How to pump up abs on your stomach: several effective ways

It would seem that abdominal exercises are included in any fitness program. Crunches, leg raises and planks are available to everyone. But not every fitness club visitor, and not even every trainer, has six-pack abs. Why does this happen, and are there any secret moves that will allow you to get a “washboard” instead of just a flat stomach?

Let's disappoint, even those performing on the bodybuilding stage do not have six-pack abs. Really, professional athletes have never been able to pump up? No, it's all about genetics. Some people are prone to hypertrophy of the rectus abdominis muscle, others are not, and nothing can be done about it.

There is another option - there is a press, it seems to stick out, but not in relief. This occurs in those who have gained muscle mass, but have not burned fat. In general, cubes of varying degrees of visibility are available to everyone, except for those who have lost 50-60 kg at home and have not undergone abdominoplasty. All other people just have to put in a little effort. Of course, you won’t be able to achieve the standard “cubes” with abdominal exercises alone. You will have to remember about a balanced diet, a normal daily routine and healthy sleep. Yes, abs are done not only “in the kitchen”, but also in the bedroom, because a swollen belly from an increased level of the stress hormone cortisol is quite a common story. Well, if we figured out sleep, we can start studying anatomy and developing a training plan.

Anatomy of the press

The human abdominals are the rectus abdominis, obliques and transverse abdominis muscles. They form a muscular corset that prevents the internal organs from “sagging” and allows a person to maintain an upright body position and perform everyday movements and sports exercises.

The anatomical functions of the abdominal muscles are:

• The rectus muscle brings the lower ribs to the pelvic bones and allows them to twist forward. It supports the abdominal organs and is involved in breathing. As a stabilizer, the rectus abdominis muscle is involved in all exercises that involve holding a weight on the shoulders or chest and lifting it from the floor, so those who perform squats, lunges, and deadlifts are more likely to have beautiful abs. It also happens that a person does not pump up his abs at all, or does 1-2 sets without weight at the end of a strength training, and his rectus abdominis muscle becomes lumpy;
• Oblique abdominal muscles - help us bend and turn, provide both rotation along the axis of the spine and bends to the side;
• Transverse abdominis muscle - is involved in breathing, allows you to draw in your stomach and stabilize the spine

Is it possible to pump up abs at home?

You can pump up your abs either at home or on the street. Another question is if a person is completely devoid of willpower and performs technical exercises incorrectly. If you have no sense of the body and no understanding of exactly how to work your muscles, it is better to hire a trainer for at least a few lessons. Many people have been working out their neck muscles for years, doing crunches on the mat, and the iliacus muscles and quadriceps of the thighs when they raise their legs while hanging, and then complain that training at home is complete nonsense, and if they had the money for the gym, they would definitely do it. The point here is not about finances, but about the fact that if a person cannot cope on his own and there is no one to help him, his path will be three times longer.

But, fortunately, if the nervous system is working normally, the Internet has not yet been turned off for non-payment and the person does not have spinal injuries, he can do leg crunches and lifts at home. Yes, and standing in the plank too.

By the way, most trainees will have enough of the most basic equipment - a regular rubber mat and some kind of weight, kettlebell, dumbbell, sandbag or mini-barbell. There is absolutely no need to set strength records here; it will be enough to simply provide the muscles with a progressive load.

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Effective abdominal exercises in the gym

You can use the comprehensive abdominal exercise program shown in the table below. For a beginner who loads himself with weights, we advise you to work out your abs in the gym 2 times a week, diluting them with enhanced cardio workout.

Abs training program for the gym

Day	Exercises	Approaches	Replays
Mon	Leg raises with emphasis on elbows	3-4	15-20
	Incline crunches	3-4	15-20
	Jump rope	4-6 min
W	Rest
Wed	Run	15 minutes
	Jump rope	7 min
Thu	Rest
Fri	Twisting on a block	2-3	10-15
	Crunches in the simulator	2-3	15-18
	Leg raises while lying on an incline bench	3-4	15-18
	Jump rope	4-6 min
Sat	Rest
Sun	Rest

Leg raises with emphasis on elbows

3-4 sets, 15-20 reps

Do not touch the floor with your feet until all repetitions are completed.

Incline crunches

3-4 sets, 15-20 reps.

Twisting on a block

2-3 sets, 10-15 reps.

Crunches in the simulator

2-3 sets, 15-18 reps.

Leg raises while lying on an incline bench

3-4 sets, 15-18 reps.

These training programs will help you get a beautiful tummy very quickly. Don't forget to measure your results, take photos and weigh yourself. The real fruits of your labor: a slim figure, thin waist and toned abs are the best reward.

How to get rid of belly fat - the first stage

Most people who set themselves the goal of looking good, and not setting strength records, will first want to get rid of fat deposits around the waist. Everything is simple here - no matter how much twisting you do, you will have to create a calorie deficit. Even an hour of exercise on the floor cannot be compared with simply giving up sugar in tea and coffee and replacing it with some kind of non-calorie sweetener.

Fortunately, you don’t need belly fat diets and other legacies of fitness folklore. For a simple person with normal or overweight who eats haphazardly, that is, does not count calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates, it is enough to start eating rationally. This means counting all these indicators and balancing the diet, as well as creating a small calorie deficit so that the body begins to burn fat to replenish it.

How to pump up a girl's abs correctly

To create six-pack abs for a girl, you need to know how to exercise correctly. If you plan to do this at home, you won't need any special equipment. You only need a hard surface, so it’s better to do your abs on the floor.

Use a special mat designed for yoga or fitness.

Start your lesson . It doesn’t matter what it will be - gymnastics, dancing, and so on. By warming up your muscles well, you will increase the effectiveness of abdominal exercises. You also need to know that you need to exercise no earlier than a couple of hours after eating, and no later than a couple of hours before bedtime.

To make cubes on a girl’s stomach, it is advisable to repeat each exercise 12-15 times in 3-4 approaches . Increase the load gradually. There is no need to overload yourself right away, otherwise you will achieve nothing but severe pain. Nutrition is also very important. Avoid sweets, fast food, and unhealthy fats. Eat often and in small portions, include proteins in your diet. In addition, it is important to drink enough water.

Nutrition

Practice shows that cutting the calorie intake by more than 20% at home makes no sense. If you make a more serious deficit, a person will simply begin to secretly overeat or feel bad, and in the end, he will overeat in order to somehow regain his vigor.

For an ordinary person, it is enough to subtract 300 kcal from the figure that will be obtained if his weight is multiplied by 30 to get the number with which to start losing weight. As you lose weight, this figure is recalculated. It is enough to reduce the weight by 5 kg to bother with recalculation.

Where to get kilocalories from? From a balanced diet. For an ordinary person who is not engaged in physically demanding work, 1.5 g of protein, 1 g of fat, and 3 g of carbohydrates per 1 kg of body weight is enough. It is necessary to “eat up” on proteins and fats. Carbohydrates can be reduced to 2 g if you are “not losing weight”, and physical activity is reduced to some home workouts with small dumbbells and walks for half an hour a day.

Rules for losing weight:

• You need to eat not only balanced, but also varied. In practice, you buy 3-4 different types of cereals, available seasonal vegetables, chicken breast and fish, as well as beef, plus eggs and low-fat dairy products. This is complemented by a bottle of butter, and a small amount of sour cream for sauces. From this set you can prepare most of the dishes popular in our country;
• Approximately 10% of calories can be obtained from any food, including what is considered “food waste”, such as sweets or some snacks. Of course, such food retains fluid and will only stop visual progress, but it will help achieve actual progress. It’s simple - if you don’t strictly limit yourself, there won’t be breakdowns either, therefore, you will be able to lose weight faster than with “gluttons” of 2000 kcal every week;
• How to keep track of all this? Usually they prepare some kind of side dish from cereals, bake chicken and fish, and stew vegetables with butter. This is the basis of the diet; meals are made up of lunch, lunch and dinner. For breakfast, for variety, cook eggs or eat cottage cheese. Sweets and other things are eaten on the day of heavy training, if there is a relatively large amount, or on any day, including in the calorie content;
• All food is weighed and recorded in a diary in the Fat Secret app or any other. A healthy person does not need any special diets or exclusions of food groups. If there is a food allergy, exclude wheat, nightshade or dairy products, but this is rare;
• Special diets with a lot of fat and little carbohydrates are needed only for those who already have a low percentage of fat, about 20 for women and 10 for men. In abs terms, this is when the “stripes” of oblique muscles and the outline of the upper abs are visible.

Priority to squirrels

People often talk about preferring proteins, but the point here is not to eat only meat, fish and eggs. The point is to gain 1.5 g of protein per 1 kg of current weight with any diet, no matter whether you eat meat in principle or not. This is necessary for building muscles, normal immunity, and normalizing appetite. Those who eat diets high in carbohydrates may suffer from swings in blood sugar levels and actual hunger pangs.

Make sure that with each meal you get:

1. Poultry, fish, eggs, or meat;
2. Cottage cheese or low-fat unfermented cheese;
3. Dairy products with high protein content;
4. Legumes, soy, or tempeh if you're vegetarian

If, despite all this, you cannot gain 1.5 g of protein per 1 kg of body weight, it is best to use sports nutrition products. A protein shake will eliminate the need to prepare protein foods, and will help get rid of amino acid deficiency and provide muscles with building material.

Vegetables and fruits

Here you have to be selective. If you are prone to increased gas formation, you need to leave in your diet something that does not provoke digestive problems. For most people, this means asparagus, cucumbers, salad greens, tomatoes, carrots and artichokes.

Cauliflower and regular cabbage, broccoli, beets, mushrooms are wonderful healthy foods, but if they literally make your stomach swell during the period of “abs development” and preparation for the beach or photo shoot, it is better to exclude them.

Fruits should be included in the diet selectively. For most people, berries and green apples are ideal, as are kiwis and grapefruits when it comes to losing weight, but there is not much point in eating them if other fruits do not impair digestion and fit into the diet.

Only fruit and vegetable mono-diets are not recommended. Scientific nutritionists insist that they worsen health and negatively affect overall muscle mass and body condition. They should be included only for those who have kidney problems, and only for the period prescribed by doctors. To lose weight, and even more so to make your abs sculpted, it is better not to use such diets. Moreover, the story about the benefits of a protein-free diet has more in common with marketing than with the real benefits of the products.

Drinking regime

Typically, 30 to 40 ml of water per 1 kg of body weight is recommended. The amount of fluid actually depends on the region of residence and climate, physical characteristics and kidney function. The modern trend of “pouring” the notorious 8 glasses of water into oneself has very little in common with health. The liquid that comes with soups, vegetables and fruits is still absorbed by the body, although radical health sources believe otherwise. Many people recommend either drinking only water, or eliminating tea and coffee completely, and drinking only herbal teas and water. There is also an opinion that every cup of tea or coffee should be accompanied by a couple of glasses of water, because tea and coffee are diuretics. In fact, tea and coffee are unlikely to cause dehydration if a person drinks more than just them, so you should be careful when taking such advice. Excess water can cause swelling and will not only delay the appearance of the notorious abs, but can also contribute to heart overload.

Sample menu

It’s quite easy to create a sample menu for yourself:

1. Breakfast should consist of some source of protein, such as eggs or cottage cheese, and also contain 200-300 g of vegetables or fruits as fiber for digestion. You can also include carbohydrates in this meal - porridge, bread, or legumes, if they are tolerated normally, will do;
2. Lunch – lean meat or fish plus vegetable salad, plus a side dish of cereals and vegetables;
3. Dinner – lean meat or cottage cheese plus vegetables;
4. Snacks if needed - fruit and dairy products, or some nuts

Do you need five meals a day to lose weight? Yes, if a person is otherwise uncomfortable with calorie and macronutrient restrictions, then he will have to eat fractionally. If it is not comfortable, there is no particular need for it. Modern science has refuted the myth that you must eat little and often to speed up your metabolism. Our calorie consumption does not depend on the frequency of “approaches to the table.” The thickness of the fat layer on the abdomen does not depend on this. It turns out that if eating fractionally is not comfortable, there is no reason to do so.

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Cardio or aerobic training

Many people cannot lose weight not because they somehow eat incorrectly or do not exercise their abs actively enough. Calorie intake standards are calculated for people who move at least half an hour during the day, walk or do active physical work. Everyone else can add cardio or aerobic work into their schedule to lose excess fat.

Additionally, aerobic exercise reduces stress levels and helps you get rid of the cortisol belly that accompanies many stressful activities.

Aerobic training includes:

• Club group programs - step, dancing, various interval training;
• All types of video classes - Zumba, Tai Bo and other lessons available on free video hosting sites;
• Running and walking;
• Cardio exercises;
• Swimming

The norm for such activity for any person is half an hour a day. If you need to lose weight faster and have the opportunity and physical capabilities, you can do more cardio, devoting up to an hour a day to it.

Is aerobics necessary to have ripped abs? No. For many, strength training and regular walks are enough to keep them active. Aerobic exercise is rather an element of a healthy lifestyle, a way to cope with stress.

Abdominal exercises - stage two

It’s quite easy to pump up your abdominal muscles. People simply forget that this is an ordinary muscle and come up with some non-existent rules. They say that you must pump your abs every approach to failure and wild pain, burning, almost to the point of stopping breathing and a slight coma.

In fact, doing 2-3 working sets with a resistance that makes completing the final two reps challenging will be enough to pump up your abs.

Do you need to do a lot of exercise? It's hard for people to realize, but one exercise is enough - for men, for women, for six packs, for whatever. What kind of exercise is this? One or another variation of a direct twist or a reverse twist, for example, on the floor with weights or a hanging leg raise. This only works when the muscle receives enough stress to hypertrophy, that is, when a person performs an exercise for 10-12 repetitions and cannot perform more.

Most people prefer to spend time on some kind of abdominal exercises simply due to the lack of dumbbells and barbells at home, and poor physical fitness, which does not allow them to work on the horizontal bar.

Are the complexes effective? They definitely won’t make you any worse, but they can be safely replaced with a complex for all muscle groups and one correctly performed abdominal exercise. You can do a bunch of planks, leg lifts and body lifts for those who don’t train their body much with weights, or only do callisthenics.

For home training you need the following conditions:

• A well-ventilated room, but without drafts;
• Yoga mat or rubber mat on the floor;
• Correctly chosen time - no need to pump the press on a full stomach, and just before bedtime;
• Ideally, before training your abs, you should do strength exercises for the whole body, or at least do cardio

Training rules

It is clear that the information in the sources is contradictory. But it’s difficult to find more useless advice than working out your abs every day for the sake of six-pack. Daily abdominal training leads to an increase in muscle endurance, not their strength and volume. Endurance muscles are rarely voluminous. Therefore, “download every day” can be safely left in the past, along with shaping and advice about “not eating after six.”

You need to train like this:

1. Always do a warm-up;
2. Never perform exercises on a bed or other soft surface;
3. Avoid clothing that restricts movement;
4. Concentrate on movements;
5. Add weights or make the exercise more difficult once your body gets used to it

Plank

This movement allows you to work your abs as a stabilizer and loads the transverse abdominal muscle. You need to stand on your forearms and toes, straighten your body, pull your stomach inward so that it is pulled in, and stabilize your body by breathing deeply and slowly.

The plank is performed for a while. The peculiarity of this movement is that you do not need to push your stomach forward or “sag” your lower back. The plank should become part of your morning routine, some sources say. Or part of every ab workout. In fact, this is not necessary. Professional fitness trainer Alvin Cosgrove recommends in his book to stand in a plank only at the beginning of strength training for all muscle groups. In addition, he advises making the plank more difficult by standing with your forearms on your bare feet or raising your legs up, as soon as adaptation to the exercise has become significant.

The second exercise for the transverse abdominal muscle is the “vacuum”. It has nothing to do with abs per se, but it is the only exercise that is done every day. You need to stand straight, lean forward, rest your hands on your hips, push out all the air from your lungs and, under the influence of a vacuum, the anterior abdominal wall will be drawn inward. Stay in this position for 8-12 counts, and then repeat the exercise 2-3 times.

Lower abs exercises

Anatomically, the rectus abdominis muscle is one muscle, but leg raises allow you to use it to a greater extent closer to the lower abdomen.

The following exercises are used:

• Reverse crunches are the most effective way to pump up your abs in 5 minutes a day. The technique is to lie on the floor on your back, stretch your arms along your torso and raise your straight legs up until they make an angle of 90 degrees with your torso. Next, you need to use your abdominal muscles to lift your pelvis and straight legs, so that your legs pull behind your head. Having reached the highest point of your capabilities, return to the starting position. Do the exercise at a slow pace, and maintain it in the negative phase. This is the most effective way to pump up your abs in 5 minutes.
• Leg raises - this exercise is useful in the initial stages of training. You just need to lie on the floor and slowly raise your legs until they are perpendicular to your body. Then lower it just as slowly, but not all the way. After 10 centimeters remain between the legs and the floor, start a new repetition. To increase the load in this exercise, you can lift your legs while hanging on the bar. According to professionals, this exercise will help quickly pump up the six-pack on a girl’s stomach.
• Bike. Take a horizontal position and place your hands behind your head. Starting the exercise, stretch your right knee to your left elbow, and vice versa. The unused leg should be straight and flat on the floor.
• Scissors . Starting position, as in previous exercises. Start the exercise by raising your legs to a level of 40 degrees from the floor, and then alternately swing your right and left legs up and down. You cannot lower your feet to the floor until the end of the exercise.
• V-shaped crunches . At the beginning of the exercise, take a horizontal position. Then perform a simultaneous lifting of straight legs and outstretched arms until they touch. This is a very hard exercise, but it is ideal for getting six-pack abs.
• Burpees. Squat down so that your knees touch your chest and place your hands on the floor. The exercise consists of sharply pushing off with your legs and straightening them back, and then also sharply returning to the starting position.
• Climber. Take a lying position and begin to alternately pull up and remove your left leg towards your left hand, and your right leg towards your right.

These same exercises can be performed with weights in the form of ankle weights. But it would be more anatomically correct to master the horizontal bar after you have acquired the skill of lifting your legs while lying down.

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Upper press

Everything here is simple and complex at the same time. The straight crunch is the simplest abdominal exercise; it involves bringing the lower ribs toward the pelvic bones from a lying position. But a person adapts to it quickly enough, so you have to do it with weights. This is where the errors start:

• People take a weight and press it to their chest, thereby reducing the amplitude of the twist, rather than making the work more difficult;
• “Technical complications” begin, such as fixing the feet on a bed or sofa, and hanging them down in a position of hyperextension of the spine, which provokes injuries.

Many people try to make it more difficult to pump up their abs by doing exercises from the inverted letter L pose without supporting the lower back on the floor, which is also fraught with injury. In the best case, with independent exercises here, a person will pump the muscles of the neck and hips, in the worst case, they will cause harm to the lower back. Therefore, it is better to leave this option to those who can only strain their abs and not their hips in this static position.

Oblique muscles

To pump the oblique muscles separately or not to pump them is everyone’s business. For many, bending to the sides widens their waist. Others already have overloaded obliques from barbell squats.

Nevertheless, the exercises for them are as follows:

• Tilts to the sides;
• Shoulder to hip crunches;
• “Bicycles”, that is, simultaneous bringing of the hips and shoulders to an imaginary line perpendicular to the waist

A set of exercises for the press

The abs are pumped at the end of the workout, exercises without weight are repeated for a minute. The movements are performed one after another, doing 2-3 circles

1. Straight twist;
2. Leg raises;
3. "Rockets" standing;
4. Oblique twists;
5. Climbers;
6. Forearm plank

Beautiful abs in 8 minutes a day

The simplest thing you can do for your abs in 8 minutes a day is 2 rounds of the Tabata system. For 4 minutes, alternate 20 seconds of doing the exercise with 10 seconds of rest, choose any two abdominal exercises.

Abdominal exercises for girls

Usually they start inventing some kind of miracle complexes that supposedly should make women’s bellies toned and sculpted, but the secret here is quite simple:

• We take any twist - be it direct, oblique, or reverse;
• We alternate with swings of a kettlebell or a heavy dumbbell;
• We do each for a minute;
• We perform the complex for 6-12 minutes at the end of the strength training

This will give a metabolic response comparable to sprinting, calorie consumption will increase, and the fat layer that upsets girls so much will burn.

Plank

Let's move on to exercises that will help you get sculpted abs on your stomach. And first we will look at the plank exercise. We highlight it separately for the simple reason that it is a universal exercise for the abs. And not only for the abs, but for the whole body: the muscles of the back, arms, shoulders and legs are also involved in the exercise.

And it’s quite simple to do: you just need to lie face down on the floor and rest on your outstretched, straight arms and toes. Stay in this position for several minutes. The main difficulty in the exercise lies in the static position - you cannot move or arch your back.

To increase the load on certain parts of the press, some plank options are possible. You can focus on one arm with your torso turned to the side, you can pull your legs up to one of your arms, etc.

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