Weight Training Tips and Articles

Abdominal Workouts

December 27, 2007 on 6:17 am | In Weight Training Routines, Weight Training Exercises, Abdominals |

  If you’re into weight training one of the most important muscles groups to train are the muscles of the midsection, especially the abdominals. Like with the lower back muscles, having strong abs will help support your body when you’re lifting heavy weights. Training your abs will also help you get that six-pack look when you get rid of extra body fat.

  Your abdominal workouts should include crunches, leg raises, and twisting sit-ups on a declined bench. If you do your crunches on a workout ball you’ll get a nice stretch at the bottom of each rep, which you won’t get if you do them on a bench or on the floor. Leg raises should be done while sitting on the edge of a bench or on an apparatus that allows back support so your body doesn’t sway back and forth while doing them.

  When you do abdominal exercises like crunches and sit-ups you need to either put your hands at the sides of your head or fold your arms over your chest. Placing your hands behind your head may force you to pull on your neck. There’s no need to pull on the back of your head when you’re training abs.

  The sets you do during an ab workout should be done with higher reps with no, or very light, weight. The abdominals are muscles that you don’t actually want to add a lot of size to as this will give you a blocky appearance. Keep the reps high and strive to get a good burn in the abdominal area.

  When you train your abs you should do some training for your obliques as well. The obliques are the muscles on the sides of the midsection that are covered up by love handles on many people. Do side bends with light dumbbells or cables to work the obliques with high rep sets. Like with the abs, you don’t want to gain too much actual muscle size in the obliques.

  Abdominal training can be done more often than training for other muscles groups because the abs recover very quickly. If you want, you can do some ab training during almost every workout since it’s hard to actually overtrain them. Trying a new abdominal exercise may make you sore at first, but your body will quickly get used to it. Frequently change the way you do your ab exercises so you don’t hit a plateau.

  Abdominal training workouts, along with the right diet, will put you well on your way to getting those ripped abs you’ve been dreaming of.