The crunch.
The crunch, unique bodyweight exercises difficulty rating for one rep 2 out of 10. Average time taken to master, straight away. Description This exercise is a safe and simple way to start on the road to great abs conditioning. The beauty of it is it can be done almost anywhere by almost anyone and once you can manage 2 or 3 good sets you are well prepared to begin practising the more advanced abs exercises such as the hard core full hanging leg raise or the fantastic static hold the L-seat.
Method To begin lie on the floor with your legs bent and bring your heels as close to your buttocks as is comfortable. Then fold your arms across your chest so that each hand is resting on the opposite shoulder. From there contract your abs and breathe out as you slowly curl your head, neck and shoulders 3 or 4 inches of the floor, hold the position for 2 seconds paying particular attention to tensing your abs and then slowly lower yourself down stopping an inch from the floor so that your abs remain tensed and then repeat the exercise.
The secret of this exercise is to keep your abs tensed throughout. Only lift your head, neck and shoulders 3 or 4 inches of the floor as any further works other muscles and does not benefit your ab workout. I personally find keeping the feet of the floor and bending 90 degrees at the knees to be more beneficial as it helps isolate the abs. Once you find this exercise easy progress to more advanced exercises such as the dragon flag If you would like to lose up to 2lb of fat each and every week or start building muscle now why not let me train you online on a one to one basis and you will receive your own exercise and nutritional plan designed specifically for you and your individual, age, physical composition, metabolism, lifestyle, and goals. Find out more Here
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Try our Free online personal training for one week without obligation and see the results for yourself before you decide to subscribe. To inquire simply use the contact form Here and begin building your new body now! Other New Articles The 100 push ups in six weeks guide Read More |
Facts on strength building
To build pure strength all bodyweight exercises have to be kept within the 1-6 repetition range.
Once you can do the required number of repetitions in an exercise change to a more demanding one
You can build strength and stay the same weight if that is your goal.
Strength training requires short workouts of no more than 30-45 minutes to be most effective.
Facts on muscle building
To build a combination of muscle and strength all exercises have to be kept within the 6-12 repetition range.
The best muscle building diet requires two grams of protein for every kilo of your bodyweight.
The quickest way to build muscle requires an increase in bodyweight.
Each muscle should be trained no more than once or a maximum of twice per week for best results.
Facts on abs building
Diet accounts for 80% of the success in building great abs.
You cannot spot reduce fat from any one area of your body or in other words you cannot pick and choose were to lose fat. It has to be done gradually throughout the whole body.
To lose weight eat 4 or 5 small meals a day with each meal containing protein. This keeps your metabolism high and stops your body going into starvation mode which is when it will store fat.
Do not lose more than 1 or 2 pound of weight per week.
The best three abs exercises are the dragon flag, full abs rollout and full hanging leg raise.
Sit ups and crunches are terrible fat burning exercises. You would have to do 1000 sit-ups every night for over 2 weeks to burn 1 pound of fat.
In one study on rats, one group was given all their food in one meal per day as opposed to the other group which had the same amount of food but in small meals throughout the day. The results showed that ones who ate all there food in one meal put on weight whilst the others did not.
Doing lots of cardio without muscle building will result in large muscle loss because your body will adapt to make the cardio easy by losing the heavy muscle. The result could be someone who has very little muscle but still carries some fat.
Exercises that are weight bearing like running and walking are better for burning calories than non weight bearing ones such as cross trainers and cycling.
Facts on flexibility
All workouts should begin with dynamic stretchinginvolving two sets of 10 to 15 repetitions of each movement used.
All workouts should end with a cool down of static passive stretching.
The quickest flexibility results are gained with isometric stretching.
Isometric stretching should be done towards the end of a workout and never more than 3-4 times per week.