You may have noticed, just as I have, how many guys in the gym blast their biceps and hammer out one set after another on the bench press. But why is it that so few of these guys give the same focus and attention to their abs? Is it because the abs are so easy to hide beneath a shirt? Kinda like when you’re too tired to finish cleaning a room so you hide the mess in the closet…
I’m not sure what the reason is, and there may be many of us are also guilty of not giving our abs all the attention they deserve. The truth is, a well defined six pack is one of the most difficult achievements to attain in the gym, but the reward is well worth it. Women love the way it looks and men who have it are proud to show it off.
This, of course, is all natural. The abdominals cover the center location of our body and our eyes are naturally drawn to the abs first when we look at a person. Getting the well-defined six pack requires us to be in peak shape so that the ab muscles aren’t covered by the fat that is stored in the abdominal area. This is probably more difficult for men than for women, because the stomach tends to be the primary storage site for a man’s fat cells.
But in spite of all of the challenges, the effort required to earn your six pack is well worth it. One look at a muscular guy with chiseled abs tells the whole story. To have that kind of definition, people know he must have worked that part of the body that most men avoid, and he worked it hard! When you take your shirt off, the shock wave will mesmerize onlookers from a mile away.
However, just getting on a sit-up bench or crunching the day away won’t be enough. You’ll have to control what you eat to get your fat content down, and you’ll definitely need to understand a thing or two about your abs before you can really get there. Let’s begin by understanding the abdominal muscle groups and how they are worked.
The Rectus Abdominis is the largest portion of your abs. It is a large wall of muscle that covers you front abdomen and constitutes your six pack. The Rectus Abdominis helps your body to do two forms of movement.
The first type of movement that the Rectus Abdominis is in charge of is the movement you perform when you do sit-ups or leg-raises. In this movement, your back stays mostly straight, and your abs work with upper thighs to bend your body at the waist. Sit-ups and leg-raises both work through this basic movement… The back is kept straight and the knees and shoulders are brought closer together.
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