Are you trying different workouts to improve your stomach muscles? You seek to get the infamous 6 pack abs look. You know your abs are "in there" because you can feel them but they tend to be shy muscles and always want to stay covered up.
Many people begin working their abs using the basic sit-up. This routine is time honored and most of us learned this in elementary school gym class. I will, in a minute, talk about some types of sit ups that can be performed. When the ab exercises did not give you the waistline you desired, you might have looked for other things to incorporate into your schedule. To find out how to gain muscles fast and reach the highest gain, is the goal. Some of the ways that you may have even tried are to incorporate crunches or planks. Below is information examining each exercise.
Let's talk then about those exercises that will help you reach your goal of tight abs and give you the answers on how to gain muscles quickly.
Sit-Ups
I have said before that many have done this workout to slim their waistline. So as we have alluded to there are other ab workouts out there but before we discuss those let's do a bit of a summary of the common sit-up. As the name implies, the starting position for this exercise is in a sitting position, usually with your knees bent up towards your chest.
Arm position can vary here. Some people prefer their arms crossed behind their heads while others prefer to have them crossed over their bellies. Whichever you prefer it doesn't matter. Now that you are in position, start to lower your upper body down towards the mat. Go slowly and keep your back straight all the while using only your ab muscles. Now that you have your back on the ground, reverse what you just did and slowly raise your upper body back up towards your knees. Repeat this sequence for as many repetitions as you possibly can.
One common variation that many people use is to keep their legs extended straight out instead of having them bent. Another benefit of the straight leg variation is that it makes the sit-up a bit easier to perform. You now have more weight in front of the body so that when you are lifting your back, your legs will stay on the ground. Are you one of those frustrated sit-up performers that have been doing sit-ups for years but have never really seen the tight abs that you thought you should have? Have you ever thought about why that is? It's actually a pretty simple explanation. The process of performing a sit-up uses the muscle known as the Psoas muscle.
So to clear up one thing first, the psoas muscle is not one of the six pack ab muscles that most people would be thinking about. This particular muscle runs from the top of your upper front leg and travels upwards past your hip and then on to attach to your vertebrae. The psoas muscle and few others all combine to form the commonly known muscles of the hip flexors. If you can think back to your sit-up days, how often did you actually feel what is known as the "burn" in your abs after performing your sit-ups. I will hazard a guess here and say that it wasn't all that often. If not sit-ups, what else?
Crunches
All you need to do is modify how you do your sit-up and you are on to crunches. So the main difference between a crunch and a sit-up is in the amount of movement with your upper body. With the crunch, you want to try and curl your upper torso up towards your knees while keeping your lower back on the floor. So by keeping your lower back on the ground, you now isolate your ab muscles. Don't be surprised if you cannot raise all the way to your knees. If your back is kept on the floor, as you raise upwards you will isolate and use only your ab muscles. Bend up as much as you can and then slowly come back down. So eliminate the sit-ups, add in the crunches and feel your abs burn.
A New Way Of Thinking
There are some experts in the industry that still feel that both sit-ups and crunches are hard on the body. The reasons being are that they feel these lead to poor posture and potential lower back injuries. The argument unfolds in the way that these exercises are performed, where you are basically bending your spine as you come up. All arguments aside, what else could you do if you still wanted to exercise your abs? One word; planks.
Planks
With planks you get a total body workout by exercising not only your ab muscles but also working your core as well. These are also great strength building exercises for push-ups. To start a plank, lie down on your stomach with your hands on the floor and your elbows bent (similar to a push-up position). Press your body upwards like a push-up, however stay resting on your elbows and forearms. While in this upward position, maintain a straight back posture. You should try and hold yourself in this position for at least 10 seconds but the longer you stay here, the more benefit you'll receive. Slowly let yourself down, breathe and then repeat this same sequence as many times as you can. You will be guaranteed to feel your abs burning after these ones.
So whether you choose sit-ups, crunches or planks, you have a lot of options for strengthening your abdominal region and the great thing about these exercises is that you can do them anywhere. There are still a lot of people that prefer sit-ups and that's alright if you are getting the results that you want. There are other more effective options though as detailed above that will allow you to get the results you seek quicker. So the "How" in how to gain muscles fast and get better defined abs comes from all the exercises detailed above. Crunches and planks though will get you to your goals much faster than just using sit-ups. Try these new exercises and monitor how your body reacts to them. That way you will find the exercise that is best suited to you and your body. So the question comes up; how do you gain muscles? Try building up your core and the rest will follow.
The author of this article is Kevin and he believes in good old fashioned healthy living, eating well and training hard. He believes fitness plays a vital role in each of our lives.
To learn more about how to gain muscles fast you can check out his website here:
http://www.howtogainmusclesinfo.com
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