Due mainly to marketing and popular entertainment mediums, six-pack abs have become a cultural ideal for men. Unfortunately, even for those men who are relatively physically fit, aging tends to come with a slowly growing ab fat bulge. It takes hard work with effective ab exercises for a man to maintain a six-pack that will continue to show through as he gets older. 

Rectus abdominis muscle

Image via Wikipedia

Stomach flattening really is doable, but it requires special, effective ab exercises designed for a man. You might be surprised about how these exercises work. However, just knowing how to perform effective ab exercises for men doesn’t give a man six-pack abs. It requires a great deal of determined discipline to follow through with such an ab exercise program. However, it can be quite exhausting, especially when you’re first getting used to the program or after you’ve taken a few days off from the program. You’ll have to maintain your determination as you do your ab exercises every day.

Just as the abdominal six-pack looks like several different muscles, the abdominal region is filled with many different muscles. While some workouts may workout more than one of these muscles at one time, in order to work out all of these muscles thoroughly you have to do a wide variety of ab exercises.

Ab Exercises that Work

 

A good place to start your workout is with the upper rectus abdominus, or upper abs. Old-fashioned ab crunches work these muscles out very well. But, instead of injuring your back doing old-fashioned ab crunches, do them by lifting your back up high in the air. Pulling your head toward your knees is not the way to go. For beginners, toe touches may be the easiest way to work out the upper abs.

The lower rectus abdominus, or lower belly muscle, is also an important region to work out if you want to develop a full six-pack of abs. These muscles run down into your leg and hip regions. Most belly fat seems to be stored right on top of these muscles, giving you a rounded, beer-belly appearance. In order to add a little more definition in this area and lift this fat up off of your waist, you’ll need to do exercises to pick up your legs and pull them up toward your chest while in an upright position.

Suspended knee lifts allow you to best work out your lower belly muscles. These movements can provide pretty intensive resistance training in the beginning, especially if you have heavy legs.

Reverse crunches, or pushing your legs out away from your body, are a good way of loosing up these lower belly muscles before doing the resistance training. In the beginning you may even get some muscle development from the reverse crunches alone. Just be careful to use a proper stretch and lift procedure with your legs, as doing a downward or horizontal movement during your reverse crunches does not provide the same benefits.

Your obliques, which are located around the lower belly muscles and where your legs meet your torso, can be worked out with careful torso twisting movements. If you twist your body back and forth you’ll get some stretching and muscle tone in these muscles. You may need to add a resistance machine for this as you get a little stronger.

But the true core muscles, or the traversus abdominus, are the hardest ones to keep toned. They may also be the most important muscles for maintaining proper core posture to support any heavy lifting or repetitive torso stress. Go into a position like you’re going to do a pushup, but put your elbows and forearms on the floor instead of your hands. Try to tighten and stretch your core muscles without losing your straight body posture.

All of these exercises should be done after talking to your physician. Always do some warm-up exercises before resistance training, including these effective ab exercises for men.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta