If you take any interest in health and fitness matters at all you’ll surely have noticed by now that there’s no shortage of information out there about ab workouts for women.

The problem is that despite all this information countless women are still struggling to get the lean, flat, sexy stomach they’ve been promised so many times – just as they’re struggling to get slim on the innumerable “Hollywood” or “Celebrity” diet fads that come and go as quickly as the seasons.

Click Here to see the exact steps that “ordinary guy” Alex Miller used to lose 36 pounds of body fat and FINALLY get six-pack abs.
Check out Alex’s inspirational pictures and also the Q&A we put together on how he achieved these results (very informative and inspirational!)

So it’s not surprising if you feel discouraged or ready to give up.   But the good news is that …

…there are any number of highly effective ab workouts for women

All you need is the right information and the desire to put it into practice. What you definitely do not need are any more rapid or crash diet plans, fat burning supplements or magic herbs; exercise gadgets from the infomercials or “wonder” foods. Not only are these unhelpful, they may also be downright dangerous as well as expensive.

It’s time to give up on the idea that you can see an overnight transformation in your appearance, without any effort. But don’t despair. Follow a sensible eating plan in line with your body’s real needs, combined with a properly designed exercise program and you can see very rapid and lasting results.

When it comes to designing ab workouts for women there are certain basic principles to be included which apply to all workouts, but also certain differences from the way men usually train. There is little risk of a normal woman developing unusual or unsightly muscular bulk through weight training, but many women prefer to stay away from the heavy barbell or dumbbell work which is often recommended and adopted by men. And although this kind of training is as effective for female abs as male, there’s no necessity for it if you are simply seeking a slender, attractive middle as opposed to the ripped “six pack” typically coveted by men.

In fact it’s quite possible to do very effective ab workouts without using any weight at all and you’ll find a description of a superb bodyweight only ab exercise at the end of this article (bonus tip – this one’s tremendous for your butt as well!).

But whether using weights or not …

ab workouts for women must involve the whole body in intensive, fast exercises, allowing minimum rest time, getting the heart and lungs bursting, and stimulating the metabolism.

Bodyweight squats, lunges or squat thrusts are particularly suited for this purpose.

To be really effective, workouts must be properly recorded in terms of type of exercise, duration, number of reps and amount of weights used (if any). The aim is to overload your body, forcing it to respond by building muscle and cardio-vascular capacity. But you can only do this if you are constantly monitoring your progress and pushing yourself.

This is because your body is very smart at homeostasis, that’s to say saving energy by maintaining itself in a stable state (even if this means a “being fat” state).  Put simply – getting slim means burning energy and this is just what your body is programmed to avoid unless you force it.

For this reason you need to avoid the boring, low intensity cardio work such as treadmill and static bike…

. . . which are all too easy for the body to adapt to and get through without wasting energy on (in its view) inessentials like building muscle. Instead, shock your body with fast bursts of the kind of exercises mentioned above, and for extra motivation to overcome your body’s resistance, use scales, tape measure and full length mirror!

Add one or two ab-specific exercises to this kind of training – eg seated bicycling with hands behind head – and you’ll be giving your abs a tremendous workout. Here’s one of the best – the combined abs/butt exercise mentioned earlier.

This is the one-legged Romanian deadlift. Start by standing on one leg and then stretch the other a little behind you. Now bend forward and try to touch the ground while lifting the hanging leg as high as you can, aiming for the horizontal. Keep the muscles of your butt contracted tightly throughout and try to keep your back as flat as you can, thereby sucking in your abs. The balance is tricky at first, but persevere and you’ll be getting one of the best combined abs, core, thigh and butt workouts there is. Aim for 10 reps on each leg at first.

If you want to get a lean, toned and shapely stomach in the shortest time then click here for access to these great free downloads
Mike Geary’s – Insider Secrets For A Lean Body (e-book)
Tom Venuto’s – Six Pack Abs Revealed (e-book)
David Grisaffi’s – Posture & Core Conditioning (e-book)
Mike Geary and Jeff “Muscle Nerd” Anderson (90 minute MP3 audio)

Enjoy!

Steve

© 2011 Effective Ab Workouts