A ripped set of six pack abdominals is the cornerstone of a lean physique. It’s the true measure whether someone is lean enough in order to showcase their stomach and basically confirm that their fitness plan is spot on. The level of a person’s overall body fat needs to be well under 10% in order for their abs to pop out. The adipose tissue covering the abdominal muscles simply needs to be burned off in order to look lean and shredded in the stomach region.
Men and women are very different in terms of where they store body fat. For the majority of men, they hold fat in their stomach and for women its their hips and thighs. Have you ever seen an overweight man with a huge beer belly and a flat butt? Or, how about a women with a smaller upper body and a huge set of thighs and very large butt? Well, this is because the specific areas where fat deposits accumulate for men is in the stomach and love handles and for women it’s the legs, hips, thighs and butt.
In this six pack abs workout, we will be doing a workout that consists of 3 different abdominal exercises. These include the lying medicine ball crunches, lying exercise ball leg raises and bench leg raises. Combining these exercises is a great way to get a great ab workout that targets the overall region of the stomach. Your goal is to do 3 sets of each exercise with 20-30 reps per set. Your total overall sets for this AB workout will be 9 but you can decrease this amount if you are a beginner. Make sure to work hard but if it’s too difficult to complete the workout, just cut back on the total number of sets per exercise. You want to make sure that once you start losing your form on an exercise, you need to terminate the set. The most important thing is to always adhere to strict exercise technique and form on each set. This is critical to ensure safety and to also target the abs optimally.
Lying Medicine Ball Crunches
Lie flat on your back on a mat with your feet flat on the ground and your knees bent. Grab a medicine ball with both hands and hold it on your chest. Push the small of your back down to the floor to isolate your AB muscles. Begin to roll your shoulders off the floor. Continue to push down with your lower back. Your shoulders should come up off the floor only about four inches, and your lower back should always remain on the floor. As always, make sure you let your abs do the work in a slow and controlled fashion! You want to focus on doing 20-30 reps per set for a total of 3 sets.
Lying Exercise Ball Leg Raises
While laying on the floor, position the exercise ball between your feet and squeeze to hold the ball while you lift the ball up above your stomach. Try to keep all the tension on your abs throughout the movement. You want to focus on doing 20-30 reps per set for a total of 3 sets.
Bench Leg Raises
Lie flat on your back on a bench with your legs off the end, remaining parallel to the ground. Place your hands back next to your head and grab the edge of the bench. Keeping your legs as straight as possible, raise your legs as high as possible, making sure that your abs are doing the work. Lower legs back down to the start position and repeat. You want to focus on doing 20-30 reps per set for a total of 3 sets.
