How to pump up cubes?

Not a single topic in the world of fitness has acquired so many conjectures and myths as abdominal training.



If you are new to bodybuilding and your goal is ripped abs, get ready for a short lecture. Only with complete information can you determine and squeeze out the maximum that you and your body are capable of.

On the Internet, everyone knows how to build a six-pack quickly, at home and without dieting. We’ll pose the question a little differently - how to pump up your abs without harmful illusions?

1. Abs are not “upper” or “lower.” T.n. “cubes” are, in fact, one continuous rectus abdominis muscle. Tendons pierce it horizontally, and the white line of the abdomen runs from top to bottom. During training, the entire muscle contracts evenly, so separate exercises for the top and bottom are pointless. The fact that in most people with powerful abs the latter blurs downwards is only to blame for gravity and fat deposits.
2. It makes no sense to do a lot of abs every day. The rectus muscle is no different from the biceps, and the same training rules apply to it. By overloading it 3 times a week or more, and in a multi-repetition mode, you only prevent it from recovering and growing. To avoid having to do more than 15-20 repetitions per approach, use barbell plates. If you train at home, hold the tension so that the strength dries up by the twentieth twist. Increasing the intensity will not improve the result - so why waste time?
3. Abdominal definition is determined not by muscle strength, but by the percentage of fat to muscle tissue. In lean people, the rectangles of the rectus muscle are visible through the skin, even if they have never worked out their abs. If you're overweight, you may have a great torso, but underneath the layer of fat, only an MRI machine will be able to see it. Is it possible to lose fat while pumping up muscles? That’s a completely different conversation.
4. Ladies, you won't lose weight on your waist by getting abs. If you do everything correctly, your waist circumference will not decrease, but rather the opposite. To lose weight, there is only one condition: you need to spend more energy than you get from your plate.

So, to draw abs, the percentage of body fat plays a big role: it should not exceed 15%. If the medical norm for adipose tissue for a woman is 18%-20%, then from the point of view of the World Health Organization, in girls, in fact, “cubes” are a deviation from the norm.

No, this is not an attempt to shake your desire to pump up your abs. A toned tummy is magnificent even without pronounced relief. A muscular corset around a girl’s waist is the key to correct posture and helps for a problem-free pregnancy and postpartum period. Just don't demand too much from your body at once.

The last nuance is due to the fact that strong abs do not guarantee a toned stomach. You can often notice that in experienced athletes, the relief is somehow combined with an unaesthetically protruding abdominal wall. This is due to the weakening of the fascia - the thinnest muscles lying at depth. They contract not by twisting, but by drawing in the abdomen as you exhale. To tone them up, any exercises with components of breathing exercises - yoga, bodyflex - are suitable. For many, ordinary self-control is enough - you can hang a bright reminder at eye level in the workplace. Thus, you quickly get used to sucking in your stomach every time you get up from the table.

Where to start training?

From the exercises below, it is better to choose 2-3 and do them in a 20x3 superset no more than three times a week. Focus on a signal such as muscle pain. If the next day, instead of your stomach, your neck, hips or lower back hurt, it means that the load has fallen on them, and the abs have not worked properly. Focus on technique or choose other exercises.

1. Twisting on the floor. Since few people have not tried to do them before, let us recall just one point. It’s not for nothing that the exercise was called “twisting” and not “bending”. The function of the press is to pull the pelvis to the chest, not the legs. If you simply raise your body to a right angle with the floor, it is not the abs that are swaying, but the lumbar-iliac muscle.
   
   
   
   
2. The same thing, only on an inclined bench or Roman chair. A heavier, but also more effective exercise due to increased amplitude.
3. Standing leg raises (even more difficult) and hanging leg raises (an ideal exercise for almost everyone if you can reach the bar with your feet). At first, you can raise your bent legs to your chest while pushing, but for cubes you need to at least slightly lift your pelvis off the wall.
4. Crunches in the simulator. The same as on the carpet, but due to the roller under the lower back the amplitude is slightly greater. Plus the ability to control weight.

Naturally, you will need more high protein foods. From sports nutrition, both protein and soft supplements for weight loss would be appropriate. The main thing is not to shift more than 10% of the responsibility for the result onto them.