any advice? stomach, abs area

Ok here is the deal, I have 2 kids the youngest is 4. I do aprox 120 crunches a day every day for the past year and a half. My abs just arnt seeming to tighten up at all. The rest of my body is where I want it to be. any advice on what I can do, if anything????

[-Jayson-]

running, alot of people dont know but when your running your doing alot of ab work.

[kornflakes28546]

abs are made in the kitchen not so much the gym. if you lose weight you will have abs. i have very strong abs put i dont have my "6 pack" yet because i haven't started dieting yet.

eating right + exercise = abs

I dont need to loose weight. I am 5' and weigh 125 lbs if I loose any more weight I will blow away with the wind. I dont want to look anerexic just tighten my stomach.

[Oz]

I would seriously consider getting one of those swiss balls. Do a range of core strength excercises (most of them come with a video or whatever to show you the excercises) - you need to build up stabilising muscles at the sides as well as your lower back if you want a serious increase in strength in your abs without fucking up your posture.

Also, try a LOT more variety in your workout. Do crunches to each side, do fast and slow sets - basically keep the muscles guessing.

[leadfootGTP]

reverse crunches medicine ball crunches oblique crunches Oz is right, if your already skinny (which is 95% of it) and your doin lots of crunches your problem is that you dont have variety or your doing the exercises wrong. do things like everse crunches and medicine ball crunces to hit the lower abs, situps, and leg lifts(careful w/ your back on leg lifts) to hit your upper abs, and there are plenty of oblique variations to get your sides. When you do your abdominal workouttry to hit at least 20 reps on at least 4-5 exercises as a circut, then take a short rest (45 sec - 1 min) then repeat the circut 2 more times. Really focus on contracting your abs when you do it and dont let your self rest at the bottom of any rep. Do this every other day

[Gotti]

from what i heard the key is running... you can do a thousand situps a day but that just makes your abs stronger it, you gotta run to get it all defined

[mospeed1]

yup get a ball and do crunches on that,more advance add some weight like hold a med ball while doing crunches,if you have any band you can do rotaion pulls..if you need any books or video check this site out .my wife runs this gym and edit the books and the video's http://ihpfit.com/products.html

thanx guys, I shure will try these things. I am willing to try anything.

[RickwithaTbird]

Ive had success doing situps, but always found crunches a waste of time. If you arent doing situps, then give that a shot. I used to do 50 a night, and I had a mean six pack. Im just too lazy to do it now.

[crayzayjay]

Go to bed hungry. I'm not saying "starve yourself", but if you get that craving late at night, resist it

[TaNK_Em]

Try boxing.

- Kevin

[Soyo]

swiss balls are the best way for abs... obviously you are a girl but you can still look at www.menshealth.com at the abs section and it talks about the swiss ball and a bunch of other good stuff

I agree with the boxing comment too... kickboxing to be exact... it is said to be one of the best workouts you can get and it defines your whole body like none other(a lot of actors/actresses do this for a month or two before a big movie)

[tomekeuro85]

a lot of poeple think that abs are going to be like a 3 week thing and you get a six pack. most poeple dont even knwo what a "real" six pack is... A real six pack is when you have 8 lumps on your stomach. that takes a lot of time and work. Its true that you have to lose the fat first, but also do some weighted sit ups. put a weight on your chest and do full situps, do a variety of ab exercises and within 6 months you should have some pretty good abs. its not an over night thing. also, doing 120 situps every time doesnt do anything. the reason muslces grow is because they have to adapt to doing more work. if your muscles are used to doing 120 situps, they have no need to grow, because they can already do the 120. add some weight, and vary your exercise. the human body is extremely adaptive, and if you dont change your routine every few weeks, you lose a lot of potential gains because your body adapts. hope this helped.

[sivic02]

Im glad someone brought this back from the dead so I didnt have to just to say this.

If you are building your abs up one great thing to do is this exercise (dont know the name of it, we will call it matt's ab exercise)
Exhale completely, everything you have in your lungs, then when you have nothing left in there expand your chest, make it bigger, this will cause your stomach to be sucked in. Start off trying to do this about 10 seconds/rep for about 5 reps giving yourself a little break between. This will tighten up your stomach a little bit.