Abdominal Exercise

Many people are bothered by lower back pain. The pain can be the result of an injury, arthritis or poor posture. No matter why the pain is there it is often debilitating. The thing that people who are not in constant pain do not realize is how much energy is taken from the person that is suffering from the pain. The pain can cause sleep deprivation which leads to the inability to concentrate and the feeling of being tired. There are many things that can be done to help with back pain. One of the most effective is abdominal exercise.

Many people do not realize how much the abdominal muscles help to support the lower back. By keeping these muscles strong the back is supported more. Exercises that stretch and strengthen the abdominal area can greatly alleviate the pain. Abdominal exercise is usually done lying on your back. For some people with severe back pain getting off the floor from a laying position can be quite difficult. For these people they can begin to strengthen the stomach muscles by performing the abdominal exercise in bed. This is not as affective as doing them on the hard surface of the floor, but it can begin the strengthening process so that the person can get to the point of lying on the floor.

Another effective and joint friendly way to begin the process of strengthening the stomach muscles is through deep breathing exercises. These are exercises that can be done in any position and at anytime throughout the day. Simply sit or stand very erect and pull in the abdominal muscles as you take in deep breaths of air. Hold the breath and slowly exhale, keeping the stomach muscles held firm. Repeat this procedure several times throughout the day. The deep breathing will also help relax tense muscles that may contribute to the pain level.

A more advanced abdominal exercise is doing belly crunches. This involves lying flat on your back with your knees raised and you feet planted firmly on the ground. Place your hands behind your head and lift the head and shoulders a few inches off the ground. Hold that position for a few seconds and go back down. Repeat this for a number of times. The deep breathing can be added to the abdominal exercise by inhaling and exhaling as you rise and fall. There are many variations that can be done with this basic exercise, such as reaching your arms out in front of you between your knees as you rise. If you alternate one arm than the next over your stomach as if you are climbing a rope you will work the abdominal muscles that are higher. Repeating these simple moves in the morning and evening will help to warm your back muscles as you prepare for work or sleep. Warming the muscles through stretching also helps to alleviate the pain.

Reduce The Size Of Your Tummy

Now that spring seems to finally be back in our lives, many people are concerned about wearing down that belly they have built up, making way for a sculpted midriff to shine through. Those folks who let themselves go a little in the winter months may be working overtime now that it is April and thoughts of bikinis are dancing in their heads. The good news is that there are, of course, stomach exercises to speed along the process. Some are better than others, including these few, which are good specifically for reducing the size of that tummy. These particular exercises are targeted at beginners, so give them a try if you are just starting out. Once you have mastered these, feel free to advance to something more challenging. When doing these exercises, it is important to move slowly so as to maintain control and not allow momentum to take over. As with any workout routine, be sure to consult a professional before beginning and always warm up properly to avoid injury. Vertical Leg Crunch This is a variation on the traditional crunch that focuses more specifically on reducing stomach fat. To begin this stomach exercise, first lie on your back on a flat surface, such as the floor. Use a mat or towel to cushion your spine. Put your hands behind your head, with elbows out far enough that they are out of sight. Now lift your legs straight up into the air, crossing your ankles and bending your knees slightly. Contract your abdominals and lift your shoulders, head and upper back up to about a thirty degree angle. Be aware of not lifting with your hands or leading with your head.

Hip Lift You will need to stay on your back for this stomach exercise. Use a mat or towel to cushion your spine. Put your arms at your sides with palms facing up to the ceiling. Put your legs straight up in the air so that the soles of your feet are facing the ceiling and your legs make about a ninety degree angle with your torso. Keep your knees unbent and as straight as possible. Now, contract your ab muscles so that it feels like your belly button is being pulled toward your spine, while at the same time gently lifting your hips off the floor. Raise your hips to height of a few inches, keeping your legs extended straight upward. Hold this position, then slowly lower your hips back to the floor. Repeat for an entire set.

Long Arm Crunch For this stomach exercise, remain on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat. Lie back and extend your arms straight back on the floor as though you are reaching above your head. Contract your abs and slowly lift your arms, head and shoulders off the floor to about a thirty degree angle. Hold it, then slowly lower your shoulders back to the floor. Repeat for an entire set. Be careful not to lead with your arms, keeping them straight and alongside your head.

Six Poor Stomach Exercise Habits

As with all things, there is a right way to go about working for a flatter midsection, and several wrong ways. Working out the wrong way can lead to no physical improvement or worse, serious injury. When doing stomach exercises or any other exercise, be sure to consult a professional, warm up properly, and remember the following tips.

Keep Your Knees Up When doing crunches, you want your knees to bent and your feet flat on the floor so that your knees are centered and pointed upward. Keep them centered and up, not to one side. If you drop your knees to one side, you are unnecessarily compressing your vertebrae, which can lead to a painful back injury.

Sit-Ups Traditional sit-ups actually do very little for the abdominal muscles. Even when done properly, the strain is mostly on the hip muscles. There is also the tendency to pull the torso up with the arms, which of course is not the point of the exercise. Further, when sit-ups are done very quickly, as people have a tendency to do, it is momentum that mostly forces the torso up and down, rather than any muscle groups. The crunch is a good alternative to old school sit-ups.

Straight Leg Lift Another traditional 'stomach exercise," this move actually works the lower back more than any muscles in the midsection. This is also another way to put strain on your back, possibly leading to injury.

Too Many Reps There is never a need to do more fifty reps of a stomach exercise. If fifty reps is not giving you results, doing more than that will not help wither. As you build strength, if you feel the need for a bigger challenge, try a more difficult exercise as an alternative to adding reps.

Sleeping Believe it or not, how you sleep has an effect on your stomach exercise routine. If you sleep in a position that cause back pain, it will make it much more difficult to work on your midsection in the morning. Sleeping mostly on your stomach is one of the best ways to cause back pain, as it forces your back to arch, often resulting in annoying back pain. The best way to avoid this is to sleep on your back with a pillow under your knees. This will help keep your vertebrae in line, prevent back pain and allowing you work out pain free in the morning.

No Resistance All stomach exercises need resistance to be effective, whether it comes from a resistance band, an exercise ball, or just gravity. Exercises that do not use any resistance, such as standing broomstick twists, will not be beneficial to your midsection. The good news is that this particular exercise will not do any harm and is actually a good warm up for your trunk. Just do not expect it to flatten out your stomach.

Proper exercise technique is important. These are just a few tips to help you avoid wasting time and potential injury. Be sure to research thoroughly before beginning a new exercise, and always consult your physician before beginning any physical fitness routine.

Easy Tips For Having Six Pack Abs

Have you ever seen people with rock hard, six pack abs and wish that you have one like that? There are people who would like to have a great body without spending too much time in the gym. With the fast paced kind of lifestyle that most people have, would there be easy ways to get the body that you want?

Actually there are some easy and simple tips that would help you get the six pack stomach that you want. Avoid eating while watching the television. Since your mind and focus will be on the movie and television show that you are watching, you would not be able to watch the amount of food that you are eating. You may tend to overeat while watching television.

Do not skip breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day. Upon waking up, the metabolism is accelerated and fat starts to burn. You would need enough food to cope to cope up with the day. Calories would burn while you perform your daily tasks. By avoiding a meal, you tend to overeat the next meal. Since you would feel that need to make up for the lost fat.

Incorporate good eating habits to your daily routine. Aside from making sure you eat regularly and not in front of the television, you need to make sure that good fats are incorporated to your diet. Some people shudder in the word fats, well, there are fats that are good for your. Fish oil, flaxseed oil, extra virgin olive oil are the healthy fats.

Water is good for you. The more water you drink, the better. You don't have to stick just drinking 8 to 10 glasses of water when you can drink more. But we are required to drink that much water everyday to keep hydrated. This would regulate fat burning and body metabolic process.

If drinking milk, the choose skim milk. There are healthier alternatives, all you need to do is make sure that whenever you go to the store to buy groceries, you choose the healthier alternative.

Diet is incomplete if you don't put some mobility into your routine. So still incorporate exercise routine into your lives. Doing a hundreds of sit-ups a day is not good enough. Think about your whole body and not only about your abdomen. When aiming for six pack abs, cardiovascular exercises are a must. This kind of exercise increase stamina and heart condition, it burn fat in a quick way. Cardiovascular exercises can be done 5 minutes a day, and can increase it to 45 minutes. Aside from cardiovascular exercises you can also do some weight training to get the body that you want.

Not all exercises can be done inside the gym, take your exercise outside. Take a walk, stand straight in a cocktail party, you can even do some exercises during your break time while you are sitting down on your chair.

Aside from proper diet and exercise, getting the minimum seven to eight hours of sleep every night is very important. Sleeping rejuvenates your body. It repairs muscular system by decreasing the stress hormone levels.

And last, you need to be consistent. You may plan or devise your own exercise regimen, but getting your six pack abs just does not stay there. You must be consistent with the plan or regimen you devised. That is why diet or exercise do not work, because we lack consistency in doing things. Six pack abs are easy, as long as you put yourself into it.

Abdominal Exercise Machines Options

When I was younger, I used to have fantastic abs. I watched what I ate, limited my fat intake, and did hundreds of crunches per day. Yes, it was very hard work, but the results were worth it. Then everything changed after I gave birth to my first child. I was suddenly very soft around the middle, had noticeable love handles, and couldn't get rid of the flab no matter how many different diets I tried. To make matters worse, I couldn't even do crunches anymore because I had severe chronic back pain. I wasn't ready to accept being out of shape, so I decided to check out some abdominal exercise machines.

Abdominal exercise machines are specially designed to target the abs during each workout. Most abdominal exercise machines simulate regular crunches, but in a way that is much easier on the body. For example, most people do crunches while lying on the floor with their hands behind their head, which puts them at risk for back and neck injuries if they don't have perfect form. That's not a problem with abdominal exercise machines since they limit your motions and force you to have good form in order to operate the mechanisms. In other words, abdominal exercise machines are practically foolproof and give the rest of your body a break while you work on your abs.

I had seen plenty of late-night infomercials for abdominal exercise machines, but wasn't willing to make a purchase decision based solely on what I heard on TV. I wanted to hear what real people had to say about these abdominal exercise machines, not what actors and professional bodybuilders were paid to say. So I went online to find third-party consumer reviews of some of the leading abdominal exercise machines. I wanted to know which products were well-constructed, easy to use, and actually worked on sculpting abs, and which products would just waste my time. Plus, I wanted to find websites where I could buy the most popular abdominal exercise machines at the lowest prices. These products were very expensive, so any discounts I could get would definitely help my wallet.

It's a good thing I decided to read online reviews of abdominal exercise machines before buying one. It turns out that the one product I really had my eye on wasn't received very well by consumers. There were a couple of big problems with it that I never would have known about until it was too late if I hadn't done the proper research first. So I actually ended up buying one of the other abdominal exercise machines that was lower down on my list but that received rave reviews.

Now that I've got one of these abdominal exercise machines, I'm able to work on my abs several times a week without experiencing any back pain at all. And more importantly, I'm slowly but surely starting to see a reduction in my waist size. If I keep this up, I know I'll be back to my pre-childbirth body in a few months!

Abdominal Exercise Machines

Abs are a huge deal! Have you noticed this lately? I was just watching a film entitled "The Covenant" with my wife, and couldn't help but notice the physiques. One character in this movie had ridiculous abdominal muscles. I'm talking ripped to shreds here. I couldn't help but laugh since no athlete I saw in high school had abs like this. Sure high school kids work out, but this guy looked like he was training for a fitness magazine. Oh, and not to mention that he looked about 25 years old. He must have invested in some major abdominal exercise machines. It's either that or some really cool genetics.

You can take your pick from an abundance of abdominal exercise machines on the fitness market today. Who doesn't have a bright idea for some new and improved ab invention? It's kind of funny because I was just reading a piece on abdominal muscles last weekend. Personally I like to switch-up my workout regimes just to keep my muscles guessing. This typically promotes more growth. Anyway, the article said nothing promoting abdominal exercise machines. In fact, it didn't mention them at all. It named the three most effective abdominal exercises, which are all performed without the contemporary abdominal exercise machines. The first one was the bicycle motion. This is performed while lying on your back. You pretend like you're pedaling a bicycle and bring your elbows to your knees. The second ab exercise is crunches. These are highly recommended since they put very little stress on your back. And the third was also crunches, but crunches done with the aid of a chair to prop your legs on. I tried these and it's a great one. I found that it really started burning quickly. I love that!

In short, before you run out and purchase the latest abdominal exercise machines, I suggest that you do a little reading online first. This will help you better understand how the abs are properly worked and exhausted. The last thing you want is to adopt an ab exercise that damages your back over time. Furthermore, the recommended exercise routines are free; unlike modern-day abdominal exercise machines. You do the math. On the other hand, I do suggest that you try a few different exercises so that you can determine which one offers the best results.