A flat, well-trained stomach with defined muscles – that's what many people want. But how do you achieve it? By simply doing the best ab workout every day? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The myth is unfortunately still widespread that you can work your way to a six-pack or even an eight-pack with the wildest ab workouts or 100 sit-ups daily. At the same time, it is forgotten that the trained abdominal muscles only become visible if the body fat in this area is particularly low. "Abs are made in the kitchen" therefore has some truth to it. However, the combination of both pays off.
Step 1: Reduce body fat and train basic exercises
Isolated ab workouts only bring something when the muscles have already been trained globally and the body fat is low enough through the right nutrition. If you pull the skin folds forward with two fingers on the stomach and on the side next to the ribs as well as on the hip, the fold should not be more than ½ finger thick. The more small skin folds form on the stomach when sitting, the lower the fat content there is. However, if there are only 1 to 2 "rolls", then there is still too much fat around the midsection to have visible abdominal muscles. Even countless ab workouts do not help.
For reducing body fat on the stomach, a stable blood sugar level, your gut health, good sleepand a healthy stress management.
The breakfast and carbohydrate management are other factors that play a role here. So with all these tools, the stomach fold, i.e. the body fat around the stomach, should first be reduced.
In parallel, the body fat reduction is supported by global workouts. This means that you should use exercises that predominantly use large muscle groups holistically and therefore have a more efficient effect on body fat reduction and muscle building than isolated ab exercises:
Deep squats, deadlifts, dips, pull-ups, push-ups, lunges and bench presses with a full range of motion work muscularly and also very globally on the nervous system, and in these basic exercises the abdominal muscles are always automatically strongly involved, even if you do not always consciously feel them through "burning out" as with isolated exercises!
So, the rule is: basic exercises and basics first! More on this in the article Reduce body fat.
Female abdominal muscles vs. male abdominal muscles
A six-pack or eight-pack in women, as known in competitive sports, is normally unrealistic for women, unless it is assisted with hormonal means, which are not recommended from a health perspective. There are some exceptions that depend on genetics, the body's own hormone production and starting competitive sports at a young age, in which women get an extreme six-pack without unnatural aids. However, this is not the case in normal circumstances. Visible abdominal muscles are realistic, however, in a more finely defined way, as the anatomy with the narrower waist and broader hips allows. Men, on the other hand, can – after the basics are right and they have been trained regularly for a longer period with the right nutrition and global basic exercises – also get a highly visible eight-pack. Especially in bodybuilding and crossfit, but also in gymnasts and sprinters, you can see clear abdominal muscles.
Lower abdominal muscles & upper abdominal muscles and anatomy
So anyone who has the above requirements should already have a defined stomach. It should be mentioned that anatomical conditions also play a role. The development of the upper and lower abdominal muscles, the size and shape of the ribs influence the visibility of the abdominal muscles. Although we mostly have all the same muscles, bones and organs, the configuration is slightly different in every individual.
Just as some of us have thicker and fuller hair and others finer. Nevertheless, with the above advice and then additional ab training, it is possible for everyone to define the abdominal muscles.
The visibility of the upper abdominal muscles, as well as the side ones, depends on how the rib cages are built and how far up the body fat distribution is. The lower abdominal muscles become visible when the body fat in the middle and lower stomach is reduced, here, above all, sleep and stress hormones play a major role.
The most effective exercises for abdominal muscles
Now that all the above conditions are met and the lower body fat percentage has been achieved through the right nutrition and muscle building with global basic exercises, isolated work can be done additionally to refine the abdominal muscles.
For an ab workout, one thing is primarily important: The muscular activation and quality of the exercise have priority.
A constant problem with training the abdominal muscles is that especially beginners primarily use and feel the neck. Especially with sit-ups, the chin is unconsciously pulled out instead of activating the abdominal muscles. By the way, the basic exercises play a role here again, which strengthen the abdominal muscles holistically, which is another reason not to start directly with isolated ab workouts.
So it is recommended to first find out with which activations you can really activate the abdominal muscles and how many repetitions you can manage with this quality. Almost everyone can pull up 50 sit-ups with the neck, but neither do the abdominal muscles grow with that nor do you do your well-being any favors with it. Often it helps to support the head with the hands or simply consciously tense the abdominal muscles before the first repetition.
Ab workout at home – the perfect home workout ab
Basically, it actually makes sense to always integrate one to three ab exercises into lower body training (leg training). They make sense there, as they include the hip flexors and can also provide balance as an antagonist to the lower back.
However, if you want to add a small ab workout, you could also do it briefly in the evening independently of the other training. The following workout is well suited, as it includes the lower abdominal muscles, the side and also the upper abdominal muscles:
A1 Garhammer Raise
8-10 WH then directly without pause to A2:
A2 Crunches – Arms extended – if necessary with dumbbell
12-15 WH then 60-120s pause and back to A1, 4 sets of this:
B1 Folding knife, legs bent
10-12 WH then directly without pause to B2:
B2 Plank Body Saw
30s long then 60-120s pause and back to B1, 3-4 sets of this:
C1 Side Plank
30-60s per side 30s pause then to C2:
C2 Knee to Elbow lying
As many repetitions as possible without the neck being felt, then 60s pause and back to C1, 3 sets of this.