People think it takes a lot of sit-ups and crunches over a long period of time, often while counting calories and starving the body of energy, to get a visible set of abs. Will you get your abs of if you adapt to an extreme ab workout for men? Of course, but there are better and much more efficient ways too!
Myths
Before I give you the workout to get there I want to demystify what I believe is the three biggest myths about getting abs out there.
First up is spot reducing fat. This is simply impossible. Doing sit-ups and crunches is not the way to proceed if you want to lose your tummy!
Don’t hit your abs with 100 repetitions every day. Why should you train your abdominal muscles different from everything else? Muscle Is Muscle.
The best ab workout for men or the most effecitve ab workout for men doesn’t exist. You should do variations and try new things a see what works best for you.
The last myth I want to demystify is that you have to do isolation exercises on your abs to make them bigger. The truth is you don’t really need sit-ups or crunches at all. Your abs are a big part of the muscles that make up your core and will get enough stimulation if you do the big compound exercises.
Which Exercises Should I Do?
Since great abs are mostly determined by body composition, you should focus on exercises, which most effectively promotes fat loss and overall muscle growth. The best exercises for this are full body movements such as deadlift or squat.
Deadlift involves about 600 different muscles in your body. After a few good sets of this you will feel the soreness even in your abdominal region. The same goes for squats. These two exercises should be the base of your workout schedule. You could add exercises that target the abs directly, but note that this is not going to make that big of a difference.
The Workout
The following is only an outline to show you what exercises should be your focus, not at all how it should be followed exactly. It is important that you your workout is some kind of variation of this and make sure that it actually fits into your schedule. Also add your favorite exercises that target the same muscle groups, i.e. add chins on days where you do deadlifts.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Deadlift | Squat | Ab exercise of choice |
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
HIIT is another great exercise in your tool box when it comes to shaping those abs. Depending on the program you choose, HIIT training consists of a certain amount high intensity followed by a short break. This whole process is repeated over several intervals. Look up Tabata intervals on the internet and you can see how the research is supports these types of methods to promote extreme fat loss.
High intensity interval training is taxing for both the muscles and the repertory system. The combination of this and the strength exercises will make a great difference in your metabolism and steadily make your body into a fat burning/muscle growing machine. You will have abs in no time!