Wasting away for midsection impressiveness is never easy; especially wherever fat starts to settle around the midsection is going to have to be removed one day, which usually means that you will have to put yourself into a negative calorie balance for a considerable period. This will, of course tend to hold back or diminish overall muscle gains. Far better to keep your abs throughout your training career, so that when contest time comes around you will only require minimal dieting.

Many beginners are puzzled as to whether or not one can change the shape or evenness of the ab muscles. Unfortunately, no amount of exercise will change the placement of your ab muscles. If they are uneven now, then that is how they will stay forever. Among the initiated, it is commonly thought that one can get the abdominal muscles to show by performing a few sit-ups or leg raises every day. This is not true. If there is a covering of fat around the waistline, then the direct abdominal exercise will only build the muscle density under the fat. Invariably, this is not enough to get them to show up as impressively as one would like. In fact, it is quite likely that they won’t show up at all.

The answer, then, is diet. Your nutritional intake must be revised to new, lower calorie consumption. Remember that if you took a year or two to put fat on your waist, you are not likely to remove it in a couple of weeks dieting. A very determined and sometimes lengthy period of dieting is often required. For many years bodybuilders trained their abs with very high repetitions. This practice is frowned upon by many of the modern bodybuilders, yet there is still a core of followers of the high-rep theory.

In this day of rush and haste, time saving is often an important factor. Why do more when you can get the same results by doing less? Actually the abdominal area is very sensitive to heavy exercise, and high intensity effort is suitable only for the more rugged individual. If the average person were to go all out with heavy reps in their abdominal exercises, this could stop their overall gains in development. The midsection fascia is a centre of the body’s nervous pathways. By overworking it, you will shock your entire system, which may cause a temporary shutdown of the growth process.

You will find out by trial and error what works best for you. In any case, it is not a good idea to do a great deal of abdominal exercising late at night. Such overstimulation could lead to a sleepless night, a situation that’s not relished by the hopeful champion. For those who are carrying baggage around their waistline, it is a biological fat that 3,500 calories equal on pound of fat. Accordingly, if you wish to lose one pound of fat every week, you would have to cut 500 calories per day from your normal diet. It is easy to lose one pound a week by making small food sacrifices here and there.

Today, there are literally thousands of bodybuilders who have superb abdominal muscles. This contrasts greatly with the physique stars of yesteryear. Only a handful of them had outstanding midsections. Special care should be taken not to stretch the abdominal wall. This can happen through overindulging in beer or through performing heavy squats without wearing a strong leather belt, or even through pushing your tummy out, as some guys are inclined to do as a joke. Look at the abdominal wall as a coil spring. Pull it out a certain distance and let go. It zips back into the coiled position. But pull it out a greater distance and the strain is too much for the metal. It doesn’t spring back when you let it go. Nothing you can do will make it zip back.

There are scores of different midsection exercises, and they all work to a degree. Here are some of the best, for more detail on each please visit the Smart Physical Workout website, in particular the exercise section.

• Incline Twisting Sit ups

• Roman Chair Sit ups

• Hanging leg Raise

• Inversion Boot Sit ups

These exercises with a balanced calorie diet will have your abs popping, remember be smart about your workouts.