How to pump up your upper abs?

Developing a flat, sculpted stomach is an important component of working out in the gym.



Of course, training the upper third is only part of the overall work that an athlete has to look good, because there are also oblique abdominal muscles and lower abs that also need your attention. But, as always, even in such a popular and simple activity, many ask the question: How to pump up your upper abs? — this is what we will talk about in this article.

The most familiar exercise to everyone is lifting the body on an inclined bench or a Roman chair; it has a very good effect on the relief of the upper abs; in addition, when performed, the quadriceps and hip flexors are actively involved in the work. A similar exercise can be done at home, but only lifting should be done from a flat surface with your legs bent at the knees. With this exercise, all sorts of variations are available: various changes in the angle of inclination, strengthening with additional load, for example, placing a dumbbell or a barbell disc on the chest can create more tension on the target muscles. You can also vary the load with the position of your hands:

1. at the seams,
2. on the cross on the chest,
3. in the lock on the back of the head.

After this, straight crunches would be a completely reasonable addition to training for the part of the abs in question. They are performed on the floor with the legs raised to a support, and just as in the previous case, the load can be increased by all available means. The oblique abdominal muscles will also work. Please note above that reverse crunches, in which the lower part of the body moves, work the lower third of the abdomen, so we will not dwell on them in this article...

It is quite possible to train the area we need with the help of twisting on a block, standing with your back to it and placing the rope behind your head. At the same time, the higher your arms are, the greater the load will be on the target area of ​​the athlete’s abdomen.

Many gyms have special exercise machines designed to pump up the abs. To begin, sit down in it, grab the handles and begin to twist your body, leaning towards your knees as much as possible. This exercise can also be used as a finishing exercise.

Having examined the most popular techniques above, I would like to note that in the question: how to pump up the upper abs, the “i’s” have not yet been completely dotted, because there are still a couple of practical ways to tighten your stomach and give it the proper definition...

Above we looked primarily at those exercises that can be done in the gym. Now we’ll talk about those that you can try at home, for example, the “captain’s chair”. To perform this, you should sit on the edge and try to reach your chest with bent legs (as you exhale), while keeping your back straight.

By doing the so-called “simultaneous twisting”, you will very well feel how the entire abdominal area and the upper third in particular are tensed. To do this, you just need to lie on the floor, with your knees bent, try to touch your elbows, while lifting your shoulder blades off the floor. That is, it is a kind of symbiosis of direct and reverse twists.

Since most people want quality and defined abs, the number of repetitions should be at least 20-25 for each exercise. Regarding sets, this is a different question, the answer to which depends on whether you try to do the entire set of exercises at once in one session, several approaches, or divide it into different days - then the number of series will need to be increased.

Another point that we cannot help but draw your attention to in this article is aerobic training. It is important to understand that if you have subcutaneous fat in the abdominal area, and almost everyone has it, then working in a strength style according to the methods we suggested above, you will achieve little. You can build muscles, but they will not be visible under a layer of fat. In any case, after wasting a lot of time, you may never get the treasured cubes. Because here we also need to cut off this hated fat. And in this case, the best recipe is regular periodic aerobic exercise! It is this that will dry out your tummy, and then the torso muscles developed by the above strength exercises will become noticeable. A class of sports nutrition drugs – fat burners – will also help you significantly in this direction. This special food supplement will tirelessly destroy all your fat deposits and will also fight the appearance of new ones. For our purposes, the thing is simply irreplaceable! We recommend including it in your diet...

Train your stomach correctly, get rid of subcutaneous fat, forget about folds and cellulite, and in the summer on the beach you will look perfect! Isn’t this what each of us dreams of?