One of the biggest goals when people start to workout out is the pursuit of a flat, toned stomach or to catch a glimpse of that elusive muscle definition that we see on so many models plastered on adverts and magazine covers. As a result of this it's common place to see people doing 20 minutes+ of abs workouts every time they visit the gym but is this sort of abs routine actually doing anything except bore you close to tears?
Now any sort of ab workout that involves multiple ab based exercises on a matt in the corner of my gym is probably the most boring thing I can do in a gym, so if I'm feeling this way about ab workouts I'm sure that other people also feel this way.
The main reason people do these long abs workout sessions is with a goal of losing wait, more specifically losing weight around the abs in order to look flatter or have a more defined stomach. But when we look at this bigger picture is this even effective for reaching these goals? Or are there better ways to spend your time and help reach these goals more effectively?
An average gym going person will attend there gym between 3-5 times a week and spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours working out and assuming that 80% providing you do a 20 minute abs workout per session then almost 50% of your time is spent doing floor work. This is based on a loose assumption of what can be seen in 80% of UK gyms.
So 50% of your time is doing abs workouts and the remaining 50% is spent lifting weights and doing various cardio.
Abs workouts are often given by "in house personal trainers" in gyms, these are standard programs that are practically useless if you want genuine results fast. First of all Ab workouts are not functional, effective, they don't burn many calories and they certainly don't give you a six pack and least of all there not fun, and if you're not having fun then working out becomes a chore and you soon loose motivation.
A floor based ab workout will likely burn between 80-180 calories in 20 minutes, if you're trying to burn fat and get fitter this is an outright waste of time. It's a fact that your abs don't show due to a layer of fat that exists on your abdomen it's this fat that you need to remove in order to achieve flatter and more muscular abdominals.
Your time is far better spent with an explosive workout where the movement flows through the abdomen, exercises such as Jumping squats, walking lunges with rotation, press up with one leg elevated, one arm one leg dumbbell deadlift to overhead press finished with jumping on and off a reebok block explosively.
This type of workout is far more functional, and will burn far more calories, the key to a flatter stomach is the same as fat loss, burning calories to ensure your body uses more calories than you ingest on a day to day basis.
No matter what your goal be it a flatter firmer stomach or solid washboard abs with that clean 6 pack look, you need to burn the excess fat layer that covers your abs and abs workouts no matter how intense or how long will not burn this layer of fat.
Author Resource:-
Although a number of sports supplements exist, there are proven products such as BSN True Mass which remain as one of the top sellers on the market and come highly recommended for those seeking to gain weight.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.massagebyben.com/articles/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites 