your arms crossed behind your head. This ensures your abs are doing all the work.

Always raise and lower your torso smoothly, as a jerking motion can cause back injuries.

Now here are the ten exercises.

Exercise 1.

This will work the lower abs and groin.

Starting position: Lie flat on the floor with your arms crossed behind your head as described above. Raise your knees in front of you but keep your feet flat on the floor. Turn your toes in so your feet form a triangle.

Motion: From here you simply raise your torso in a 'crunch' motion, and then lower yourself back down. You should only raise your head about 1 foot off the floor, not all the way up to your knees. You'll know when you've gone high enough, as your abs will have full tensed up, and to move any further you'd need to employ your back or neck to do the work, which you don't want to do.

Note that the motion described will be the same for all the exercises in this routine.

Exercise 2.

This exercise will affect the lower abdomen and oblique muscles.

Starting position: As exercise 1, only instead of having your knees in front of you, drop your knees to the ground (while keeping them bent) and put the soles of your feet together so that your bent legs form a diamond shape.

Motion: As exercise 1.

Exercise 3.

This will work the lower abdominal rows.

Starting position: Raise your knees in front of you like exercise 1, but also raise your feet slightly off the ground so your shins are almost, but not quite, parallel to the ground. Keep your knees touching and the side of your feet touching.

Motion: As exercise 1.

Exercise 4.

This will exercise your obliques and lower abdomen.

Starting position: As exercise 4 i.e. with your knees raised and feet off the ground, but this time push the soles your feet together and keep your knees apart. This will produce a similar diamond shape as in exercise 2.

Motion: As above

Exercise 5.

This exercise works the midsection.

Starting position: Lie flat on the ground with, of course, your arms braced behind your head. Raise your legs off the ground so your feet are facing the ceiling. Do not bend your knees, and make sure they are touching. Your body should be in an 'L' shape.

Motion: As above

Exercise 6.

This will work the upper abdominal row.

Starting position: As exercise 5, only spread your legs as far as you can while still keeping your feet facing the ceiling and your knees locked.

Motion: As above

Exercise 7 and 8.

Starting position: Lie down, bend one knee 90 degrees and raise that leg off the ground, as you would in exercise 3. Keep the other leg perfectly straight, however, and have it raised about an inch off the floor. You should be in a 'cycling' position.

Motion: As above.

Reverse the raised leg and straight leg for exercise 8.

Exercise 9 and 10.

These exercises work the obliques and require a partner.

Starting position: For this one you lie on one side with, of course, your arms braced behind your neck. Bend your knees and raise them towards you, so that you're almost in the fetal position. Now, have a partner hold down your knees and shins.

Motion: Lift your torso upward as described in all the other exercises, only make sure your partner is holding down your knees and shins. You should feel the side of your abs being worked.

Flip over and lie on the other side for exercise 10.

How To Get Flat Abs: Get Rid Of Those Fast Carbs

Here's how you don't get flat abs: consuming sugars and other fast carbs.

You'll notice that one of the primary rules of weight loss I laid out in my How To Get Abs: Burn Off The Fat So You Can See 'Em post was to 'limit fast carbs'. By a cruel trick of nature, fast carbs are very tasty. But they digest really quickly, and as such, release a lot of insulin quickly. This has the effect of increasing appetite, encouraging you to eat more.

The spike of insulin also instructs your body to use food as fuel, and not to use stored energy i.e. fat. This makes weight loss more difficult.

So, this post is going to show you how to (somewhat) painlessly remove these pesky fast carbs from your diet.

Replacing sugar

Those of you with a sweet tooth may lament the banning of your sugary foods. There are very satisfactory replacements, however. The ridiculous thing about most commercially available sweeteners, though, is that they're unnecessarily bad:

Artificial ones, namely aspartame (the sweetener used in most 'diet' drinks and foods) and saccharine are just plain dangerous - there's a pile of (as yet inconclusive) studies linking them to all kinds of serious diseases including cancer and brain damage. I personally try to stay away from these despite their weight-loss friendly properties.

Many natural ones, though, like fructose, honey and malitol, still have calories, so they aren't the solution either.

I recommend:

1. Xylitol

A sugar alcohol, xylitol looks and tastes like white sugar. Yes, it still has some calories, but it's low GI, so you don't get the fat inducing spike in insulin that you get from sugar. I recommend buying some and using it where ever you used sugar before for the occasional treat.

2. Stevia

Now this stuff is awesome. It's 300 times as sweet as sugar, but it's natural and comes from a herb growin in Brazil. Despite decades of use with no harm, it's still not approved in the US or EU, though, for political reasons. Ridiculous! Apparently it will be soon, however, and there is even interest from Coca-Cola to release a drink using stevia! Time will tell. But if you can source it, I recommend using it in as much quantities as you like.

Replacing white flour and white rice

White flour and white rice are fast carbs and as such are no friend of the flat ab'ed person. So instead of white flour, use whole grain flour, and instead of white rice, use brown rice. Pretty simple. Most flour based products these days (pasta, bread etc) are readily available in their 'whole grain' alternatives.

Personally, I try to heavily limit my consumption of pasta and bread anyway. They don't help the cause much even in whole grain form, since they're acidic and they don't have many nutritional benefits. But whole grain is certainly the lesser of two evils if you must have them.

Brown rice is harder to cook and as such less available in resteraunts, cafes etc, but always ask.

Replacing potatoes

Potatoes really aren't much good for you. If you must have them, have them with slow carbs (fibrous green veges) so the net speed of the carbs digesting in your belly is about medium.

For alternatives, there's always sweet potato which is very healthy. Sweet potato chips (baked, not fried) and sweet potato mash are very nice!

Replacing alcohol

The last of the major fast carbs is alochol. Unfortunately, the replacement is water!

Seriously, alcohol is public enemy number one for weight loss. Probably on par with sugar. It's high calorie and completely free of nutrition. And we all know the negative impact it has on the rest of your body. Also worthy of mention, it binds up testosterone in the body. This impedes muscle growth and will give males man boobs!

If you're inclined to take other 'intoxicants' instead of alcohol so you can still have fun at parties, I think you're on the wrong track. These are toxic and highly acidic and so will impede weight loss in any case. More practically, they encourage you to eat a super-human amount (known as 'the munchies') and make it difficult for you to stick to your diet (it's hard to remember why you need to diet at 3am out front of the kebabs shop). Alcohol does that too, of course.

Laughing, having fun and dancing are good for you, so feel free to enjoy the night life. It's better on your body (and your wallet) if you stay sober, though. So if you must drink, practice moderation.

The 90% rule

No one can have a perfect diet, so allow yourself to indulge 10% of the time (about one meal of bad foods every two days, or one full day of bad foods once a fortnight). This keeps you motivated and can satisfy cravings.

The quicker you can practice this, though, the quicker you'll see those washboard abs poking out from under your belly!

How To Get Abs: Burn Off The Fat So You Can See 'Em

Most people already have okay abs, they’re just obscured by fat. So it’s quite simple: lose the fat and you’ll see your abs!

Now there's an endless number of books on dieting and weight loss, and that in itself should tell you something: that when it comes to losing fat, information doesn't help much.

What do I mean by that? One serious trap we all find ourselves stuck in, particularly in this 'age of information', is that we do a lot of thinking, and not nearly as much acting. Weight loss does not require much knowledge, but it does require action.

As such, I'm going to give you all you need to know about weight loss in this one post, and the rules I present you with are brief enough and few enough in number that you should be able to write them all on the back of a bus ticket.

It's true that if you want to be an expert on weight loss, you could spend a whole lot of time reading books an you'd probably be better at it than me. But for those of us who just want to do it, be done with it, and get on with the rest of our lives, the 'bus ticket' list of rules will do just fine.

To make the rules as short as I've promised, I present them with minimum explanation. I will expand on each rule in future posts, but for now you'll have to just trust me that they work ;)

Firstly, diet rules:

Rule 1: Eat 5-6 times a day.

The higher your metabolic rate, the higher your ability to burn fat. Raise it and keep it there by eating a lot, often. 5 to 6 small/medium meals a day is the target.

Rule 2: Eat quality proteins in every meal.

Protein feeds your muscles and burns more energy in digestion. You don't have to eat a huge amount (I suggest that the amount required is overstated...mainly by companies trying to flog protein powders!), so a medium portion is fine.

Preferred sources are:

• Lean, organic, grain fed beef
  
• Chicken and turkey breast
• Fish
  
• Whey protein (I recommend a flavorless/carb free type like Whey Pro Elite)
• Eggs (mainly the whites)
  
• Lentils
• Tofu and soy products

Many recommend low-fat cheese/yogurts etc, but I can't comment on those as I'm lactose intolerant!

The main thing is to not eat 'carbs only' meals. If there's no protein, at least have a good fat (e.g. almond paste spread on bread is superior to jam on bread!)

Rule 3: Eat mostly slow carbs

By 'slow' I mean complex carbs e.g. all plant foods, whole grains, brown rice, beans and lentils, muesli etc.

'Fast' carbs must be minimized or completely cut-out: sugar, concentrated fruit juice, dried fruit, white flour, soft drinks, chocolate and most other processed and junk foods. Yeah I know, it's no fun :)

Rule 4: No carbs after 6pm.

Carbs are for energy, so eat them as you need them. After 6pm you're winding down, so you don't need them and you won't burn them; they'll just be stored as fat. Eat your carbs in the morning and during the day.

Rule 5: Drink 2+ litres of water per day.

I drink A LOT of water. 4 litres, usually. Every biochemical process in your body uses water, so you absolutely need it. However, try not to flood your stomach during/after a meal or you won't digest; drink the most between meals.

My tip is to carry a large bottle (1 litre plus), because if you drink a small bottle and then don't have an opportunity to refill or buy another during the day, you have to go dry until you can. That ain't good.

Rule 6: Stay alkaline.

Being excessively acidic is not only bad for your health and has been linked to serious diseases, but it impedes weight loss. At every meal, have a significant portion of alkaline food: veges/salad (the greener the better), fruit, lentils, almonds, olive oil etc. The fresher, the better, as even the mentioned foods become acidic if heavily processed.

An easy way to get alkaline is to have wheatgrass/greens powder drink each day, and to have 10-15ml of apple cider vinegar each day.

And now, the exercise rule:

Exercise 5-6 times per week with considerable intensity.

Sounds like a lot, right? The strategy is to eat lots and burn lots, so this amount of exercise is recommended.

Personally, I do three weight sessions and two cardio sessions per week. As such, I won’t burn fat as quick as someone doing only cardio sessions in a week, as although weigh training does increase your metabolic rate, it doesn’t do it as much as cardio training. That’s fine, I’m not in that much of a hurry.

For cardio, though, I recommend gym classes instead of self-managed session, as they usually ensure you don’t slack off. These sessions can be done in as short a time as 20-30mins if the intensity is high.

Favorites include:

• Cycling
• Boxing
• Other martial arts
• Yoga
• Pilates

Etc. If your face is red and you’ve got a sweat up, it’s probably good enough.

So as you can see, weight loss is not complicated, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. But you need to act, you need to implement or nothing will happen.

Don't beat yourself up if you slip up. Just shrug your shoulders and promise yourself you'll do it tomorrow. If you can do the above around 80-90% of the time, you’ll see gradual, but significant improvement.

So here’s your ‘bus ticket’ summary of losing weight to show those abs:

Diet:

1. Eat 5-6 meals per day
2. Eat quality proteins at every meal
3. Eat mostly slow carbs
4. No carbs after 6pm
5. Drink 2+ litres of water per day
6. Stay alkaline

Exercise:

1. Exercise 5-6 times per week with considerable intensity

The main rule: DO IT!