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If anyone can give me the secret to getting great abs...i'd really appreciate it. Right now i run about 3-4 days a week about 2-3 miles. And do about 200 reps of ab workouts a night. Yet i still cannot really define my abs at all. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ooh this is an easy one. The only way to see your abs is with a bodyfat of less than 8%. That means a very strict diet. 2-3 mile runs are ok, but for better results you should run windsprints or do the Max-OT Cardio. Just go to the ast-ss website and you'll see it.

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Thanx...ill look into that and let u know how it wrked, i appreciate it

I purchased the Ab-Lounger 4 weeks ago, I do 700 - 900 reps if you can call it that , on the contraption. All bullshit aside , the dam thing is working well. That is every other day, other days, free weights. Feels like it is going to come apart. Not to uncomfortable.

those contraptions are fine for building ab muscles, but they wont burn the fat nessisary to get to 8% so you can see them.

you can get rock hard abs with those things and still be fat.

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I don't do this for my family, my friends, women, accolades, pride, or ego. I do it for me and no one else, its just part of who I am.

Yup, only need to train abs like every other muscle group. 1 maybe 2 times per week. I do mine with bi's currently. I just grab on a pull up station and do leg ligts, and do crunches. I will say tho the old school ab rocker roller thing... the purple thing sits on the floor. Its good for when you want to hit abs. It makes sure you dont stress your neck. To do crunches without using your neck, also try staring at the ceiling and put your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
Another good core exercise is to take a small straight bar, but a 10lb plate in the middle, basic ab roller. be careful tho, it will work your abs, but can hurt your lower back

or take a 5 gallon lid, plactic lid, and put it in the floor. get on all 4's, feet on the lid and do a jack. same thing as using a ball, but a little more stable.

but abs wont really be seen until you get to a lower BF%.

Yep

Feels like it is going to come apart. I'm 6' , 215. I give it hell. Hasn't broke yet. I concentrate on letting my abs pull me in and push out. You can push with the legs to make it easier. I had to tie the leg rest back to keep it from swinging. Most recalls are to keep some dipsh-t from sueing cause they scratched there finger.

Q: I still see those Ab-roller devices in every gym I go to. When I use them I can feel it working my abdominals, are they better than normal crunches for your abs?



A: Nearly every gym I walk into I see people on the floor laying with their head inside and their arms resting on these silly pieces of curled tubing, diligently rocking up and down. The last few years have seen us bombarded with slick marketing of this type of equipment. They are cheap to manufacture, (hence a larger profit margin), they are small, light and east to put away and make an unpleasant task of working the abdominals look easier. Sounds good, however, closer scrutiny reveals some pretty big flaws in terms of what you want from your abdominal training and the proper functioning of your mid section.
Your abdominal musculature (rectus abdominus, internal and external obliques and transverse) all work together to create a ‘rock-steady’ platform (your torso) from which all larger muscles contract and generate force . The main function of the muscles that form your mid section is to allow maximal force transfer that is generated from your legs to your upper body. A good example is a sprinter or runner taking powerful strides. Think of the midsection as firm rubber, each step propels the sprinter further ahead as the force of each stride is transferred directly from the leg, through this firm rubber to the shoulders and arms. Enabling maximal distance from each stride. Now think of the midsection on our sprinter as a ‘Jell-O cube’. This mushy midsection allows no direct transfer of force to the upper body. In fact any force generated by the legs easily dissipates and is ‘lost’ by a wobbly’ mid -section. If you think about it, all sporting movements are variations of this force transfer concept, leaping, jumping, swinging a baseball bat, swimming, throwing. From pitching a fast ball to lifting the washing basket, the main type of ‘contraction’ your abdominal muscles perform are called isometric or ‘static’. They contract hard but don’t shorten, keeping everything critically tight while the rest of your body; your limbs perform the movement.

The anatomy of your abdominals is such that your torso needs to bend backwards about 15o past neutral to achieve maximal tension. In many cases a further stretch is better for spinal health. Now, if you consider your standard ab-crunch or ab-roller exercise you will see that you start on a flat surface; the restriction of the floor makes it impossible to get a full backward stretch and effective contraction. The surface is also stationary producing minimal recruitment of abdominal fibers as there is no need to ‘stabilize’.

The muscular contraction created during an ab-crunchor ab-roller movement is via ne ‘ab’ muscle only; the rectus abdominals and only the upper half at that! This leaves 85% of your abdominal musculature doing nothing!

The contraction performed using an ab-roller isn’t even specific to everyday, dynamic movements. Ask your self this; how many ‘crunches’ do you do when playing basketball, tennis, football, skiing or any other sport? What about when lifting boxes, washing the car or carrying groceries? None! Not a very functional exercise is it?

If you do not train your abdominal muscles correctly, through their full range of movement they become lazy and do not function to protect your back in many critical weight lifting exercises. People that train their abdominals improperly develop postural problems such as excessive lumbar curvature and rounded neck and shoulders that tend to create severe back and neck pain. That lower tummy bulge many women experience is from a weak transverse muscle and conventional crunch and ab-roller exercises do not begin to recruit this muscle, let alone work it effectively.

A final problem with these ab-rollers is they reduce the contribution of the neck and upper spine musculature. Disrupting the normal neurological patterns and leaving weak muscles even weaker therefore exposing people to greater risk of injury. I would recommend you acquaint your self with those big, round, blow-up balls you may see siting idly around in good gyms. They are the best abdominal strength-training apparatus to be introduced in the last 50-odd years.

Good stuff 0311, good read. I have a gymnic ball. Its nice and tough. My dog got a hold of my less heavy duty ball, It was a lot softer, and felt nice with workouts. Oh, and dont buy a small ball, get at least a 75cm ball. My fav company is gymnic, but there are a lot of manufactures out now. Throw it in the rotation a day a week to work your stability muscles.