1)      The mission «get perfect abdominals» is extremely difficult and for only few brave ones, in contrast to what some sirens of cheap marketing promise to you.
Before you start to meet this goal, you need strong mental preparation: Sharpen your self discipline and your self esteem.

2)      Proper diet is the absolute king as far as abdominals are concerned! It is much more critical than exercising! Avoid all restrictive diets. Eat unprocessed, natural foods and arrange your diet to create a negative calorie balance.

3)      Give special attention to high quality protein, with many vegetables and fiber with monounsaturated fat and omega-3.

4)      Avoid as much as possible the peaks in your sugar and insulin so you can reduce the chances of fat storage. Divide the total daily calories between 5-6 meals and prefer foods of low glycemic index and course load.

5)      Perform muscle strengthening exercises with emphasis on free weights. Always prefer exercises that motivate and involve large muscle groups and as many joints as possible. Reduce breaks between sets. Give your exercise routine an aerobic feeling.

6)      Pushups are ideal for abdominal fitness. Try cyclical training exercises using your body weight. They are ideal for fat loss and a super combination of aerobic and anaerobic exercise.

7)      Your basic mission you – do not forget – is to remove the fat from your midsection. This is the only way to reveal your abs muscles.
If you are too trained, try HIIT (High Intensity Intermittent Training) which we have already addressed in past articles. It is by far the best investment of time for fat loss.
If not, try aerobic activities in 70-75% of Maximum heart frequency for 30 seconds each time, 4-5 times / week.
Avoid at all costs the endless, low-intensity aerobic training exercises eg walking or running too slow on a treadmill, etc. They can you send to the grave (from boredom!!).

8)      Generally speaking, you don’t need to focus on abdominal exercises only. If, however, for psychological reasons you want to do some abdominal exercises, give importance to the proper way. A lot of people make huge mistakes which burden your back.

9)      Do not succumb to the temptation of easy solutions and false promises from unrelated merchants. Forget miracle pills, magic super foods, etc. Do not you become a sucker!

10)   Similarly, most abdominal exercise equipment that are advertised in infomercials are pure scams. Do not fall for such scams.

Especially when you hear words or phrases such as:

- Lose Belly Fat Quickly and easily
- 5 minutes lose weight
- A few weeks
- Ready for summer
- No hard work needed…

then run away!

The big secret for revealing your abdominal muscles is the low percentage of body fat, which is anything but easy. Feasible of course, but only for the truly determined.

Adopt Weight and Resistance Training in your exercise regimen:

Are you still performing regular abs exercises (like crunches and sit-ups) but have not yet acquired the flat stomach you have been dreaming? The time has come to finally leave the mattress and catch the weights. It is time to start using weights and resistance exercises in your training program. These exercises use a combination of increased resistance with weights, and in addition to the usual abs exercises they will increase the intensity of your fitness, so as to have faster results. Weight exercises will also tone your front, side and deeper muscle layers of your torso, for a total abdominal strengthening. Combine the weight program with your usual aerobic exercise and a calorie controlled diet: within a few weeks you will admire in the mirror a flat and sexy tummy that you always wanted to have.

Muscle Mechanics

The stomach region consists of four major muscles that work together to help your spinal cord to bend and also to make the top and bottom of your body torso to turn and pull in the abdomen. The front abdominal extends vertically from the pubic bone to the bone of the sternum. The external oblique muscles run diagonally from the bottom of the ribs to the pelvis. The internal oblique muscles are below them and move diagonally, and conversely. The transverse abdominal is lower than the other muscles and gets activated when the other muscles get contracted.

Exercise Strategy

As Mylene Dane stressed, “Most people do not ever increase the intensity of their abdominal exercises. They just do more crunches until they stop seeing results”. Mylene Dane is the creator and co-owner of Train West Hollywood gym in California. But as happens with other muscles, the abdominals become tighter when the exercises get more difficult. The conclusion: Instead of doing more repetitions, give variety to your exercises to ensure they are targeted to all groups of your abdominal muscles, and also add more resistance to your old and new exercises.