By Muscle Media
Have you ever noticed that many will always include abdominal muscle exercises in their routines and yet, they can never show off that coveted 6 pack abs? Have you been religiously doing your ab exercises? Are your abs showing to your satisfaction? You should understand that your abdominal muscle are some of the easiest muscles to build. But, why is it that most people have difficulty developing their 6 pack abs and only showing belly fat?
Belly Fat
Here is the truth. Those of you working out your abs regularly actually do own that much sought after six pack. Yes, you do. The trouble is that your belly fat is covering them! Your abs will not show if you have a body fat ratio of more than 12%. The more fat you burn away, the more defined your abs will be. You will show those rippling washboard abs when your body fat is 10% or less. So, if you have fat on your belly, forget about abdominal exercises. Burn off the fats first.
Exercise
Some people put in a great deal of effort to develop their ab muscles. Yet, their abs are not showing although they have low body fat. Again, there’s a simple explanation. They’re doing the wrong exercises using bad form. For example, the most common abs exercises are the sit up and the leg raises. Although everyone seems to be doing these exercises, they don’t know that they don’t do much for the abs. If you don’t believe me, try this. When you do a sit up or leg raise, place your palms on your hip area connecting to your thigh and perform the exercises. Those muscles, not your abs, are doing most of the work. Those are your hip flexor muscles. Since your hip flexors are doing most of the work, you can’t develop your abs effectively.
Form
You may try to do crunches instead. But, most people perform their crunches incorrectly. Think about it. The exercise called the “crunch” because you must squeeze your abs to “crunch” them. To squeeze your abs properly, you must curl up like a prawn and breathe out all the air in your lungs at the top position. Then squeeeeeeeze the muscles hard enough to feel a burn. That will take a few seconds to crunch out all the air before you lower to the starting position again. You can’t do this effectively if you just rhythmically go up and down. So, if you have been doing hundreds of crunches everyday with minimal results, you now know why. In fact, it is almost impossible for the average guy to do a dozen of properly performed crunches, never mind hundreds of them. The same concentrated squeezing principle applies to other abs exercises.
Now that you know why your abs aren’t showing, get on with burning your fat. Perform your exercises with correct form, and you’ll see your 6-pack abs in no time.