The ab muscles do not only play a central role in terms of their location in our body but they are also crucially important for our physical fitness. And let’s be honest: Who of us would not like to have some well-defined, ripped six pack abs? Six pack abs are considered as a standard of beauty for both men and women and for this reason more and more people are looking for the best ways to work on their core muscles.
But how can we reach this goal best and fastest? In today’s article we will have a look at the best exercise machines for the abs and everything you have to consider when trying to sculpt your body. Have fun! ?
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The Prerequisite to Get Ripped Six Pack Abs
Many people know this frustrating experience: You can do as many sit-ups and crunches as you want… Your six pack abs are not showing, no matter what you do! I myself know exactly what it is like to get through hours of strenuous abdominal exercises without any visible results. But why is this the case with so many of us?
Basically, it’s quite simple: It’s very likely that you have already built very good and strong ab muscles. The only problem is that there is a fat pad located on your abdominal and therefore the results are not visible. Well, I don’t know you of course, but this is the most common problem why the abs don’t show for many people.
In contrast to arm or leg exercise, where a certain increase in volume can be seen after several weeks of workouts, the abs have the peculiarity of hiding under the layer of fat.
The good news is that you probably already have some well-sculpted abs. You just have to reduce your body fat percentage.
To get rid of stubborn body fat pads, it is advisable to use exercise equipment that provides a full-body workout because the more muscles are worked at the same time, the higher the calories your body will have to burn.
In my article about the best exercise equipment for losing weight, I already gave you a complete guide on this topic but now I will summarize it for you shortly.
For weight loss, it is especially effective if we exercise many muscles at the same time, because our body will then have to expend high amounts of energy in order to supply all of these muscles with nutrients and this means that it has to burn a hell of a lot of calories.
To provide such a large amount of energy, our body is forced to draw on our stored fat reserves. Since the fat reserves of us humans are mostly located in the lower belly, reducing your body fat percentage is very much related to getting six pack abs!
So, all you need for ripped six pack abs is a low body fat percentage on the one hand and some well-sculpted abdominal muscles on the other hand. And now I will show you how you can achieve exactly these two things.
The Exercise Machines That Will Help You To Reduce Your Body Fat Percentage
Step 1 on the way to well-sculpted six pack abs is to reduce your body fat percentage. At this point I would like to clear up a widespread misconception: You cannot target fat loss to specific areas of your body.
Many people think that it is possible to target exercise in such a way that belly fat is specifically reduced. But that is not true! In contrast to building muscle, fat loss takes place in equal quantities in all areas of the body.
For example, we may have thick arms and thin legs, but we cannot have well-defined six pack abs while our legs are filled by fat pads.
In order to burn fat quickly, you should conduct full-body workouts as already mentioned, because many muscles need a lot of energy and a lot of energy entails that many calories are burned.
The rowing machine is the exercise machine that probably targets the most muscles at the same time. It is therefore perfectly suited for burning fat and to provide the basis for your six pack abs. If you’re interested, check out this blog post, in which I talk about the rowing machine in detail.
The vibration plate offers a more space-saving and cheaper alternative. With the vibration plate, you will get all the freedom you could ask for, as you can really do all exercises on it. It is still extremely underrated even though it is actually one of the most effective ways to boost fat metabolism and get those six pack abs. Here you will find further information.
These Exercise Machines Will Help You To Build Strong Ab Muscles
With a lower body fat percentage, we have already established the basis for our six pack abs. Now we can start with building strong muscles as well. Of course, we can and should do abdominal exercises before, but the successes will only be visible once our body fat percentage is reduced.
The nice thing about ab workouts is that they are really easy. Basically, we don’t need any exercise equipment or gym machines for building those muscles, we don’t need much space and we can do it anywhere. Especially for beginners, bodyweight exercises are completely sufficient to work out the abs.
You can really start with very simple exercises and if you do it correctly, a good abs workout won’t take you much longer than 10 minutes. This is the workout that I include into my regular exercise routine:
If this workout is too hard for you, you can adjust the sets and reps as you want and do the easier versions of the exercises if needed. For example, you can support yourself with your hands for some exercises. This means that really anyone can do the exercises, because the intensity is completely under your control.
For this kind of ab exercise, I recommend to use an exercise mat because it protects your back and makes the workout both more effective and healthier. A good mat, which I also use, is this mat on Amazon.
The ab muscles also play an important role in stabilizing our body. Therefore, core stability exercises are recommended as well. These are static exercises such as the plank.
Exercise machines that destabilize your body causing your ab muscles to become active in order to maintain this balance, are even more effective in building the ab muscles.
Sling training and using a gym ball are two well-known examples. Both aim to provide an uneven workout surface that helps to exercise your ab muscles even more intensively.
Vibration plates work the same way. The vibrations of the platform get your body off balance over and over again. Here too, your ab muscles have to become active to stabilize your body. This in turn makes the full-body vibration workout so effect.
It is certainly not enough to simply stand on the vibration plate, as some manufacturers claim, but in combination with classic exercises you can perfectly work on your ab muscles.
For example, when you do a plank on a vibration plate, you work on those muscles that are targeted by a plank anyway and add those muscles that help to counterbalance the vibrations of the plate. In the following picture you can see me doing a plank on a vibration plate:
So, in my opinion, the vibration plate is one the best and yet most underrated ways to get a well-sculpted body and to get six pack abs. If you’re interested, you should take a look at this vibration plate on Amazon.
Final Thoughts on the Best Exercise Machines to Get Six Pack Abs
If you’re aiming to get six pack abs, it is important to reduce your body fat percentage first before really focusing on building well-sculpted ab muscles. The best exercise equipment for the abs should therefore provide a full-body workout in order to sculpt a body that is as athletic and defined as possible. Only then does the success of your ab workouts pay off in a six pack.
With the exercise machines and workout equipment recommended in this article, you are certainly already on the right track! ?
I hope that I could help you with this article. If you have any further questions or suggestions, feel free to write me an e-mail.
Otherwise, I wish you a lot of fun and success with your new ab exercise machine! ?
