Stomach Exercise Guide

A six pack stomach is a very popular subject in the fitness industry. A simple web search will turn up hundreds of gimmicks and gadgets that promise to help you lose belly fat with little to no effort on your part. Getting a flat stomach is certainly an achievable goal, but if it was as easy as those products claim then we’d all have a six pack stomach by now.

Six Pack Stomach 101

What bothers me most about the stomach shaping products I see is that they’re based on a faulty theory. The truth is, stomach exercises alone aren’t going to give you a six pack stomach. If you’ve been training at all then you probably already have pretty decent abdominal muscles. They might just be covered up by an extra layer of fat that you need to work on.

Is Your Exercise Routine Sabotaging Your Efforts to Get a Six Pack Stomach?

You’ll have much better luck getting a six pack stomach by focusing your training on your entire body, instead of just your abs. Exercises that involve the large muscles use more energy, release fat-burning hormones in your body, and are the most effective for weight loss. Hundreds of reps of abdominal exercises won’t do anything to help you get rid of belly fat.

Workouts that target the big muscles in your legs and buttocks, chest and back will give you much better results in your efforts to get tight abs. Combining large muscle exercises with high intensity exercises in your trouble spots will work wonders for getting rid of belly fat. The main reason people don’t get the six pack stomach they’re looking for is because they try to take a shortcut around this fact.

A Six Pack Stomach Requires Resistance Training

Another mistake I see a lot of people make is not using enough resistance during their workout. You could do a hundred crunches, but if you’re not using enough resistance to challenge your stomach muscles then you won’t see any improvement. In fact, you shouldn’t even waste your time on any stomach exercise that you can easily do more than 20 reps of. If your goal is a six pack stomach, you need to use enough resistance so that you feel challenged to complete just 15 reps (or less) of a movement.

If you’re serious about stomach shaping, don’t let yourself be taken in by fitness gimmicks that will only waste your time and money. A six pack stomach requires work, but that doesn’t mean your workout has to be boring. Combine high intensity exercises with a good full-body workout, and you’ll soon have the sexy, tight abs you’re looking for.