Stomach Exercise’s are The Hardest

[The Mersey's Watcher]

Does anyone else have great difficulty toning or building abs ?. I find it physically impossible. The stomach, in my opinion, is the most difficult part of the body to train. I find training my arms, my chest and my legs very simple and straight forward. However the stomach for me is incredibly difficult, and as a result mine is like a saggy bag of flesh :o .

Sit ups :rolleyes: , why can't I do sit ups without getting sleepy or dizzy ?. I tried to do some this morning. I managed, with small breaks in-between ten, to do a hundred. Usually whenever I work out with any other muscle afterwards the muscle feels tired and sore, which is a good thing. However my stomach feels like nothing has happened, and yet my head feels like I've been running around non-stop.

Does anyone have any tips for training the stomach ?. Has anyone got a workout routine for their stomach which is working ?.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I might as well ask something that has been dwelling on my mind recently. Drinking beer is suppose to destroys muscles, so anyone trying to build some muscle would do well to keep away from beer. But does the same count for wine ?. I drink alot of wine, maybe that's what's holding me back ?.

[æinvargR]

Hold a weight on your chest and do fewer but then heavier sit-ups. But the muscles are never gonna show as long as you don't get rid of a lot of the fat on the stomach.

[The Mersey's Watcher]

Hold a weight on your chest and do fewer but then heavier sit-ups.

That does sound like a good idea. I'll have to give it a go.

[Pagan Rebirth]

Planche, and just make every exercise target your core.

[Loki's Advocate]

I have had good results from what I call 'leg-raises'.

OK, you're sitting upright as possible on a couch or a chair... straight posture, no slouching... now, you get a dumb-bell (I use 15 KGs now, but began on 5... just see what works), hold it between your two feet so the bells are above and below your feet, and raise your legs (which should be kept dead straight at all times during the exercise) slowly to a horizontal position And then down. And so on and so forth.

Works the calves, thighs, stomach... it's a good exercise, particularly if done in a ' reverse pyramid' (say, 20, 40, 60...) for as long as you can stand it.

[The Mersey's Watcher]

Never heard of that before Loki, I'll give it a shot.

I recently bought an abb cruncher. I did around 300 pushups one day with it and felt absolutely fine. But the next day my stomach felt like it was on fire, I literally couldn't bend down.

[pinlighter]

Exercise? What's that???? :p


I have to spend all %$**$! day at one PC or another. I have a little thing called Timeleft3 which pops up every hour and says DO SIX PRESS UPS YOU LAZY BUM . Without that I'd decay to total lard :D

[Sigurd]

Well I find sittups pretty tiring too. The rest is pretty easy, situps gives me issues. So, well, I guess a good way to train MOST of your body muscles is to swim for a long time, and for a long range.

[Heathen Soul]

Toning your stomach is without the hardest thing to do (genetics plays a major part in this). I think the only real way to get a wash board stomach is to do plenty of cardio exercise (you can have great muscles, but it could be covered with fat!), eat healthy and, of course, sit-ups.

For sit-ups i think every other day is best, so you give your body time to recover, and use variation to shock your muscles into responding. As mentioned, using weights is good, leg raises, hanging from a bar and doing leg raises...there are loads!!

The vital thing to remeber is...DONT FORGET YOUR BACK!!! Its vital that you have a strong back as part of your core strength.

This post might be a bit late, but i hope its helpful!

[Der Einzelgänger]

Any recommendations for increasing back strength??

[Liffrea]

Back lifts with bar bell weights and reverse curls work for me.

I actually find stomach exercises a doddle. The real problem is I cannot build biceps.

[Hveðrungur Kveldúlfsson]

Any recommendations for increasing back strength??
Deadlifts are the ultimate!

[Loki's Advocate]

Liffrea, stand up (remember, in a straight posture!) get (say) a 5kg dumb-bell, and hold it dead out in front of you for, say, 30 seconds. Hold it either perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal, depending on whether you want to make your arms wider, or 'deeper'. (When doing sets, switch between the two... that way you can do more, while not risking ripping anything.) Switch to other arm, repeat. Et cetera until you can't hold your arm straight out: this will be preceded by a little shaking in the arms, which is normal.

The important thing here is to keep your arm dead still. Relax your grip as much as possible, you'll want to rely on the muscles in your arms to provide stability, as much as you can.

Slowly increase the weight of the dumb-bell, and the time you hold each of your arms out, and you'll have sure results.

[Liffrea]

Nice one LA. I will give it a try. Got to get back in training, I have been through one of the no motivation lulls! Its amazing how quick you lose it.