Are doing lower ab workouts the answer? Should we really be targeting something so specific when we train with the objective of getting ripped abs? The answer is, “no”. Ripped abs are not brought about by isolation exercises as a lot of people wrongly believe. Ripped abs are revealed when the body becomes lean and loses its excess fat.

So many times, we see ab machines and ab exercises that focus directly on the abs. These products claim that by using their products you will lose inches from your waist and flatten your belly. In reality, they don’t work. Spot reducing does not work.

Focusing on working just the abs alone will merely strengthen and tone the abdominals, but will not burn fat, which is what’s needed to uncover the layers of fat covering the ab muscles.

To see a difference, you have to do cardio and a full body workout in order to speed up your metabolism enough to start melting away the excess fat surrounding your ab muscles that’s preventing six pack visibility.

The more large muscles you work out, the more energy is used up to fuel muscle activity. Activities like brisk walking (especially on an incline), cycling, running, lunges and squats work the large muscles so they will help you burn fat.

Doing short, quick bursts of intense training like a circuit program of jumping jacks-brisk walking-sprinting-walking makes our muscles work extremely hard. They start building up waste carbon dioxide and lactic acid, which the body must now get rid of.

The overall result is that the muscles work so hard during the exercise activity that the muscle must then be repaired and replenished when muscles are recovering. This replenishment of the muscles increases the body’s metabolism by forcing the body to burn fat to help the muscles repair and replenish.

When all is said and done, do we keep doing lower ab workouts and should we really be targeting something so specific? Current research says “no” and as far as sculpting six pack abs go, it definitely makes sense to lose the fat and the flab in order to allow the six packs to show through!

Tags: diet, diets, exercise, exercise program, fat loss, fitness, lose weight, nutrition, online personal training, sports, strengthen joints, Weight Control, Weight Loss

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 3:43 am and is filed under Weight Control. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.