Just so you don’t think we’re neglecting your abs, I’ll devote this post to abdominal exercises for flat abs. But before we get into specifics, I do want to reiterate that flat abs are not created in the gym, but in the kitchen. Belly fat alone is what causes the abs to bulge, and there are no abdominal exercises you can do to flatten your abs if they’re covered by a thick layer of padding.

The abdominals, even in well developed athletes are not big protrusive muscles. When they grow, they tend to widen more so than stick out. It’s the layer of belly fat covering these muscles that we really need to worry about if getting flat abs is our goal. But we’ve discussed this already and this is enough review. Let’s assume you’re watching your diet and are including resistance training and interval training in your flat abs workout plans already.

Then it’s only a matter of time before a little bit of extra abs training will make a difference in our midsection. Abdominal exercises should not be done compulsively or too frequently. Remember, they are muscles. And muscles all respond the same way to exercise. Intense exercise stimulates growth and requires rest in order to rebuild muscle and recover from your workout. So the principle of progressive overload applies to our abs as much as the rest of our body.

This means that in order to make gains in abdominal strength, we must increase the intensity of the exercise. If we increase the intensity, we must also DECREASE our frequency of training. I usually don’t train my abs more than twice a weak, and sometimes once or less. You see, the abs are stabilizing muscles, and so if you follow the interval and resistance training recommendations I’ve given, your abs are getting worked with nearly all your other training, and you’re well on your way to flat abs.

That said, if and when you do train your abs, there are some exercises that are more efficient than others, meaning more intense per time allotted. I’ll list some of those here, from beginner to intermediate levels:

Beginner
Crunches (done slowly with a 2 second pause at the crunched position)
Reclining Knee Crunches (lean back while sitting on a bench, support yourself with your hands and with your legs straight out pull your knees into a crunch.
Do 3 sets of 15 to 20 repetitions. Perform these 1 to 3 days a week, either after your resistance training or before your interval training. If all you’re looking for is flat abs, these abdominal exercises done once per week are sufficient. The following exercises are for flat abs and beyond. Warning, performing the following may result in a six pack.

Intermediate
Plank (from a pushup position, but support yourself with your forearms rather than your hands. Squeeze your abs and keep your whole body tight)
V-sits (start with body totally flat and hands extended behind head. Then curl whole body so hands touch feet with legs and arms straight.)
Plank on an exercise ball (Do the same plank as above, but elevate your feet and support yourself with your forearms on an exercise ball)
Perform the Plank for 1 minute at a time, rest for one minute and repeat 1 or 2 more times. The V-sits can be done in three sets of 10 to 20 repetitions. These exercises should be performed no more than 2 times per week.

Advanced
Hanging Knee Raises (hold onto a pull-up bar and curl your knees to your chest)
Hanging Straight Leg Raises
Perform three to five sets of ten repetitions. This should be done no more than two times per week, but one time should be sufficient for almost anybody.

So there you have it, beginning to advanced abdominal exercises guaranteed to strengthen the abs and bring the sexy. Keep in mind however that while these are great for bringing out definition and toning the midsection, they should be seen only as a supplement to diet, which is the leading cause of flat abs.

In the last post we discussed the many reasons full body resistance training ought to be included in your flat abs workout plans. In this post we’ll talk about the other side of the weight loss workout equation, interval training. But before we discuss how interval training flattens the abs, let’s look at how it differs from the traditional long cardio sessions. 

Traditional cardiovascular exercises like jogging, biking, and rowing at moderate speeds were considered the optimal ways to lose belly fat. The reason? Doing stuff for a long time burns more calories than not. Pretty simple. And most of us are aware that people that tend to do long cardio sessions on a regular basis tend to have flat abs. Why then would I recommend your workout plans take a different format that this? Because having flat abs and getting flat abs quickly are not the same thing.

First of all, it requires a great deal of strength and fitness to carry ones body at a moderate speed for 40 minutes to an hour without stopping. Most of us could not dream of this without considerable resistance training for strength and working up to that duration over several months. Fortunately for those of us who would want fast results and get bored with doing the same thing for an hour, long cardio sessions are not the quickest path to flat abs.

Interval training blows traditional cardio workouts out of the water when it comes to fat loss. Most of us know that if we walk quickly for an hour we burn around same amount of calories as if jog at twice the speed for a half an hour. So we try to take the easy way out and go the low impact route. What they don’t tell you is that calories burned while training isn’t the whole story. It is possible, and indeed probable with interval training, to burn fat around the clock from a 20 minute session rather than simply to burn calories while at the gym. This should excite those whose workout plans aim to produce flat abs in the shortest amount of time and with as little time training as possible.

Interval training is a combination of moderate and intense cardiovascular training within the same session. If running, a typical interval session may begin with a 5 minute warm up, followed by 3 to 5 sets of a 1 minute sprint (a speed you can sustain for only a minute to a minute and a half) 2 minute jog combo, and finally a cool down of 5 minutes or so. If you’re doing 3 sets of the interval segment, this workout takes less than 20 minutes. But this is an intense 20 minutes, and much harder than jogging for 40 minutes to an hour at moderate speeds; at least on the body if not the mind.

The real benefit of including interval training in your workout plans is that it puts your body in a fat burning state long after you’ve finished training, at times up to 48 hours after training. And assuming you have a healthy heart, interval training will serve to make it stronger, as well as tone the legs, midsection, and other locations with saggy skin. Clearly a fat burning program that works around the clock is more conducive to getting flat abs than 50 minutes of fat burning at the gym.

Our bodies will, after some time, adapt to out cardio training, just as it will to resistance training. The only way to avoid adapting, and so plateauing, is to increase the intensity or structure of the workout. Interval training allows us to structure and restructure our workout plans frequently in order to keep our bodies from adapting to workouts. This keeps the body growing, adapting, and drawing on stored body fat to meet inconsistent energy requirements.

So not only is interval training effective, it’s also efficient. Three to four sessions a week will result in flat abs in no time. It can be done by jogging outdoors, on an elliptical, circuit training with moderate weights, a bicycle, or kickboxing, so there is no good excuse not to include it in your flat abs workout plans.

Good flat abs workout plans will not actually focus on the abs. The abdominals are important muscles to develop, but they are unique in that they receive indirect stimulation from nearly every other exercise. Despite this fact though, people still attempt time and time again to bring out their abs through countless crunches. And again, if focused on sexy abdominals, flat abs workout plans must be designed to reduce all around body fat, rather than act as a one step solution to midsection woes.

So what do flat abs workout plans need to include exactly? There are two indispensable components of training for flat abs. The first is resistance training for muscle development and increased metabolic rate. And the second is interval training, which will be the key component in fat loss, as well as an over all metabolic supercharge. So what kinds of exercises are best for resistance training?

The best kinds of exercises for all around fitness, and for flat abs in particular, are total body compound movements. In fact, there are probably only 5 essential lifts that take care of more than 80 or 90 percent of your resistance training needs. These 5 will stimulate virtually every major muscle group, as well as most stabilizing muscles. The easiest way to conceive of them is by understanding what our bodies are designed to do.

Our chests, arms, and back, are designed to push and pull respectively. Our legs are designed to squat and stand, and our shoulders are designed to lift our arms over our heads. The 5 major lifts work every muscle involved in these basic movements. The first lift is the good old fashioned bench press… or pushups for someone with less strength. For the back one can choose either pull-ups or bent over rows. The arms are worked in both of these movements, as the triceps support the pushing movement, and the biceps support the pulling movement.

For the legs we use the squat. This can be done with bodyweight or a bar bell. Your body should drop so that your thighs are parallel with the floor. This exercise works every major muscle group in the legs. This exercise is supplemented with the dead lift, a total body lift which provides the simple task of picking heavy things up off the floor safely. This exercise works the hamstrings and quads, the lower, middle, and upper back, and the traps.

And the last lift is the shoulder or military press. Grab a barbell and starting at your collarbone, push the bar straight overhead. These 5 exercises, if done in sets of 3, 8 to 12 repetitions, are enough for anyone to stimulate muscle growth as well as set the path for flat abs. At more advanced levels these exercises should be combined into supersets, where two exercises are performed back to back before a 1 minute rest is taken.

Notice here that I don’t have any abdominal exercises. That is because they are rather unnecessary in producing flat abs. Low body fat is 95% of the flat abs game. And if you reach a low enough body fat, abdominal exercises may help you to build a little shape, but they will not help you flatten the midsection. In the next post we’ll look at the other component of our flat abs workout plans, interval training.

Before we hit specific flat abs workout plans, let’s cover the basic principles of what it takes lose belly fat and tone up.

One of the largest fitness misconceptions out there is the idea that a person can tone up or lose fat in just one part of the body. These people do countless crunches for weeks before they give up in frustration, wondering why their efforts aren’t paying off. This may come as a surprise to some people, but exercising your abdominals does not give you flat abs.

Flat abs come from one and only one factor, low body fat. The notion above is that of spot reduction, and it has no factual basis. Our bodies are genetically predisposed to store fat in certain places more than others. And as a consequence, our bodies lose fat from certain places before others, or in seemingly larger quantities.

Workout plans designed to give you flat abs should look no different from workout plans designed to build muscle and lose fat. A healthy combination of resistance or weight training in conjunction with cardio interval training is the best cure for what ails your abs. The key is to develop enough muscular strength to carry your body through intense cardio interval training sessions.

Notice here I used the word intense, and not long. In fact, there’s no need to lift weights or do cardio for longer than a half an hour each for maximum muscle building and fat burning results, as long as your workout is structure properly. This structure will unfold as we discuss specific flat abs workout plans in coming posts.

But getting back to basic principles, we have one more to cover. Our bodies get flat abs in one way, low body fat. Our bodies lose fat in one way, exerting more energy than we consume. Period. That’s it. In order to lose fat, you need to consume fewer calories, (especially calories comprised of high glycemic carbohydrates or hydrogenated fats) burn more calories in the gym, or both.

Now that we’ve covered the basic principles of weight loss we can move on to specific workout plans designed to give you flat abs.