Je pense que vous serez d’accord avec moi quand je dis :

Les muscles abdominaux ont toujours été le centre d’admiration et de désirabilité pour les femmes et les hommes.

Ils sont le symbole d’un mode de vie sain et actif et représentent le dévouement.

Sans oublier que les abdominaux sont incroyables lorsqu’ils sont travaillés et remplissent l’image esthétique que la plupart d’entre nous essaient si fort d’obtenir.

Cela explique pourquoi la majorité des personnes qui visitent régulièrement le gymnase peuvent être surprises à faire des exercices abdominaux presque tous les jours.

They want those abs to be visible and they want them to look good for the summertime.

These desires are also the staple of all of these online fitness gurus that require insane payments to trade with you “the secret for abs”.

Seriously, don’t trust them!

This is why I decided to share with you my personal list of 13 ab exercises that I believe bring the best results and without doubt MUST be integrated to your ab workout.

Before we dive in, however, there are a couple of important notes about this post that need to be made clear.

Firstly, in order for your abdominal muscles to become visible is for you to drop your body fat percentage to at least 9-12% for men, and 15-18% for women.

This can be achieved through proper eating habits, good nutrition and, of course, a good training program.

All of this must be designed to help you elevate your metabolic rate and keep it up for as long as possible.

I have written quite a few articles that concern this matter. Take a read at these articles for example:

• The 30 Best Fat-burning Foods;
• The 7 Best Exercises That Will Help You Lose Belly Fat; or
• How To Build Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time

All three of these articles will help you understand what is expected of you in order to reduce stored body fat.

Wait, doesn’t this mean that ab exercises are completely worthless then?

I mean, what is the sense of doing them if you need to lower your body fat percentage in order to start seeing your abs, right?

Well yes and no.

It is true, as already mentioned, that in order to make your abs visible you will need to work hard and reduce stored body fat.

However, shaping and forming your abs is what separates the so-called skinny abs from the aesthetically pleasing ripped abs that we all want.

Furthermore, most of the exercises that I have listed for you guys and gals are quite intense and will not only help you tone your core but will also help you enhance your metabolism – help you further reduce accumulated body fat.

Another thing is that non of the exercises that you will see below are your traditional crunches and leg raises.

It’s not that I am saying that those exercises are useless, they still work your abs, but they do not use their full potential and as a consequence you end up losing effect of a good ab workout.

Are you aware of the purpose that the abdominals serve the human body?

They are the one muscle group in your body, alongside with your lower back muscles, that help you maintain your balance as well as to flex the spine (rectus abdominis) and for rotation and lateral bends (obliques).

Without them everyday tasks such as walking, running, and even sitting would be absolutely impossible to complete.

I have another question for you – how do we usually tend to train our muscles?

That’s right, we apply a range of exercises that challenge the muscle’s fundamental function.

Here is what I mean by that:

The triceps is used to push objects, so we use pushing exercises such as bench dips, triceps dips, and don’t get confused with extension exercises for the triceps as they still end up pushing something down (i.e. they are still using the triceps’ core purpose);

The biceps helps us pull, so we use a pulling motion such as the biceps curl;

The quadriceps’ main function is extension of the knee joint, a flexor of the hip, and specifically the Vastus medialis (the lower section of the quad) pays an important role in the stabilization of the knee , so we use exercises such as leg extensions, squats and deadlifts.

Do you see the pattern here?

All of the above given exercises challenge to a far extent the core function of the muscle group.

And if you want to develop shredded abs then that means that you need to challenge your abs’ calling – stability, rotation and spine flexion.

Does this mean that crunches and leg raises are completely redundant?

Hell no!

Crunches, and its many variations, is still an extremely good exercise for developing a good core.

The problem with exercises like that is that they do not train the abdominal muscle group to its full capacity. And you wouldn’t want to do that, now would you.

Oh, and a bonus tip: Your abs do not grow in size, they do not work the same way as your other muscle groups. The reason why I am saying this is because I have heard the following way too many times: “you need to train your abs so that they can grow and show up on the surface”.

WHAT!? And the worst part is that this was presented by a “fitness expert” at a local gym of mine.

The abdominal muscles are incapable of growth because they are constructed of slow-twitch muscle fiber – these muscle fibers are responsible for the sheer strength and endurance of the human body, they do not grow in size (unlike the short-twitch muscle fibers). This is one of the reasons why there are such strong yet slim individuals.

There are specific muscle groups where the long-twitch are the predominant muscle fiber – such as the abdominals and the calves.