fitness

Do you want a flat abdomen? Don't Do a Flat Workout!

Edited by Roberto Rillo - Book Author: Calisthenics BodyBuilding

The human body is composed of many muscles that always work in synergy with each other, contracting on one side and relaxing on another. If, for example, we bend the arm to flex the biceps, this is possible because, at the same time as the biceps are shortened, the opposite muscle, the triceps, gets longer. Ditto on the whole body. Now if we focus all our efforts and our workouts only on the right abdominals, we will get the opposite action. The body to balance the excessive contraction of the right abdominals that would risk making us walk curved, activates the decontraction mechanisms so that the torso remains straight. So in a sense, the more we develop the right abdominals, the more the abdomen will protrude! You will say good cheat. Exactly nice rip-off and provoked with our hands.

A few decades ago when the world of fitness did not exist, in the few gyms that were there were not said to "train the abdominals" but a less technical but very appropriate expression was used: "training the belt muscles".

The muscles of the belt are nothing but all the muscles that surround you, just like a belt, from front to back. They include both the names of the abdominals, the obliques, the transverse, the lumbar muscles.

If we train all these muscles together we will finally get a flat abdomen and if we want to see the famous cubes then, it will not be enough to do other than an appropriate diet and some aerobics.

Now let's see in the practical what to do.

Forget the dozens of crunches, reverse crunches, crunches with the crossed leg, Swiss ball crunches, leg lifts. These exercises always work only the upright abdominals, you have to do other exercises, The training will have to be varied and include an exercise for each of the belt muscles.

Abdominal / Oblique straight: perform sit ups with a twist with bent legs. As soon as the bust begins, using the arms that will be placed behind the head, begin to rotate the trunk to get to touch alternately with an elbow between the legs. Perform two sets of 20 repetitions each. When you are able to do more, keep a 2kg or more disc behind your neck.

Oblique: perform side bends or lateral flexions with handlebars. Standing hold a handlebar and flex the torso on the same side of the handlebar without bending back or forward. Take care of your breathing: breathe in when you lower yourself and exhale strongly when you go up. During the ascent, if the exhalation is done correctly, you will feel distinctly contract and flatten out the abdominal wall. The weight of the handlebar should allow you to perform 15 repetitions. As soon as you manage to overcome them, switch to a handlebar of greater weight.

Traverse: this broad and flat muscle contains all the internal organs. Strengthening it not only gives flatness to the abdomen but improves digestion and intestinal functions as well as cardiac activity. After learning about its importance, do you want to omit it? Train it with the vacuum, an exercise derived from yoga. Standing or sitting, exhale the air completely from your lungs, then breathe in a deep breath with your mouth closed. You will experience an under-vacuum effect (vacum means precisely under vacuum) that will make your abdomen retract at the height of the stomach and the throat at the dimple of the jugule. Hold this position for 5 seconds, inhale deeply with your mouth open and repeat the procedure ten times. With practice you get to keep the vacuum state up to ten seconds.

Lumbar: lifting of the torso or hyper-extensions to be performed on the appropriate bench. Also here, as in the side bend during the ascent, exhale strongly and feel the flattening of the abdomen. When you can easily do twenty repetitions, hug a 2kg or more disc to your chest.

Sit ups with alternate torsion- 2 x 20
Side bend with handlebar- 2 x 15
Vacuum- 10 times
hyperextensions- 2 x 20
In all there are four exercises that will take no more time than the usual crunches in the various versions, but they will make your belt muscles strong and compact and you can finally say: Baby Carrier? No thanks!

RELATED ARTICLES: The best exercises for the abdominal inverse crunches and V-UP

Example Workout Abdominal flat

Flat abdominal training

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