six pack abs exercises

How to do Barbell Abs Rollout

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBIo0oeMpaM[/youtube]

Get yourself ready for a complete abs experience with the barbell abs rollout. Many six pack abs strategies include this exercise as part of your training because of the high level of intensity it provides your abdominal muscles that helps stabilize your spine aside from getting you ripped abs. As you stretch out your arms, roll forward then back, you also work your shoulders and lats to increase strength.

In order to ensure that barbell abs rollout will work as intended, ensure that it is your abs that are doing most of the work and not your shoulders. Likewise, be careful not to let your hips sag or arch your lower back too high as you roll out the barbell. Once you keep these in mind, you can effectively target your core as you would like it to be.

When doing barbell abs rollout, choose a weight that has the maximum weight you can handle to add stress to the target muscles but without having to sacrifice form. Key to this exercise is to do it deliberately and with full concentration.

Watch this step by step video on barbell abs rollout so that you too, can include this in your six pack abs exercises correctly and safely.

Instructions

Preparation

  1. Choose a barbell with your desired weight and place it in front of you on the floor.
  2. Kneel down to the ground and bend forward until your hands are holding on to the bar, shoulder width apart and arms fully extended.

Execution

  1. Carefully roll your upper body forward and allow the barbell to roll forward as well. All that’s touching the floor at this point are your knees.
  2. Stop when both arms are still perpendicular to the ground and your upper body is still a few inches off the floor.

Return

Carefully pull yourself back using the bottom half of your body so as not to put added stress on your shoulders.

Repeat
 
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How to do Close Hand Push Ups

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP4nMKx8VBs[/youtube]

If you are looking for the kind of push ups that trains your triceps as hard as your chest, then doing close hand push ups would just be your thing. For such a rather simple upper extremity exercise that requires no special equipment but yourself, close hand push ups can provide you with tremendous power and strength.

This exercise can be extremely useful especially for women who tend to have flabby arms with age. Doing this particular form of push ups will serve to replace fat build up in this area with stronger, firmer arms.

Some people would find doing close hand push ups a little more exhausting than the wider version. But then, this could only mean having stimulated more of your target muscles. Apart from your triceps and chest, your shoulders and abs likewise receive a good training with each upper body lifting you do.

Close hand push ups are another proof of how versatile push ups can be. Moreover, as long as you are doing them all in proper form, then it is not a question of which variation is better or worse but simply a matter of which particular muscle groups you would like to strengthen.

Instructions

Preparation

  1. Start off by lying on the floor face down.
  2. Position your hands directly beneath you so they are aligned with your shoulders.

Execution

  1. Push with your arms and lift your body off the ground so that your hands and toes are the only parts touching the floor.
  2. Position your hands next to each other by forming a triangle on the floor with your thumbs and index fingers.

Return

Carefully set yourself back down just a couple of inches away from the ground.

Repeat
 
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How to do Ab Cable Woodchoppers

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ajmRaAmfL8[/youtube]

Another interesting functional training for your obliques would be the ab cable woodchoppers exercise. Without you noticing it, there are various tasks that you do daily which could involve twisting or rotating yourself and to prevent any spinal strain or damage, you will need exercises like the ab cable woodchoppers to strengthen your oblique muscles which are primarily responsible for these movements.

From the name itself, ab cable woodchoppers mimic the motions of a woodchopper through the use of a cable over your head that adds resistance. To ensure you get the actual benefits of this exercise, maintain the correct form of as you are pulling, you do so not with your arms but with your obliques so that the appropriate pressure is most felt in the right target muscles. While pulling itself would engage the shoulders as a secondary muscle group worked, the act of rotating should be carried by your obliques and your arms should remain straight throughout the execution.

Whether for sports activities or everyday tasks, ab cable woodchoppers are a good core strengthening training to add to your six pack abs exercises. To fully see the proper form to doing this, check out the video below.

Instructions

Preparation

  1. Place your cable at the top of the post and face outward so the post is on your side.
  2. Stand perpendicular to the cable, about two steps from the post, until tension is present with the cable.
  3. Keep feet shoulder width apart or closer together to add difficulty.
  4. Hold on to the cable through the rope attachment.

Execution

Pull the rope down across the front of your body, mimicking a chopping motion with an axe.

Return

Carefully ease on the cable’s slack by slowly returning the rope to its original position.

Repeat

After a few reps, do the same on the other side.

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