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"I train my abs every day but I never seem to see any results…"

As a personal trainer, I hear this statement on a weekly basis. With the exception of the thighs, women seem to covet a toned midsection more than any other body part. Virtually every woman with whom I consult states that one of her main objectives is to develop sleek, toned abs. Unfortunately, most of these individuals fall far short of achieving this lofty goal. However, with the proper training approach and a little patience, almost anyone can sport a terrific midsection-provided they are willing to put in the effort!

One of the biggest misconceptions in abdominal training is the mistaken notion that it helps to flatten the stomach. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot "spot reduce" any area of your body-despite the outlandish claims made in many of the late-night television infomercials. To the dismay of many women, the only way to reduce your waistline is to strip away the fat around the midsection. This is accomplished by having a proper nutritional regimen, increasing muscle mass (which boosts metabolism), and performing cardiovascular exercise to help burn calories. While abdominal training will help to give a hard, defined appearance to your midsection, you will never see these muscles unless abdominal fat is stripped away.

Before constructing an abdominal routine, it is important to understand the structural make-up of this muscle complex. The abdominals are one long sheath of muscle that runs from just underneath your chest (sternum) all the way down into your pelvis. Thus, the upper and lower abdominals are not separable, and therefore you cannot train one part without affecting the entire muscle. Every exercise that you perform will, to some degree, target both areas of this complex.

However, within limits, you can exert more stress to the upper or lower abdominals depending on your choice of movements. There are two basic types of abdominal exercises that accomplish this task: those that require lifting from the chest (crunches) and those that require lifting from the pelvis (leg raises). Let's explore the function of these movements in detail:

• Crunches: Crunches put maximal stress on the upper portion of your abdominals. The muscle in this region is quite dense, thus making it fairly easy to develop. Also, since most women do not carry a significant amount of bodyfat in their upper midsection, it tends to be one of the first areas to show definition.

  When executing crunches, you must concentrate on pulling your chest downward towards your hips. In order to prevent the activation of your hip flexor muscles at the expense of your abdominals, your lower back should remain pressed to the floor throughout the movement. Moreover, you should make sure to tuck your chin to your chest and put your hands across your body-not behind your head. There is a tendency to pull from the neck when your hands are behind your head, especially when your muscles fatigue. This not only reduces stress to your abdominals, but also can easily cause a strain to your cervical spine.

• Leg raises: Leg raises focus more on the lower portion of the abdominals. For most women, this is one of the most problematic areas to tone up. Due to the physiological effects of menstruation, your body produces an adaptive response to monthly bloating by outwardly stretching the muscle in this region. The effects of childbearing, which distend the pelvic muscles even more, can serve to further compound this problem. Since the lower portion of your abdominals is much thinner than the upper portion, the muscle can apply only limited resistance to this response. Therefore, the lower abdominals tend to become soft and pliable, ultimately causing a slight bulge in the pelvis

  To maximally work the lower abs, you should concentrate on raising your pelvis up towards your stomach-not simply raising and lowering your legs. However, because of the proximity of these muscles, they tend to be difficult to isolate. The pelvis is limited in its range of motion and, if attention is not paid to proper form, your hip flexors will tend to take over in exercise performance. Therefore, you must attempt to exert maximal effort into each contraction, forcing the lower abdominal muscles to execute the movement.

You should strive to constantly vary your routine, changing the exercises that you use from one workout to the next. There are numerous exercise variations at your disposal, providing an endless array of possible combinations. Movements such as rope crunches, machine crunches, and incline crunches can be substituted for the basic crunch. Moreover, hanging leg raises, bench leg raises, and reverse curls make for excellent alternatives to the leg raise. Creative manipulation of these exercises in your routine will repeatedly keep your body off-guard, never allowing it adjust to a given stimulus. In this way, you can avoid training plateaus and realize continued gains.

While having a cohesive routine is certainly essential to achieving results, the effort that you put into your training is perhaps even more important. One of the primary reasons that women fail to achieve a defined midsection is that they do not train with proper intensity. Unfortunately, you cannot expect to merely go through the motions and magically transform your physique. Ultimately, training in a lackadaisical fashion will do little to improve your abdominal definition and only leave you disappointed with your progress.

If you want to maximize results, you must take an all-out approach to abdominal training. All too often, a woman will stop working out as soon as she experiences any muscular discomfort. Unfortunately, this simply won't induce enough of a stimulus to produce significant muscular gains. In order to sculpt your midsection, you need to push past the pain threshold, enduring the intense burn that accompanies muscular stress. Rather than trying to achieve a certain number of repetitions, you should train until you reach momentary muscular failure, forcing your abdominal muscles to produce an adaptive response. This is the only way that you will get your abs to develop.

In addition, you should endeavor to develop a clear mind-to-muscle link with your abs, feeling these muscles contract throughout each repetition. This is especially important in abdominal training, where many of the exercises are non-weighted and thus rely on your own force to provide resistance. The melding of mind and muscle will ensure that maximal stress is applied to your abs, keeping constant tension in the target areas. Moreover, it will help you to maintain proper form throughout the movement, preventing supporting muscles from assisting in exercise performance.

When properly executed, you will not have to perform this routine often for maximal benefits. It is the quality, not the quantity, of your training that generates results, and increasing the frequency of training will not yield additional gains. In fact, the majority of women actually hamper abdominal development by training their abs too frequently! While this may come as a surprise, the abdominals can be overtrained just like any other muscle group.

It somehow has been taken as gospel that the abs can and should be trained daily to realize maximal benefits. Inexplicably, many seasoned training professionals still subscribe to this misguided perception. However, this approach ignores the fact that your muscle tissue is actually broken down while working out. It is during rest where your body begins to repair this damaged tissue, fueling the acquisition of muscle tone. Short-circuiting the recuperative process will not allow adequate time for your muscles to regenerate, ultimately impeding your progress.

Moreover, your abdominals are worked indirectly while training other muscle groups. If you train with weights on a consistent basis, your abs will get ancillary stress every time you work out-a detail often overlooked when designing a routine. Exercises such as triceps pressdowns, lat pulldowns, squats, etc., all utilize abdominal assistance in the performance of the movement. Consequently, the frequency with which you train your abs must be mitigated based on these factors.

As a rule, you only need to train your abs once per week and your entire workout should take only ten minutes to complete. If you train with proper intensity, this is all that is required to sufficiently tax your muscles. While this might not seem like a lot of time, your abdominals should be totally fatigued by the time you are finished training. Those who doubt that such a condensed routine will produce results should give it a try for a month. I guarantee that you will see a difference.

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