Saturday, January 17, 2009

Strengthen Your Midsection - 3 Exercises That Work Wonders

By C. Michael Michaelson

The Crunch: For this exercise lie down on your back and put your hands to the side of your head. Pull your knees in and slowly raise your head up until you feel a nice strong pull in your stomach muscles. The only tension should be in your abdominal muscles. Now pull in tight using your ab muscles. Try and do this slow and steady for best results. Shoot for 3 sets of 15-20 reps.

You will feel the effect and know that your efforts are fruitful by the gentle pull in your abdominal muscles. This may turn to severe pain in a couple of days but that's ok. Keep the exercise limited to your abs by making certain your neck shoulders and back are relaxed.

The Abdominal Plank: This exercise although simple is very effective at strengthening your entire core. All you need to do is start like you're going to do a push-up. Lower yourself to a position where you are resting on your forearms. Hold your back perfectly straight. This is a simple gravity exercise that works the entire core. Do this for as long as you can stand then do it 10 times.

The way to know for sure that what you are doing is really working is simple. Stand up straight and assume a correct posture. Hold your gut in while doing this. If this is a bit uncomfortable then you are likely doing the exercise correctly.

The reverse crunch - The reverse crunch exercise works the traverse and lower abdominal muscles. To perform this exercise lie down with your feet in the air, and if necessary with knees slightly bent. Simply bring the knees toward the abs and repeat. When your knees are as close to the abs as possible pull in tight. Keep your back flat. Start out with 4 sets of 15-20

You will know the exercise is working when your lower abdominals start to hurt. If you have quite the gut then abdominal exercises can be difficult at first. You may find it necessary to jog or do sdome form of cardiovascular exercise to assist in dropping the weight. Just remember under that layer of fat is a six pack trying to show off. - 16004

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