Now, there is a lot of talk about whether you can make your 6 pack become an 8 pack and if that’s true whether or not you’re better off having 8 pack abs. Those might be legitimate questions but my only question is this- Why the heck does it matter? 6 packs look just as great as 8 packs. The bottom line is most people just want a flat, toned stomach. We all have abdominal muscles that can be built to show through if we do what it takes. There are a lot of gismos out there that will promise flat abs, but in reality you don’t need any of them. There are some simple things you can do at home to get 8 pack abs, or 6 pack abs, whatever floats your boat. Here are 8 tips to help:

1. If you have some extra belly fat you’re going to have to lose it to get 8 pack abs to show throw. But don’t just focus on stomach exercises. There is no such thing as spot reduction when talking about weight loss. Don’t get caught thinking that if you do crunches, twists, and sit-ups all day that the fat around your abs is going to disappear. It won’t unless you implement a comprehensive exercise routine. Work your whole body and DO SOME CARDIO! So many studies have proved that doing cardio between 30 minutes and an hour will burn a lot of fat.
2. Realize it will take some time to get results. Unfortunately for men, the abdominals are one of the first places for fat to accumulate and one the last places to lose it. If it took five or ten years to lose your nice abs, it might take six months to a year to get them back. There are no quick fixes when it comes to 6 or 8 pack abs, despite what those Saturday morning infomercials tell us.
3. Focus on quality over quantity. It’s better to do 10-15 really good crunches than to do 50 really crappy ones. There are a ton of different movements, lifts, and twists that target your abs, but if you just know how to do a good crunch all of these different exercises will come much more naturally and be much more effective. For a good crunch lay on your back with your knees bent and heels about 1 to 2 feet from your butt. Cross your arms and place your hands on your shoulders. Now, you’ll notice a small space between your lower back and the floor. Close this space by flexing your stomach, and once it is closed lift your upper body toward the ceiling, NOT toward your knees. Go up about 30 degrees and SLOWLY lower your upper body back down, keeping that space between your spine and floor closed. There you have it.
4. Want a great 8 pack abs workout? Check out Cathy Fredrick’s Core Max exercise video. It will kick your butt. Then, if that’s not enough for you, try P90X Ab Ripper X. These are the best two abs workouts that I have come across.
5. Your abdominal muscles respond best to high resistance, low repetition exercises. If you’re doing more than 40-50 crunches at a time, increase your resistance and decrease your reps. You can do this by holding a dumbbell or free weight above or against your chest, or by extending your arms straight above your head while crunching.
6. Buy a Swiss ball and convert your abs 8 pack routine to a Swiss ball routine. The Swiss ball will add range of motion that will enable full flexion and extension, increasing the resistance to your workouts. A very good source of information and demos for this is ridgelinefitness.com.
7. Evaluate and change your diet. More simply put, eat less and eat better. This is one of the more important things on how to get 8 pack abs. Change the carbs you eat to low glycemic index carbs and make your proteins more lean. A great principle my wife loves and uses a lot for our meals is make half of your plate fruits and/or vegetables. Simple changes to your diet can make a big difference in the long run. But don’t think that just by exercising your stomach you’ll make it flat. You’ll actually make the muscles bigger, stronger, and more defined with the stomach exercises. But with a healthy diet and frequent aerobic exercise those great abs will show through.
8. Straighten up. Literally. Work on your posture. So many of us slouch while we sit and walk around. Just straightening your posture could make you look like you’ve lost a couple of pounds and tightened up your mid-section. This may sound stupid, but nevertheless, it’s true.

An abs chair doesn’t offer the resistance that traditional ab exercises do, despite their claims. Most of these chairs have a bar on each side of the chair, which kind of looks like an arm rest, that the person exercising can pull against to left themselves up. How hard is that? And it certainly doesn’t target your abs. Other chairs have spring loaded back rests that boost you up during the most critical part of a crunch- when you’re at the bottom! And some, like the ab circle pro and ab chair 2, completely lack resistance.

The myth that an ab chair workout is based on is that you can work your abs and trim your waste line. Show me one scientific study that supports that – you won’t find one, because anaerobic exercise of your abdominal muscles won’t target the fat that surrounds those muscles, especially if you’re only working out 3 minutes a day. What burns fat is consistent exercise accompanied by a healthy diet. When you burn calories your body will use both carbs and fat for energy, so the more calories you burn the more carbs and fat your burn. But your body doesn’t say, “Oh, my abs are working, so I’m only going to use the fat that is around those muscles for energy.” It doesn’t work that way. Sorry. But most people don’t know that.

Another classic claim is that with an ab chair you get more range of motion. In reality, to work you abs, you only need 30 degrees of motion. During the first 30 degrees of a sit-up you work your abdominals, but after that it is impossible to contract your abdominals more. You actually start to work your hip flexors, like your psoas major muscle. You might think this is good, but it’s not. Do this little test for me and you’ll see what I’m talking about:

Get on the ground and do as many sit-ups, full range to where you hit you chest to your knees, in one minute as you can. Repeat that three times. Then wait one or two days. Where are you sore? Yes, your stomach will be most likely, but you’ll also feel this really weird deep pain inside your hips. That’s your psoas major muscle, and it attaches to your lumbar spine. So really, one of the best ways to irritate your lumbar spine is by doing full range sit-ups or full range ab chair exercises.

So, to say the least, we do not recommend using an ab chair. They’re expensive, lack resistance, and you don’t need it. There are much better and cheaper ways to work your abs. For example, if you want the best abs machine, go with a Swiss Abs Ball – it’s cheap, fit’s almost anywhere, and you can work your abs muscles very effectively on it.

You wonder why good gyms don’t have abdominal machines like the ab king pro, and ab circles pro, for their customers? It’s because they don’t work. But you will see a ton of peopld doing Swiss ball ab exercises at the gym. The next time you see one at the gym or a friend’s house, do a normal crunch on it, then do a crunch on the ground, and you’ll see the difference immediately. First, you’ll notice how much more comfortable it is to lay down on an exercise ball than on the floor. Second, you’ll notice how the crunch on the Swiss Ball requires you to activate a lot more muscles to stabilize yourself and stay on the ball. You don’t get that with a floor-crunch. And third, you’ll notice you’re not limited to just one movement or motion to work your abdominals- there are dozens of different moves you can do to work your abs. The other ab crunch machines out there offer one exercise motion only.

Here are a few examples of moves you can do on an exercise ball to work your abdominals:

• Ab Roll
• Ball Rotation
• Ball Twist
• Exercise Ball Crunch
• Swiss Ball Side Crunch
• Ball Ab Stretch
• Swiss Ball Reverse Crunch
• Swiss Ball Torso Twist
• Prone Torso Twist

You can purchase Swiss balls pretty much anywhere now (buying the swiss ball online is probably the cheapest) – amazon.com, eBay, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. But you might want to look into the type of ball you’re getting. Not all of the are created equal. The best balls I’ve found are from Thera-Band and SPRI. Most gyms buy these which means they’re made to withstand a lot of use. There also not much more expensive than your Wal-Mart type. Specifically the Thera-band exercise balls support up 300 lbs. and have a 3 year warranty. Other than the brand, take a look at the recommended size of the ball. Here’s a quick table to help you out:

Height Ball Height Ball Size
Up to 4’10” 45 cm Small
4’10” to 5’5” 55 cm Medium
5’6” to 6’0” 65 cm Large
6’0” to 6’5” 75 cm Extra Large
Over 6’5” 85 cm Extra, Extra Large

(When you sit on the ball, it should be inflated enough so that your thighs are parallel to the floor or slightly above parallel.)

So please don’t go and buy one of those As Seen on T.V. ab crunch machines. You don’t need it! Just get the one best simple ab machine there is- the Swiss ball. You won’t regret making this addition to your home gym.

The package they offer costs around $100 and includes the Ab King Pro machine, an instructional video, a conditioning video and a slim down plan. But the Abs King Pro is just another bench with an arc support bar attached to it. It’s nothing special, and certainly nothing compared to what we consider the best ab machine out there- the Swiss Ball. Also, its construction is certainly not worth the $100. The cushion is terrible and the machine doesn’t adjust to fit smaller or larger people, making it pretty awkward for them.

Here is what they claim of Ab King Pro exercise: “The Ab King Pro is designed to give you flat, sexy, rock-hard abs faster and easier than any other product on the market.

Other machines only give you a 90-degree range of motion, but the Ab King Pro’s secret is its astonishing 200-degree range of motion that targets your upper, lower, middle abs and obliques all at once, on the way up and down.

In just 3 minutes a day (combined with regular exercise and a sensible diet) you’ll tighten your stomach and reduce those love handles in DAYS, not months!”

Seriously? Just run away from this machine. Spend your time and money on something of value (like a good exercise ball so you can do swiss ball ab exercises). Rock hard abs don’t come easy, you don’t need 200 degrees of motion (you only need 30 degrees), and 3 minutes a day is not enough. Sorry. The Ab King Pro doesn’t measure up to its price and nothing, this machine especially, will ever measure up to those claims.