A flat stomach is the most noticeable part of your body when walking on the beach. It is an indication of your overall health and shows that you have put effort into the gym. No matter how big your arms, chest, or legs are, if you have a thick belly or your abs are covered with a layer of fat, the athletic effect is almost nullified.
Research has shown that men find a vertical navel in women one of the most attractive parts of the female body. You can only achieve a vertical navel by properly training your abs and aiming for a low body fat percentage.
However, many women struggle to get their stomachs in shape. Especially as they get older, but it is also common among younger individuals, the belly tends to sag, with an added protruding lower abdomen. Men generally have more problems with the middle or upper part of their abs.
Tighter Stomach
The advantage of a tighter stomach is not only aesthetic; it also helps to strengthen the core of your body – the midsection. When your abs are strong and tight, you will have less trouble with your lower back because the muscles can work together better and support each other. Your posture will also improve significantly during other exercises, such as squats.
A word of caution, mainly directed to the ladies: do not be obsessed with pursuing the ideal of a tight stomach to the extreme! Start by tightening your abs through targeted training and nutrition and see how far you can go with that.
Not everyone has the genetic predisposition to get a tight stomach without much effort. It is possible for everyone, but only you determine how much effort you are willing to put in. If you are satisfied with the result, then everything is fine, right? Do not chase that ideal at all costs, but strive for the best result you can achieve! Mental health is also important…
By adjusting your diet according to your energy needs, you can relatively easily lose fat, especially in combination with cardio training. However, the problem is that many people have the greatest difficulty motivating themselves to start changing their meals from unhealthy to healthy. Also, doing cardio exercises is either unsustainable for many or too time-consuming. I have a problem with this myself.
If you ever want to see your abs, you will inevitably have to lose the fat covering those muscles! Unfortunately, there is no way around it…
To help you tighten that hanging lower abdomen, you can focus your ab training on the lower part of the abs, or rather, ab muscle. Your six-pack actually consists of only one muscle, the rectus abdominis or straight ab muscle.
There is a misconception that this muscle consists of about six different muscles, but that’s because the muscle is divided by tendons and connective tissue that run across the muscle. That connective tissue causes your muscle mass to bulge outward, giving you the idea that there are multiple muscles in your six-pack.
Since the rectus abdominis is just one muscle, you cannot train just a part of the muscle. You always train the entire muscle. However, by experimenting with your posture, you can emphasize a part of the muscle.
It’s similar to your chest muscles: when you bench press while lying flat on a bench, you mainly train the middle part of that muscle, if you lie at an angle, you target more of the top. However, it remains one muscle.
When training the abs, it is easier to emphasize the different parts. In principle, there are two movements you do with your ab muscle: you bring your chest towards your knees (as in crunches), which trains the middle and top, or you bring your legs towards your chest, which trains the lower part of the abs.
All ab exercises are derived from these two movements.
Training Lower Abs
As I mentioned, any ab exercise where you move your legs or knees towards your chest emphasizes the lower part of your abs. Fortunately, many variations can be devised, giving you both heavy and lighter exercises suitable for every level. Also, by making some small adjustments, you can turn a heavy exercise into one suitable for beginners.
Tip: train the lower part of your abs first in your ab workout. The top and middle are usually much stronger, and by doing them first, the lower part may not get enough attention and lag behind in development.
I have selected four exercises that will tighten and strengthen the lower part of the rectus abdominis. As I said, there are many more, but with these exercises, you can go on forever!
Hanging Leg Raise
Let’s start right away with the best and most difficult exercise: the hanging leg raise! The principle is simple:
- Hang from a chin-up bar, a bar you normally see people pull themselves up on
- Keep your feet slightly forward and do not let them come back further. This protects your back from hyperextension and prevents you from swinging to complete the exercise
- Now, bring your straight legs up in front of you by bending at your waist and moving them with your abs. Go as high as you can and tighten your abs hard!
- Lift your legs back down slowly to the starting position
Okay, this is a very difficult exercise, especially if you are not strong enough to hold your own weight for a long time with your hands. Fortunately, there is a little tool for that: the ab sling! These are two straps resembling slings that hold you up under your armpits or arms. You can buy them online if you search for the name ‘ab sling’.
Another aid is the use of straps, those straps you see bodybuilders using to train their back muscles.
The second problem may be that you are not strong enough to get your legs up when you keep them completely straight. The solution for this is: bend your knees when you bring them up and aim your knees towards your chest! This solution applies to all lower ab exercises (remember this word for when you play Scrabble again!).
The Hanging Leg Raise uses various cooperating muscle groups and can therefore be seen as the basic exercise for the lower abs. Muscle groups that work together develop better than when you train the muscles separately, a bit like squats giving you bigger legs than leg extensions.
On to the second exercise…
Reverse Crunch
The reverse crunch is a true isolation exercise for the abs, with an emphasis on the lower abs. Virtually no other muscle groups are used during the reverse crunch.
As the name suggests, the reverse crunch is the reverse movement of the normal crunch; instead of bringing your head towards your knees, you bring your knees towards your head. Because the movement occurs in the hips, the lower part of the rectus abdominis is emphasized.
The reverse crunch allows you to tighten the abs well, which – if done regularly – will produce a nicely toned result.
You can best do the reverse crunch on a long inclined ab bench because you can maintain tension on the rectus abdominis for a longer time during the movement. However, you don’t see these planks much anymore, so you are probably stuck with a flat bench press bench. The exercise goes as follows:
- Hold onto the uprights of the bench press bench and keep your legs straight
- Bring your knees up as far as possible towards your face
- Lower your buttocks until they just touch the bench and repeat the movement towards your face
A variation of this movement is to raise your legs straight up and thrust your buttocks upward. This is more challenging than you might expect at first glance!
The third exercise is the…
Roman Chair Leg Raise
This is actually the same exercise as the hanging leg raise, but much less strenuous! You can find the Roman Chair in any gym and fitness center.
Here it is doubly important to keep your feet slightly forward. The Roman Chair has a backboard that keeps you in position. If you go too far back, your lower back snaps together with a clap, and you will notice that! I once walked around with difficulty for two weeks because I performed this exercise carelessly!
The last exercise I’ll discuss is the…
Double Crunch
This seems like a very simple exercise, but it requires a lot of coordination from the body.
The double crunch is not an isolation exercise for the lower part of the rectus abdominis, but it works the top, middle, and bottom in one movement. It is a combination of a regular crunch and a reverse crunch. So you move your face (actually your chest) towards your knees and your knees towards your chest.
Make sure that during this exercise, you do not let your buttocks or shoulder blades touch the ground!
Those were the four exercises for the lower abs! No weird contraptions, just working with your body. By regularly incorporating these exercises into your ab workout, your stomach will tighten so that when your fat is gone, you will have a beautiful stomach!
