Build Your Abdominal Muscles

In order to get the powerful, well-sculpted abdominal muscles you want, you must target those muscles for special attention in every workout.

Any conscientious fitness program must balance a healthy diet with progressively more demanding exercise. Moreover, every effective exercise program must integrate cardio-pulmonary exercise with strength training. In other words, every good workout must get your heart and lungs pumping, and it must make you "feel the burn" in your major muscle groups. You need not work-out aggressively: yoga, dance, and walking induce peaceful meditative states as you exercise. You must, however, make certain that every work-out taxes every major muscle group. If you walk, for example, you must set-aside time at the end of your walk to work the muscles in your upper body.

As you diet and exercise, you naturally will lose weight and gain muscle tone; but you also may feel frustrated, because you inevitably will have trouble burning away belly fat. Your body naturally holds its extra food stores around your mid-section, so that your core always will pose special challenges in your fitness routine. Therefore, you must allow time in every session to target your abdominal muscles for extra work.

Your center of gravity, the core of your strength.
Pilates aficionados learn just how essential core strength is to health and athletic performance, because Joseph Pilates pioneered modern research into the abdominal muscles' development and function. Pilates found that athletes with stronger core muscles performed more efficiently and more gracefully than their competitors who did not target their abdominals for extra work. Naturally, the principles that apply to athletes also apply to everyday exercisers: The more you strengthen your upper, lower, and oblique abdominal muscles, the more you improve your balance, poise, and grace.

Carrying just ten extra pounds around your mid-section has consequences for your muscles, your cardio-vascular system, and your self-esteem. Those ten extra pounds of belly fat are the equivalent of a bowling ball strapped to your middle. Just as a bowling ball would, so those unwanted pounds put pressure on your lower back and upper legs. If your job requires you to stand or walk almost all day long, you probably have experienced serious back pain as a result of lugging those extra pounds everywhere you go. If your job requires you to sit at a desk all day, you may experience severe pain in your upper back and shoulders from holding-up that extra belly weight. Those extra pounds add stress to your heart and lungs, and they may signal build-up of cholesterol in your veins and arteries, too.

Choose effective, durable exercise gear.
Every person who ever endured a high school PE class knows the joys and sorrows of "crunches" and "leg lifts," the two most common abdominal exercises. Unquestionably the simplest and arguably still the best abdominal workouts, crunches and leg-lifts have zero fun factor, and they can cause back and neck injuries. Exercise physiologists strongly recommend that everyday exercisers invest in a "sit-up chair," a circular abdominal exerciser, or some other piece of equipment that optimizes the muscle work and minimizes stress on the back and neck muscles. Many experts advocate the use of an exercise ball-simple, inexpensive, and challenging.

Consider the benefits of a passive exercise aid.
For many people, electronic muscle stimulus proves most effective for strengthening core muscles. Advanced stimulus belts use electrical current to contract abdominal muscles, imitating the effects of exercise while people work at their desks or relax in front of their televisions. For physical therapy patients and recovering heart patients, electronic stimulus belts provide the benefits of vigorous exercise without the stress of aggressive movement.

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