Abdominal Muscles (ABS)  

Nowadays as the Fitness industry boom is increasing day after day, the awareness of Fitness and its importance is increasing too. The word Abdominal is generated from the word Abdomen (Belly), which represents the muscles present in the abdomen. The abdominal muscles (abs) are usually present between human Ribs and Pelvic Floor muscles. Abdominal muscles are responsible for your posture, they keep your back straight by providing support to the upper body. Also, they also help to make a lot of movements like bending, leaning, etc and they also keep organs that are present in the abdomen, in their place by maintaining a certain abdominal pressure. Abdominal muscles are in contact with the Core muscles and together they provide support to our back in order to keep its balance and stability.

Well, it's not like only Bodybuilders and Fitness Athletes have abdominal muscles, but actually, it's quite the opposite. Abdominal Muscles are present inside every human's body. Your body type, fat percentage, and the type of your Pelvic bone. In general, the people who don't work out or don't engage themselves in hard physical work usually tend to have a greater percentage of fats on their body and that is the reason that their Abdominal Muscles are covered underneath the layers of fat. The fat present at the top, keeps Abdominal muscles covered but it doesn't mean that there is no muscle underneath. 

Now, some people might think that Abdominal Muscles are just one set of muscles but in reality, there are four kinds of Abdominal Muscles that are present in our belly area. There are four types of Abdominal Muscles covering up the Abdomen area of our body. These four muscles types are

• Transversus Abdominis

• Rectus Abdominis

• External Oblique Muscles

• Internal Oblique Muscles

Transversus Abdominis is one of the deepest Abdomen Muscles, which are usually wrapped around our waist in order to provide support to our spine. Rectus Abdominis is mostly present Between the Ribs and pelvic floor muscle. When the Rectus Abdominis Muscle contracts they have the ability to bulge and form the Six Packs. Rectus Abdominis Muscle's function is to move the human body between your Ribcage and Pelvic. External Oblique Muscles are mostly present on the sides of the Rectus Abdominis. They are present on both sides of the human body and are responsible for turning your body left to right and right to left. When RIght External Oblique contracts then you can turn left side and vice versa. Internal Oblique Muscles are present just on the inside of your hips. The direction of the movement of Internal Oblique Muscles is opposite to the movement of the External Oblique Muscles.  

The Abdominal Muscles play a major role in the different functions that our body performs. They help us to maintain a straight posture by providing support to the Spine. They are also involved in the function of breathing because when we inhale our Ribs rise up and when we exhale these muscles help Ribs in lowering down. Abdominal Muscles are also responsible for the movements that we make, like bending and rotating. For example, when we try to turn our body to the left side, the Left Internal Oblique Muscles start to contract themselves. These Abdominal Muscles are involved in many other functions of the body including Urination, defecation, Vomitting, Singing, Coughing, etc. 

After learning about what Abdominal Muscles are and what is their function, it's also important to learn how to make these muscles stronger. Abdominal muscles need to be strong in order to make your standing posture straight. There are a lot of exercises available for the development of abs but you have to choose them very carefully. You need a physical trainer or someone who has enough experience of working out themselves. Before choosing an exercise for Abs, you need to understand a few things like your Body Type, Strength, Diet, Fat Percentage, Stamina, etc. Every one of these factors has its own importance and role in making your abs visible. If you are fat or just have more fat around your belly area, first you need to get rid of the fat because these fats cover the Muscles of the human body and due to these fats, muscles remain covered which results in decreasing your muscularity.

Similarly, If your body is weak then that implies that your stamina is also weak. So if you started with heavy weight lifting right away, at the beginner level it will cause problems. You have to start with lighter weights in order to build your stamina first and with the passage of time as your stamina and strength increases you can increase the weight and intensity of your workout. Diet is the main player or factor in getting fat or getting muscular because your body reacts according to the diet which you are providing it. If you are eating foods containing higher percentages of fats, sugar or you are eating irregularly with no schedule of eating, then that will result in getting you fat. 

There is a famous quote that says, " Abs are earned in the Kitchen". Consumption of food is one factor but getting that food digested properly is another thing. If you are just eating and doing no physical work or activity, that will also result in making you fat. Because when we are just eating all the time without any physical activity our Metabolism, Digestion and other Functions of the body slows down. At this stage, our body isn't able to use all of the energy you are providing it, so it starts to store that energy in the form of Fats in your body and resulting in making you fatter. So, we have to maintain a balance between Consumption and the burning of food. We have to either keep our consumption low if we are not doing any physical activity or if we are consuming more, then we also have to increase our burning/working out percentage in order to keep it balanced.

A proper exercise or workout routine is also one of the major keys in getting Abdomen Muscularity. After food gets digested it is divided into nutrients, which then get to the required position by blood pumped by our heart. Exercise, walk or any other physical activity raise our blood pressure which results in getting blood to the points in our body, which blood usually doesn't go. Also, the stress that we put on our muscles by lifting weights burns the Fats and gives shape to the muscles of the human body. There are different exercises for different parts of our body because certain exercises are the best for certain parts of our body. There are many exercises on the internet offered by different trainers and athletes but in my experience of doing workouts, these are some of the best exercises.

TIPS:

• Always get warm up and well hydrated before doing any exercise or workout.
• The number of times a certain exercise you do in one go are or in other words you repeat are called Reps and the number of cycles of reps you do is called Sets.

1.  Sit-Ups

                       Lay down on the floor with your knees raised and put your hands behind your ears, then don't move your knees and just raise your chest upward toward your knees. Then back to the original position and repeat. If you are just starting then you just need to do 10 repetitions (reps) three times (sets).

2. Lying Leg Raise

                                   Lay down on the floor with your hand palms touching the ground and legs straight. Slowly raise up both your legs as high as possible without moving or lifting your hands up. Then bring them down to the original position and repeat. If you are just starting then you just need to do 10 repetitions (reps) three times (sets).

3. Plank

 

               For this exercise, get on elbows and foot fingers, while the rest of your body is lifted above ground (a position is also known as plank position. Then breathe in and squeeze Abdomen Section and keep your breath on hold as long as you can. If you are just starting to work out then you just need to hold this position for 20 seconds and repeat the cycle three times (sets).

4. Knee Raises

                           For this exercise, you need a pole or something in the air from which you can hang yourself. Make sure that the pole is high enough that when you are hanging with your hand holding the pole, your feet are not touching the ground. After hanging, bring your knees close and raise them upward together towards your chest. Because this exercise is a little hard so, if you are just getting started, you need to do five repetitions (reps) three times (sets).

5. Hanging knee raises twist

                                                                             This exercise is similar to the above exercise but a little different. Hang yourself with a pole or something and raise your knees towards your chest. After raising the legs move/twist them to the right side and then brings them to the center or original position then twist them to your left side while hanging.  Because this exercise is a little hard so, if you are just getting started, you just need to do five repetitions (reps) three times (sets).

6. Side Plank

                               Side palnk is an advance form of the plank exercise mentioned above. It's very effective for making Oblique Muscles. Lay down on your side on your arm so that your shoulder is above the elbow. Now make your legs straight and raise your body up so that your body makes a straight line. If you are just getting started maintain this position for atleast 15 seconds at least. 

To get Abdomen muscles, a balanced diet is neccessary along with a good workout. Make sure your diet have a higher percentage of Protein and less percentage of Carbohydrates and Fats. Protein is major compound which play vital role in making tissues, cells and muscles of human body so during the time in which you are building abs protein needs to be included in every meal. While on the other hand you have to leesen the intake of carbohydrates and fat because that will help you getting your abs more visible. If someone wants to get muscular they have to maintain a balance between the workout and diet.