Training your ABS

 For men and women, the abdominal area is probably one of the most tried and trained part of human body, yet too many people have real trouble with achieving any desirable results. There are a few reasons for that. First, the abdomen is one of the areas where your body is trying to reserve and save fat genetically, to protect the inner organs. We can not change our nature. But second and the most common reason – people have no idea how to train it effectively.

  For a start, it will be really useful to understand the muscle structure of your abs. There are 4 muscles that compress the abdominal wall, helping to keep your inner organs in a proper location, and 3 out of them flex and rotate your trunk. These are:

  Rectus abdominis – also called a 6 pack, main flexor of your stomach

  External oblique and internal oblique – main rotators, these help to flex you stomach as well. To imagine them better, look at the picture – the direction of the fingers shows you exactly how muscle fibers are orientated. Palm on top - External oblique, and Internal oblique – right under them in an opposite direction. 

 So here is where the most common misunderstanding starts. Because Rectus abdominis looks to be the desirable “6 pack”, most people put all effort in training them exactly. But the truth is: being a powerful flexor and providing protection for stomach organs, Rectus abdominis is very limited in helping to create visually lean and a sucked in stomach. Try to do this. Cut off a paper shape of a “six pack” in real size. Draw the desirable picture on it. Put it on your stomach. Roughly, you can imagine that it is your Rectus abdominis. Now imagine that after all of your training your “six pack” became stronger and thicker. Will it stick out more? Yes it will. And that is exactly what happens in reality. Virtually, Rectus abdominis is a patch on a surface of your stomach. It gets bigger – your stomach visually gets bigger as well. 

   I have seen many people doing crunches, sometimes with additional weights, year after year, in order to flatten their protruding bellies. As a result, their bellies are still sticking out.

   At the same time, the anatomical structure of the External oblique and Internal oblique provides much better abilities in “sucking in” your guts and creating a look of a flat and lean stomach. Plus, training them, you are shaping your whole waist area, creating a better look not just from the front, but from the sides and even from the back. In addition, training External oblique and Internal oblique, the range of movement is superior compared to exercises for just Rectus abdominis, especially crunches. Even heavily overweight people usually can bend their torsos to the side much better that to the front in a crunch-like movement, because exactly a protruding stomach prevents them to do it effectively. 

Some words of warning. As well as doing all other exercises, avoid rotating movements with your trunk – the human spine structure definitely is not designed for that. Bend your body straight to the side, to the front, or even bend back, but never do any twists and rotations- otherwise it will be the easiest way to damage your body, especially in the lower back area. The movement should be controlled; avoid a just loose swinging from side to side.

   Another good exercise for your ABS is knees raises. Even though your abdominal muscles don’t cross  your hip joints at all, raising knees makes you abs work really extensively and helps to tone up your lower abs area, which is often (especially with males) the weakest part of stomach muscles. And if you do hanging raises it works out your External oblique and Internal oblique as well when you bring your pubis up towards your chest. I recommend doing knees raises instead of leg raises, because bending your knees you reduce the work of hip flexors and can concentrate on your abs much better instead, in addition you are taking off some tension from your lower back as well.

   Should you completely avoid crunches? No, but put them as an additional exercise in the end of your complex, and remember to round your lower back when you do them and never hold your fingers in a  lock behind your head, this is to keep your neck safe.