Abs workout is an integral part of any sports discipline. It is difficult to imagine an experienced athlete who would not pay attention to this muscle group. You don't have to exhaust yourself with daily intense workouts in the gym to get your abs. It is quite possible to create beautiful cubes on the stomach at home. For this, just your desire and minimal equipment like a horizontal bar and dumbbells are enough. Plus a competent abdominal workout program at home.
But remember that building your abs is half the battle. To give the abs a relief, you need a low-calorie diet to get rid of excess subcutaneous fat. If you have excess fatty tissue on your belly and waist, there will be no cubes, even if you train your abs five times a day. Visually, the abdominal muscles become prominent when the percentage of body fat falls below 10-12%. If there is more fat in the body, the abdominal muscles will become stronger, but it will not work to gain a visually athletic and aesthetic torso.
In this article we will show you how to train the abs for men and women at home and what exercises are best for this.
Tips for doing abs workouts at home
The abs are the stabilizer in all basic movements, and if they are your weak link, then serious squat or deadlift weights will never hit you.
Exercises for the press:
- improve the work of internal organs;
- normalize digestive processes;
- positively affect the functioning of the reproductive system.
The external aspect is no less important: a relief belly is a universal indicator of your attitude to your own body. It also increases attractiveness in the eyes of the opposite sex.
It is quite easy to focus on the abdominal muscles in your training program. It is enough just a couple of times a week to perform complexes of 2-4 exercises at the end of training other parts of the body. If you eat and exercise properly, progress will follow immediately. If this does not happen, there are two reasons: slow burning of subcutaneous adipose tissue (or lack thereof) and insufficient load volume (or improperly constructed training process in general).
Training frequency and volume
The most frequently asked question that fitness trainers hear is: How often do abs work? The answer is simple. The press is the same muscle group as everyone else. How many times a week do you train, for example, your legs? With too frequent training, the muscles do not have time to recover, which nullifies the result.
Almost always, after a good workout, the abdominal muscles hurt so much that it is impossible even to get out of bed. This is an indicator of correct training. If the next day your abdominal muscles do not hurt, then you were training something else, but definitely not abs. Optimal training frequency - no more than twice a week, for beginners and once will be enough.
The next important point is training volume. Many do thousands of crunches, naively believing that this will make the abdominal muscles more prominent, and the belly fat will burn. This is a common misconception. Local fat burning does not exist... For this reason, the abs need to be trained in the classic strength style - 2-4 exercises for 10-15 repetitions. It is advisable to add static elements such as a bar or a vacuum, this will make the abs stronger and the waist narrower.
Load distribution
When composing a home workout program for the press, it is important to correctly distribute the load throughout the training week. You shouldn't train your abs the day before your back or legs workout. You will not have time to recover, and squatting or doing deadlifts with "killed" abs is a bad idea. Too much load will fall on the spine extensors, and when working with serious weights, this is fraught with injury.
Bodyweight is good, but additional equipment will be needed to make the most progress. It can be weights and dumbbells to make classic exercises like crunches a little harder.
A good option is a roller for the press, with its help you can fully load the rectus abdominis muscles, lats, pectorals and anterior deltas. It is sold in any sports hypermarket and is inexpensive. If a medicine ball is lying around at home, that's great, and if a horizontal bar hangs in the room or in the yard, it's even better. The more exercises in the arsenal, the more varied and productive the training process will be.
Distribute the load evenly - train both the upper and lower abs. The oblique muscles of the abdomen should also not be ignored.
Many people find that the lower abdominals are challenging and perform countless hanging leg raises. This is another misconception. The relief of the two lower cubes is 90% dependent on the amount of fat in the lower abdomen. If your subcutaneous fat layer is large, no amount of extra volume training will help.
Training intensity
Train intensely. The press is a small muscle group; you should not spend a lot of time on its training. If you work really productively, then training your abs at home, you can easily do it in 20-30 minutes.
Girls should be careful when training the oblique abdominal muscles. If they are hypertrophied, it will visually make the waist wider. Hardly any of the girls want this. The oblique muscles are small in size and do not require a lot of work. Perform for them one exercise in 3-4 approaches once a week. This will be quite enough to keep the muscles in good shape, but not increase in volume.
It is not necessary to do a separate workout for the abs - it is compatible with almost any muscle group. This is true for both home workouts and gym classes. Abs exercises are a great way to warm up and cool down. You can also do them in between sets for other muscle groups.
The only subtlety in this moment is that you should not swing the abs after training your legs. Firstly, you have already spent all your strength, and it is unlikely that the workout will turn out to be productive. Second, leg exercises increase intra-abdominal pressure. Abdominal exercises can make this condition worse. Cramps in the rectus abdominis muscle, weakness and feeling of nausea are possible. In the long term, the risk of an umbilical hernia increases.
Homework program for girls
In pursuit of a flat stomach, girls often exhaust themselves with constant abdominal training, not realizing that this muscle takes time to recover, and fat burning does not depend at all on exercise.
Below is a weekly abdominal workout program for girls, which is suitable for all ladies active in sports:
Workout number 1 | ||
Crunches on the press lying on the floor | 4x15 | |
Raising your legs while lying on the floor | 4x15 | |
Rolling on a press roller | 3x10 | © splitov27 - stock.adobe.com |
Elbow plank | 30-60 seconds | © Makatserchyk - stock.adobe.com |
Workout number 2 | ||
Situp | 4x15 | |
Running in a lying position | 30-45 seconds | © logo3in1 - stock.adobe.com |
Side bar | 30-60 seconds for each side | © ikostudio - stock.adobe.com |
Vacuum | 10 to maximum |
Another good option for practicing at home without any additional devices:
© artinspiring - stock.adobe.com
Here exercises 1-5 are performed in a 3x10-15 mode.
Home workout program for men
If you train regularly in the gym and do basic exercises such as deadlifts, squats, bench presses, and bent-over rows, then there is no point in straining too hard to train your abs. In these exercises, he does about 20% of the work. However, if you want to make it stronger and more prominent, a special training program for the press for men will help you:
Workout number 1 | ||
Twisting with extra weight | 3x10-12 | © fizkes - stock.adobe.com |
Hanging leg raises | 3x15 | |
Rolling on a press roller | 3x10-12 | © splitov27 - stock.adobe.com |
Weighted Plank | 60-90 seconds | |
Workout number 2 | ||
Twisting with raised legs | 3x12 | © chika_milan - stock.adobe.com |
Running in a lying position | 3x15 | © logo3in1 - stock.adobe.com |
"Janitors" | 3x12 | |
Side bar | 60-90 seconds for each side | © ikostudio - stock.adobe.com |