Inflated abs are the goal of all fitness enthusiasts. Exercises for the abdominal muscles are present in the program of every athlete; the majority still prefer crunches and sit-ups in various variations. Let's see how to reach a new level of pumping the press on the horizontal bar and uneven bars.
Do you want to give elasticity and definition to your abs? You don't have to buy expensive exercise equipment or do boring, monotonous movements. Effective abdominal training can be done using parallel bars and a horizontal bar.
Such exercises will be useful not only for those who are starting to exercise, but also for those who spend a lot of time visiting gyms.
Abdominal training on the horizontal bar
Before you begin exercises on the horizontal bar, you should stretch and warm up your body. Jogging or any other cardio activity is suitable for this. Bend sideways and back and forth to stretch your back and abdominal muscles.
When the warmth rises in the lumbar region, you can begin performing basic exercises.
Hanging Leg Raise
Grab the horizontal bar with an overhand grip and hang. As you exhale, slowly raise your legs to the bar, while trying not to bend your knees. Don't try to do a lot of reps, this is just a warm up rep.
This exercise not only strengthens the abdominal muscles, but also helps get rid of excess fat in the abdomen, lower back and buttocks.
Hanging leg raises
Knee Raise
After completing the previous exercise, immediately proceed to perform knee raises. Slowly raise your bent legs towards your chest. In addition to working the rectus abdominis, this exercise also works the oblique muscles.
Hanging Knee Raise
To make them work more efficiently, you can raise your knees not directly to your chest, but offset to the left and right. Perform this abdominal exercise on the horizontal bar to failure.
Static exercise “Corner”
After taking a short break, move on to a static exercise called a “corner”. While hanging, raise your legs at an angle of 90 degrees and stay in this position for the maximum amount of time.
This exercise not only loads the abdominal muscles, but also perfectly strengthens the lower back. When performing this exercise, it is important to ensure that your torso does not sway from side to side.
Exercise "Scissors"
From the standard hanging position, you must first tense your abdominal muscles, thereby engaging the necessary muscle group, and alternately lift your straightened legs, thereby simulating the work of scissors. For the first classes, you need to perform 15-20 repetitions with each leg.
Crunches on the horizontal bar
An unusual version of the abdominal exercise on the horizontal bar is bending at the waist, twisting until the body is fully raised, while supporting the body weight not on the arms, but on the legs. In essence, the exercise remains the same as with a traditional leg raise, the only difference is that the person hangs upside down.
However, in fact, this option uses other muscle groups. In this position, you can also twist left and right to work the obliques. Although this exercise is quite easy to perform, it has great potential.
Lateral crunches on the horizontal bar
Next, hooking your feet to the horizontal bar, you need to perform twists with a slope to the side one by one. In order not to fall off, it is better to use special boots that are equipped with hooks for hooking onto the crossbar.
Press on the horizontal bar with weights
Once you have mastered the exercises described above and they are too light for you, you can start training with weights. To do this, use special weights on the legs or vests. This workout will be useful for working out your abdominal muscles, so be sure to use weights in your workouts.
To add variety to your workouts, which will positively affect your results, try incorporating abdominal exercises on the uneven bars into your program. Below is a basic set of exercises for developing abdominal muscles on this apparatus.
Main conclusions
You can pump up the press on the horizontal bar if you follow these recommendations:
- Before starting classes, strengthen your arms and abs with simple exercises.
- Learn to hold the grip for 10 seconds or more.
- After that, move on to pull-ups.
- Make sure your finger is at the bottom of the bar.
- Perform the exercises smoothly, do not sway.
- Inhale as you raise your legs, and exhale as you lower them.
- Perform leg lifts by tensing your abdominal muscles.
- Exercise regularly (from 3 times a week), giving yourself 1-2 days to rest and recover.
If you are overweight, adjust your diet first. Cardio exercises and strength exercises will help speed up weight loss. After this, you can move on to exercises on the horizontal bar or parallel bars.
Features of parallel bars training
It is generally accepted that parallel bars are a simple apparatus for performing exercises mainly on the arms and upper body. All this is true until you try to practice.
In order to keep the body suspended on the bars, you already need to spend a lot of effort. And after you start doing the exercises, all thoughts about the ease of execution immediately disappear. As a basic training, we will analyze the following video.
To start training on the parallel bars for an unprepared person, you must first take a course to strengthen your arm muscles. Each exercise begins with lifting your own weight with straight arms.
With prolonged loads in this position, the muscles cannot stand it and the arms begin to bend and slip. To avoid getting seriously injured, you need to be properly prepared.
Contraindications should be taken into account
Due to the characteristics of each organism, performing certain exercises is not possible. A clear example of this is being overweight. As a rule, overweight people are unable to perform a number of exercises.
In this case, it is better to develop the arm muscles, starting with the simplest push-ups from the surface and only then move on to practice on the uneven bars.
Such exercises are also contraindicated for sore joints. Whether it is an injury or chronic pain, you should not start exercising until the cause is eliminated. After the preparation has been completed, you can begin practical exercises to pump up your abs.
Advice from professionals
Experienced trainers and bodybuilders believe that before training on the horizontal bar, you need to strengthen your muscles. To do this, you need to perform regular abdominal exercises, push-ups, and train your grip. It is important to eat right so that a layer of fat does not cover the muscles. The athlete must follow the technique of performing the elements in order to avoid injury and achieve a positive effect.
Anton Begalko, coach
The master of sports in powerlifting believes that training will be effective if the following rules are observed:
- Before training, it is necessary to warm up the muscles.
- To avoid injury, you need to grab the bar correctly. To do this, you need to turn your palms towards yourself, place your hands at shoulder level, with your thumbs below.
- While lifting your legs, you need to inhale, and when lowering, exhale.
- Do not make sudden movements or sway.
Beginners can perform negative pull-ups (lowering on their hands from the top of a regular pull-up). It is also necessary to strengthen your grip strength; for this you need to hang on the bar for 15 seconds or more.
Yuri Samsonov, coach
The fitness trainer claims that pumping up the press on the horizontal bars is a serious matter that requires preparation. At first, you need to do regular abdominal exercises and push-ups for at least a month. After strengthening the muscles, you can move on to training on the crossbar.
He advises training in special gloves with an anti-slip surface on the palms to avoid slipping and injury. Over time, exercise can be made more difficult by using weights or heavy shoes. The trainer recommends practicing on low parallel bars, a fall from which does not threaten serious injuries.
Ilya Karyagin, coach
A well-known trainer advises to think about safety before classes. He claims that doing press exercises on the horizontal bar or parallel bars is prohibited for overweight people who have never exercised before. First you need to normalize your weight through diet and cardio exercise, and strengthen your muscles with simple basic exercises.
The trainer says that you should not continue to pump your abs on the horizontal bar if your elbows or wrists often hurt during training. This is how arthritis or arthrosis can manifest itself, and further activities can lead to disability. Therefore, you need to undergo treatment first.
Exercises on parallel bars for the abs
The main difficulty is that during exercise the load falls on the arms. Injuries are common under heavy loads, so it is important to do a preparatory warm-up before each session to avoid damaging a muscle or joint.
Preparation is an important part of working out the abdominal muscles. First, you need to know the limits of your capabilities. It is necessary to step onto the uneven bars with straight arms. Your legs should be pressed to your chest at this time. Remain in this state for at least a minute. This will give you the opportunity to fully complete each exercise.
Another training option is dips. From the position of outstretched arms, you need to do a full push-up. If you can’t do it the first time, you need to practice and improve the skill.
Walk on the uneven bars
A great way for beginners. It allows you to master the basics and at the same time gives the necessary load on the abdominal muscles.
In an extended arms stand, you need to raise one knee to a level above the bars. Smoothly lowering it, we begin to raise the second knee. As a result, the exercise resembles walking with your knees raised high.
Corner on uneven bars
From the starting position, you need to raise your straight legs above the level of the parallel bars. For the first lessons, it is better to lean forward slightly during the exercise. Thus, the center of gravity of the body shifts, preventing it from swaying.
An important feature is the level to which you raise your legs. The higher you can raise them, the more muscles are involved in the exercise. Ideally, you should pull your legs towards your chest. In this way, both the lower and upper parts of the muscles are used.
Over time, this exercise becomes easier to perform. To increase the load, you can use leg weights, thereby increasing your mass.
Roman chair on parallel bars
To perform this exercise, you need to sit on one bar of the parallel bars. The legs are tucked under the second crossbar and a backward bend is made. It is important to ensure that the bar is just below your buttocks to avoid folding when twisting.
The exercise must be performed without jerking, with your hands clasped behind your head. 12-15 twists are performed in one approach.
Preparing the body for parallel bars
Anyone who has been to the gym or visited sports grounds has seen how muscular guys perform various exercises on the horizontal bars and uneven bars. From the outside, all these movements seem easy and simple.
Not everyone has tried to repeat this themselves. It's always easier to see than to do. Just try standing on the uneven bars with straight arms for a while (starting position). And this is the first difficulty - your hands may not be ready to hold your body in this position. Simply put, your arms will buckle, your palms will hurt, and you may slip off the bars and fall.
The initial position on the uneven bars for almost any exercise is to stand on straight arms. At this time, the body hangs in the air, and there is no support under the feet.
For a person weighing up to 65–75 kg, this is not as difficult as for heavier people. Imagine whether the owner of a beer belly, whose weight is over 90 kg, and whose arms are not prepared for physical activity, will be able to get into the starting position. If you are heavy enough, you can see for yourself.
Before you try to pump your abs using parallel bars, do push-ups from the floor at different angles, strengthen your arms and prepare your joints. We do not recommend that unprepared people go straight to the projectile.
However, if you are very brave and purposeful and decided, despite our warnings, to hang on the uneven bars and pump up your abs there, the following recommendations are for you:
- Stand in the starting position (on the uneven bars with straight arms), press your elbows to your chest. Before you pump up anything, you need to know how long you can hang like that. You need to hold out for 10 seconds. If this is your limit, gradually increase it to 60 seconds.
- Try doing push-ups - first bend your arms slightly. If this is your limit, over time you will need to learn how to do push-ups. If you can already do full range of push-ups at least a couple of times, good. At this stage, you can start doing exercises.
Now let's find out how to pump up the press using parallel bars.
Exercises on the horizontal bar and uneven bars
To engage the lower abs, straight leg raises are suitable. In order for the load to fall more on the upper part, you need to perform twists from a hanging position upside down. Don’t forget about the oblique muscles, which are perfectly pumped when turning.
The main advantage of using these exercises is that the body does not have a fulcrum as it does not come into contact with surfaces. In this position, the entire load falls on the muscles, thereby increasing efficiency.
Exercises
To pump up six-pack abs for a man in the shortest possible time, you need to use additional weights.
In this case, a sufficient load is organized, leading to micro-tears of muscle tissue and their subsequent restoration. P
In this case, the endocrine system uses hormones to adapt the body to increasing stress, which also helps to increase muscle tissue.
What you need to know to practice on the horizontal bar and uneven bars
It will be easier to master such training not alone, but in a company. Quite often you can see sports guys gathering around the horizontal bar and taking turns doing exercises.
The fact is that during collective training there is a competitive spirit, which helps to bear the load and receive an assessment from the outside about the correctness of the exercise.
Simple rules
1. Even breathing during exercise plays an important role, so it is so important to follow this rule. If this condition is met, you receive:
- Reducing the load on the heart
- Correct muscle contraction
- Keeping the rhythm
During exercise, these factors influence both the health of the body as a whole and the achievement of the expected result. For each athlete, breathing sets a certain rhythm, which is important to maintain in order not only to achieve results, but also to cause harm.
2. Every movement should be smooth. This applies not only to the training itself, but also when approaching the apparatus and even when jumping off the horizontal bar. Getting injured means, at a minimum, being suspended from school for some time.
It is important to know that the number of repetitions is not the key factor when working the abdominal muscles. During slow but correct repetition, the load is much higher, which means the result will be more effective.
If during exercise your body sways quite strongly, you will have to resort to the help of your friends to hold you. The whole point is contained in the correct execution, which eliminates jerky movement.
3. Do not allow your hands to slip. The fact that sweating occurs when a person is active is not news to anyone. This leads to hands slipping along the horizontal bar and, as a result, can lead to a fall. To avoid this, you can use gloves or magnesium to prevent your hands from slipping.
With insufficient practice, the hands often tire much faster than the abdominal muscles. For this case, you can use straps or belts that can reduce the load on your hands and increase the time you perform the exercises.
For twisting from a hanging position, there is also a device that helps you stay on the horizontal bar without falling head down.
Warm-up
As mentioned earlier, warming up is no less important than the exercises themselves. To warm up your back muscles, you need to bend over. If you feel warmth in the lumbar region, you can begin to warm up your arms. Swings, bending, warming up your wrists, all this will help protect yourself from joint injury.
To stretch your arm muscles, you can use the same horizontal bar, hanging on it for as long as possible. Finally, light squats are performed so that the whole body is ready to perform the exercises. We offer the following simple link.
Abdominal muscle anatomy
Often what most people call a developed, beautiful PRESS is called the rectus abdominis muscle. In addition to the rectus muscle, there are also external and internal oblique muscles of the abdomen (see below for a visual photo):
We are only interested in the external oblique and rectus abdominis muscles, because... It is these two muscles that are visible visually. As for the internal oblique muscles, we will not touch them, because they are not visible, because they are located under the external oblique muscles.
The rectus abdominis muscle is what people call the abs. What is she like? Essentially it is a flat and long muscle, which is divided into two parts (halves) - left and right (by a vertical line of tendons). This line (bundle of tendons), 1.5 to 2 cm wide, starts from the pubic bone at the bottom and stretches along the abdomen to the very top of the sternum.
So, actually, thanks to this vertical line (bundle of tendons) and several horizontal lines, we see those same cubes (PRESS) on our stomach.
The rectus abdominis muscle performs a very simple function: it twists the pelvis to the body or, conversely, the body to the pelvis. See below for explanatory photos:
There is no particular difference between the first and second options, from the point of view of the mechanics of muscle contraction, because the abs are the rectus abdominis muscle (it is the only one, there is no such thing as upper abs, lower abs, the entire rectus abdominis muscle contracts in the exercise).
In fact, the difference between these options is that the load varies (difference in degree of efficiency). If you have ever done body-to-pelvis crunches and pelvis-to-body twists, you understand perfectly well that pelvis-to-body twists (leg raises) are much more difficult to perform in terms of technique, unlike body-to-pelvis twists...
Why am I writing all this?
You must understand that understanding such things will greatly simplify your “life” in the form of pumping up your abs. Most people divide the press into “lower” and “upper”. In fact, this is complete nonsense... the abs cannot work in parts (bottom or top), it always works only as a whole, which is why it is called the rectus abdominis muscle.
This misconception (up and down) arose due to the fact that it happens that the so-called. The “lower” abs lag behind the “upper”, and people, due to lack of knowledge, divide them into “top” and “bottom”, but now everything should become CLEAR to you: there is no such thing as top-bottom, there is only the rectus abdominis muscle.
Why the so-called Is the “BOTTOM of the press” lagging behind the “TOP”?
In fact, there is not even anything to train there. The rectus abdominis muscle (our abs) is thick only from the navel and above (at the waist), but below the navel, where the pubic bone is attached, the muscle is very thin (because it is formed by connective tissue), this is one of the reasons Why does the bottom of the press lag behind the top?
Okay, now that you know that the top of the abs is thicker and stronger than the bottom, we can talk about the second reason: because the top of the abs is thicker and stronger, it takes on most of the work (load) in all exercises, i.e. in other words, the upper part of the rectus muscle (press) is more adapted to physical work than the “lower” part.
There is also a third reason why the lower abdomen LACKS, which concerns only girls/women, because due to the specific adaptation of the body in the lower abdomen, they have reduced nervous sensitivity. This was done so that girls would not experience (or not experience as much) monthly periodic pain in this part. Well, actually because of this, the lower part is difficult to develop (it’s so sluggish/weak).
- Any exercise on the rectus abdominis muscle (press) is used entirely, there is no such thing as “pump up or down”.
- However, the “lower” part of the abs is much more difficult to develop (pump up) than the upper part, firstly, because below the navel there is a very thin muscle (in other words, there is nothing to train there), and secondly, the upper part of the abs is more thick and strong, therefore, it takes most of the work (load) on itself in all so-called pumping exercises. the press, and does not allow the “bottom” to be realized.
- Well, and thirdly, girls/women have reduced nervous sensitivity in the lower abdomen, due to which the lower abdomen is difficult to develop (this does not apply to men).
This is the most basic thing you need to know. I don’t want to burden you with others, because you simply don’t need it.
After this issue, you can start studying => “The most effective abdominal exercises.”
For dessert - a useful video, relevant after today's episode :-), I recommend watching:
If you don't mind/feel sorry, please share the link to the article on social networks (social buttons are below). This is the best you can do, I will really, really appreciate it.
Improved abdominal exercise
Side bends with dumbbells
- 3 sets of 10 reps
- Body part: Press Equipment: Dumbbells
Pulling your legs to your chest on a horizontal bench
- 3 sets of 15 reps
- Body part: Press Equipment: Body weight
Hanging Knee Raises
- 3 sets of 30 seconds
- Body Part: Press Equipment: No
Quadriceps stretch while kneeling
- 3 sets of 30 seconds
- Body part: Quadriceps Equipment: Body weight
Squats without weights
- 5 minutes max reps
- Body part: Quadriceps Equipment: Body weight
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Secrets of ripped abs
Abdominal exercises on the horizontal bar may not be enough to achieve perfect, sculpted abs.
- Regular cardio exercise is required to get rid of the fat layer on the abdomen that hides the abdominal muscles. Without this, you simply will not be able to see muscle relief.
- You should reconsider your diet. If you currently eat everything indiscriminately, then begin a gradual transition to healthy foods.
- Your table should contain minimally processed foods: avoid fast foods, processed foods, and high-calorie desserts. It is better to choose whole grain bread, cereals, lean meat, vegetables, fruits, and dairy products.
- No more than 3-3.5 hours should pass between meals. To eat healthy and regularly, take time every evening to create your menu for the next day.
Abdominal training on the horizontal bar and parallel bars
For more effective results, you can combine exercises on the horizontal bar, parallel bars and on the ground. As one option, you can use a program of 4 exercises:
- Walk on bars, 3 x max
- Roman chair on parallel bars, 3 x 20
- Hanging leg raises, 3 x 20
- Scissors on the crossbar, 3 x 20
- Corner on the horizontal bar, 3 x max
All exercises are performed based on physical capabilities. At the initial stage, you can take 3 sets of 10-15 repetitions.
Recommendations for pumping up the abs while hanging on uneven bars
What else can you consider to pump up your abs faster and safer:
- To prevent your hands from slipping, you can take a box of magnesium to the sports field. An even better option is special athletic gloves with open fingers. They will help you avoid the formation of calluses on your hands. As you know, calluses are unpleasant things that interfere with your exercise.
- If you exercise in winter, wear warmer gloves. The main thing is that their coating does not slip on the crossbar.
- Weighty shoes can be used as weights. In winter it is very comfortable - warm and heavy.
- If you start to sway, try leaning forward even more. You can't do leg raises while your body is swaying back and forth. Inertia will make the repetition easier by helping the muscles lift the legs.
- You should not pump your abs on high bars. Fall high.
If you are using the bars as a Roman chair, wrap them in clothing to prevent bruising on your feet or wear high-top sneakers. This type of exercise can be painful for the legs.
