#1 Myth: Abdominal muscle differs from other muscles.

The abdominal muscles are actually similar to all other body muscles. The only difference is location; they’re just not laying on a bony surface like biceps or quads. They need the same training as the chest or biceps do. Basic physiology laws pertain to all muscles, and that includes the abs. So to get tight abs, the exercises you do have to be effective on that group of muscles.

#2 Myth: You need to train daily to get tight abs.

Basic weight training rules say that you need to allow your muscles 24 hours to recover and rest, and this includes the muscles in your stomach too. That means you should work them either 3-4 times per week, or every other day, instead of daily. To obtain tight abs you should allow them a full day off to rest between your workouts. Working your stomach muscles diligently, and then allowing them time to repair and rest, is the secret to building strong muscles.

#3 Myth: Performing stomach exercises helps rid you of fat in the abdomen.

Spot reduction just doesn’t exist. Many believe that when you have deposits of fat on the abdomen, exercising those muscles will help fat vanish. This is just plain wrong. You will not rid yourself of the fat over your muscles by just exercising repeatedly on that part of the body. Only a healthy diet and the right exercises will burn stomach fat off to uncover the tight abs you’ve developed.

#4 Myth: To get tight abs you need to do high repetitions of an exercise.

As already mentioned above, abs are similar to all your other muscle groups. This means that you need to train your abs just like you do your other muscles. The way to get tight abs is to use resistance training to challenge your abdominal muscles. If you are able to do an exercise easily more than 20 times, then you need to add more resistance to your workout.

#5 Myth: Everyone can have a flat stomach if they exercise enough.

For a few individuals it’s just not physically possible to get a flat stomach. The muscles in the abdomen are naturally rounded, and not totally flat. Genetics, age, and gender all contribute to determining the shape, appearance, and size of your stomach. If you can’t achieve a flat stomach no matter what you do, don’t get discouraged. Simply by trying to achieve perfection, you will be in the kind of physical shape that most people would envy.

#6 Myth: Working out will make a bad back worse.

You can actually make your back much stronger by trying to get tight abs. Opposing muscles of the body tend to help each other out, so when your stomach muscles are weak your back muscles have to pick up the load. And when you strengthen your stomach muscles, it relieves the load from your back muscles and gives them a chance to heal.

Don’t let these myths ruin your efforts to improve your physical shape. Train wisely and strategically, and use workout techniques that zone in on your specific needs. Sexy, tight abs won’t happen without some work, but the right workout will make that work pay off a lot faster.

How to go from this…

…to this:

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Make Stomach Crunches Part of an Overall Workout

If you have extra belly fat that you need to get rid of along with tightening your abs, then the reality is that you’ll need to include a full-body workout in addition to doing stomach crunches. It’s impossible to get tight abs just by stomach exercises alone, but that doesn’t mean you have to commit to boring workouts. Choose activities that exercise the large muscles in your body, and that you’ll enjoy enough to be able to stick with.

Why Stomach Crunches Are So Important

Stomach crunches will always be essential to getting flat abs, because they work on both the lower and upper abdominal muscles. An important set of muscles that they’re effective for is the rectus abdominals, which stretch from your ribs down to your hips. And the obliques, both external and internal, slope down the side of your body through your waist. This muscle set’s job is to rotate your torso in curling and twisting movements.

Besides tightening up your abs to give you a flat stomach, stomach crunches have an added benefit. If you suffer from back pain, toned abdominal muscles will take the pressure off your back and bring you a great deal of pain relief. The muscles in the human body are all connected in some way, and improving one area will always have an effect on an adjacent area.

Stomach Crunches – The Basics

To perform stomach crunches correctly, begin by lying flat on your back. Keep your arms at your sides and slowly bend your knees and point them at your chest. Keep your hips flat on the floor. Then slowly lift your shoulders off of the floor, and imagine that you are trying to point your rib cage toward your hips. If your abdominal muscles are weak you may only be able to move a few inches before you feel you’ve reached your limit. Listen to your body. Remember that your goal is to challenge your abs and slowly improve them, and what that takes will be different for everyone.

Reverse stomach crunches work your lower abs. To perform them correctly you want to be in the same starting position with your knees pointed toward your chest. This time you will keep your shoulders on the floor and slowly contract your abs, as if you are trying to point your knees just a little closer to your chest. The key to both forms of stomach crunches is to perform them slowly. Do not rush, and be sure to breathe deeply during the exercise.

All stomach exercises are helpful for toning your abs, but crunches are the most helpful of all. But remember that if you need to lose belly fat in addition to tightening your abs, you’ll need to make stomach crunches part of an overall workout to help you lose weight.

1. You May Not Actually Have Fat Abs

Many people who think they have fat abs are technically wrong. You might just have a layer of fat covering up abs that may or may not be decently toned. The right stomach exercises can help you tone your abs, but they won’t get rid of the fat covering them up. For that you need a simple weight loss plan that includes a full-body workout and good nutrition.

2. Some Diet Foods Can Cause Fat Abs

As hard as it may be to believe, a lot of ‘health foods’ are nothing more than cleverly disguised junk foods. Despite their marketing hype, these foods can actually stimulate your body into adding more belly fat, not less. To lose weight you need to eat REAL foods, not highly processed diet products. Healthy, natural foods will help fat abs disappear – not bogus ‘fat burning’ pills and other wallet-sucking supplements.

3. Stomach Exercises Alone Won’t Get Rid of Fat Abs

Stomach exercises like crunches and sit-ups are actually the LEAST effective way to get rid of fat abs. So are infomercial gimmicks like ab-rockers, ab belts and ab loungers. I guarantee you that the hard-body fitness models in those infomercials didn’t get that way by using the products they advertise! They got those chiseled bodies through real workouts and eating real foods. Don’t let the marketing hype fool you into wasting your time and money on one of these contraptions.

4. A Good Workout Routine Isn’t Boring!

Workout routines consisting of repetitive and boring cardio exercises are NOT the fastest way to lose the body fat covering up your six pack abs. There are other types of unique workouts that will produce ten times better results for you, at twice the speed of outdated cardio routines.

If you’ve tried to get rid of fat abs in the past and failed, don’t give up! You’ve probably been a victim of outdated myths and downright lies about what it really takes to get six pack abs. Fortunately, it isn’t rocket science. All it takes is making a few changes and doing the right type of exercises along with getting the right nutrition. Then you’ll begin to lose even the most stubborn belly fat, and start uncovering your flat stomach hiding underneath!

Stomach Shaping Gadgets Are a Big Fat Lie

We’ve all seen infomercials that sell the latest contraptions, promising to make stomach shaping easy. If you’ve wasted your hard earned money on one of these gizmos then you know that they’re also a waste of time. The plain fact is that stomach exercises alone do NOT work for getting six pack abs. Here’s what does work:

First of all, successful stomach shaping means you have to commit to working out. And yes, I mean full-body, multi-joint routines. Are you looking for a magic pill that increases your metabolic rate and gets your body to release its fat-burning hormones? If you have stomach fat you want to get rid of, then a strategic combination of proven exercises is the magic pill you’re looking for.

Stomach Shaping Doesn’t Mean Starving Yourself

If you’re serious about stomach shaping, then forget about starving yourself on fad diets. You need to eat REAL food that your body needs in order to replace your fat with muscle. What you absolutely don’t need is to spend money on bogus fat loss pills and highly processed diet foods. They’re about as useful as that Abs-Be-Gone contraption gathering dust in the back of your closet.

Stomach Shaping – Your Attitude Is Your Secret Weapon

But perhaps even more important than the right stomach exercises and good nutrition, successful stomach shaping means having the right mindset. This is probably one of the most overlooked aspects of working out. Getting the body you desire is much easier when you know in your gut that the action you’re taking will lead to success.

How to Get a Flat Stomach – Define Your Goals

But before I tell you about this exercise, I need to get something out of the way. And that is this: stomach exercises are actually the least important factor for how to get a flat stomach. And yet, most people focus their attention on abdominal exercises when they’re trying to lose belly fat.

Burning fat is all or nothing. It’s easy to take the right actions to get into fat-burning mode, but unfortunately you can’t choose to burn fat only from a certain area of your body. Stomach exercises will help you with how to get a flat stomach, but only if they’re part of a workout routine that encompasses your entire body.

Having said that, if you want to know how to get a flat stomach then you should incorporate this powerful exercise into your routine:

The Plank

1. Lay face down, on the floor or a mat, resting on your forearms. Keep your palms flat on the floor.
2. Pushing away from the floor, raise up onto your toes and rest your weight on your elbows.
3. Try to keep your back flat, in a straight line all the way from your head to your heels.
4. Tilt your pelvis slightly forward and contract your abdominal muscles to prevent your buttocks from sticking up in the air.
5. Hold this position for 20 to 60 seconds.
6. Lower your body to the floor, and then repeat 3-5 times

Variations of the Plank

If you need an easier variation of this exercise you can rest your forearms on a bench instead of the floor. But if the regular version of the Plank isn’t quite challenging enough, you can lift one foot slightly off the ground and then switch sides in the middle of the set. For a really challenging variation you can lift one foot and also point the arm on your opposite side straight ahead, again switching sides midway through the set.

Click here for more exercises that will flatten your stomach.

How to Get a Flat Stomach – It Isn’t Rocket Science

The Plank is just one of several exercises that work great for losing belly fat. How to get a flat stomach isn’t rocket science, but it does require a smart workout plan. Once you’ve got that in place, you’ll begin to see results even if you’ve never been successful before at getting that flat tummy you’ve always wanted.

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.

Any stomach exercise routine aimed at flattening your belly should include the transverse abdominals as a focus. Using the following stomach exercises, you can work on your transverse abdominals and really make progress on that flat tummy. As with any workout routine, be sure to consult a professional before beginning and always warm up properly to avoid injury.

Pelvic Tilts

This stomach exercise requires lying on your back on a flat surface, such as the floor or a bench. Use a mat or towel to cushion your spine. Bend your knees so that your feet are flat on the floor. Raise your pelvis (and only your pelvis) off the floor, hold momentarily, and then lower it back down. Repeat for an entire set. Maintaining a controlled movement is crucial to this exercise. This will allow you to use your abdominal muscles, rather than your body’s momentum, to do the work on the exercise. Also, be sure to keep your upper body on the floor throughout.

Crunch-less Crunch

This stomach exercise is fairly simple, but can also be challenging. Essentially, it involves trying to pull the belly button in towards the spine. This can be tricky, as it involves using muscles which you may not be used to activating. To start, either lie or on your stomach or kneel. You might want to try both ways and see which helps you feel the exercise better. Relax your body as much as possible, then try to use only the lower abdominals to move your belly button toward your spine. Hold for ten seconds. If holding for ten seconds feels easy, hold for a longer period. The goal is to hold the contraction until you either cannot feel it, or you feel other muscles working harder than the transverse abdominus. When you feel this, let the contraction out.

Scissor Kicks

This stomach exercise also requires lying on the floor. Position your hands under your butt, keeping your back pressed against the floor. Slowly raise one leg to a height of about ten inches, then slowly lower it back to the floor. As your lower one leg, raise the other. Repeat this motion for an entire set. Maintaining control throughout is important, not allowing momentum to get the better of you. Your upper body should remain on the floor through the entire move.

These abdominal exercises are key to flattening your tummy, and pregnant and post-partum women will find them particularly effective. There are other stomach exercises that target the transverse abdominals, but the three exercises above are definitely challenging enough to get you started.

By: Nicholas Tan