What exercises can give me flat abs?

Question

I am average weight, but my abs are not flat. I go to karate 3 days a week and do lots of sit-ups, but that hasn't worked. What else can I do. I want to do it naturally.

Answer 1

While crunches/situps are useful, the muscle group that is really critical are the obliques, the muscle on the side of the stomach. The simplest way to exercise this group are simple twists, either standing or sitting. I've included a link with a picture for better explanation. Good luck! :)

Answer 2

Pull-ups are great, but you have to do it methodically. Instead of doing 30 or 40 pull-ups and kill yourself (and it doesn't even work good that way) here's what you should do, sets of 8 to 10 pull-ups at a time. Lie on the floor, do 9 (for instance) then go back on the floor, relax and breath well. Do few more sets like that throughout the day if you can do 10 to 12 sets that gives you about 90 to 110 a day, it should be plenty enough and you should see results in 2-3 weeks if you're consistent. The reason this works better than 30-40 or more pull-ups at once is because after each push up you're resting your muscle giving time to recuperate the Oxygen and the ATP needed.
Alos, if you can add some jogging daily, that would maximize the effort by burning more fat.
Have a good workout :)

Answer 3

Crunches!

Here is an explanation of how to do crunches for best results:

Lie down flat on your back with your knees bent and your feet on the floor.

Hold your hands wherever you feel comfortable (on your chest or beside your head - just be sure you don't pull on your head).

The typical crunch is taught by instructing you to simply roll your upper torso forward, bringing your head towards your knees.

This is fine to start with.

To increase the effectiveness of the crunch movement, try push your chest and head up towards the ceiling pushing your lower back flat onto the floor. You can also think of it as trying to push your belly button into the floor.

Your anatomy will automatically cause you to follow a crunching pattern yet trying to crunch up towards the ceiling will increase the tension on the abs greatly.

Hold at the top of the movement for a second and squeeze hard.

Do not lift up into a sit-up as this works the hip flexors and can strain your back.

Answer 4

You need to get rid of the layer of fat for the abs to show. This requres aerobic exercise: 30 min 3xweek. Try running, jogging, biking, or swimming.

Continue to do crunches, not sit-ups, for definition.

Answer 5

just do lots of cruntches. my boyfriend is really into sports and for wrestling he does these one cruntches where u just lay on your back and lifte it up so ur shoulder blades arent touching the ground [[make sure your squizing ur abs/stomach]] and then from there lift up more and then go back to that position and then do it again repeatedly. some other good ones are to do side curls, cruntches with one knee up and then the other knee up, crunthches with ur legs straight [[laying flat]], and ones where ur legs are crossed and in hte air. make sure on all of these tho u lift ur shoulder bllades off the ground so u get more of a work out =]

Answer 6

crunches..
try doing at minimal 50 crunches per day and a few push ups. Also you may want to plan a good diet -you can't be getting fat and exercising at the same time

Answer 7

Run. The best way to burn off any excess fat it to run. You still need to do sit-ups, crunches, and other ab workouts, but you'll notice a huge difference when you start running.

Answer 8

I agree with everyone. Crunches are great but you can do 1 million a day but it won't help if your are eating fatty foods. You have to also eat healthy

Answer 9

Try stomach crunches too.

Answer 10

Do Sun salutation and crunches..