Everyone loves a six pack, but do you know how to get one?

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It’s true that everyone would love a well defined chiselled stomach, we see well known personalities display their washboards abs in movies, magazines and other advertising outlets. Getting them is not impossible but some fail to realise that you not only need to work at them physically but also requires a change of diet, otherwise no amount of sit ups are going to get those rock hard abs you see on television.

The purpose of this article though is to make you aware of the importance of strengthening your core to prevent imbalances that could ultimately lead to poor posture, lower back pain and other ailments. I’ll also mention the best way in my opinion to train the area known as the core.

Improving your core assists us in all areas of  life, even simple tasks such as walking, sweeping, even driving requires the use of our core. A good core will improve your posture, reduce or eliminate back pain, assist in the improvement of other sports that we may be involved in, such as martial arts, cycling, running, and tennis etc, you get the picture.

According to an article written by University of Rochester medical center there are 29 muscles that make up the core, they reside in the stomach, back, hips and pelvis areas. It also goes to say that when core muscles are weak or out of balance other muscles pick up the slack which can lead to poor posture and injury.

Knowing what the core consists of gives us a better understanding of what areas we need to exercise to strengthen the area. Doing thousands of crunches is not the best solution to getting a strong well balanced core because your only exercising the rectus abdominus (abdominal) which as we discussed earlier is only one section of the core.

There are many different ways to target the the core area but one I will explain here is using an Ab Wheel, they are very well priced and very portable allowing them to be taken anywhere, anytime. The best part of the Ab Wheel is that it also works the shoulders, back and chest. I’ve included a video below showing the correct way to use the ab roller, remember to start off slow and as get stronger you can roll it out further.
 

 
In my next article I will offer some diet suggestions to expose the abs that most people have but have been hiding below a layer of fat.

Reference: http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=2784