Ab Workout Exercises for a Six Pack

Men's and Women's Six Pack Workout, Best Ab Exercises, Stomach and Abdominal Routines

Ab workout exercises are just part of your fitness equation.

While ab workout exercises and abs-centric DVDs will help you shred that stubborn patch of midriff, zeroing in on abs and only abs often means neglecting other parts of your body. Stomach workouts should be a part of a comprehensive program that looks after all your muscle groups and burns off fat. The best ab exercises are tied into great strength training and some cardio as well. After all, a tough six pack workout doesn't mean much if you don't have the stamina and frame to carry those six pack abs!

Abs workout exercise virtuoso Tony Horton, creator of uber-hot workouts P90X® and 10-Minute Trainer®, observed on The Dr. Oz Show that too often people concerned with being fit "are isolating a muscle, just working one muscle at a time. And super stacking and Muscle Confusion™ is synergistic exercise, where you're doing several things at once. You're doing resistance training, cardio, you're working your abs." Thus getting a lot more done for overall fitness in a short period of time. Rotating stomach workouts into this constant confusion, whether it be Horton's Muscle Confusion or the cardio confusion Chalene Johnson employs for TurboFire®, helps our bodies recover and push past plateaus. So the best ab exercises, even those abs-centric workout DVDs and videos, are comprehensive programs combining cardio, strength training, AND ab work.

Truth is, you can't work out abs every day, anyway. Regarding stomach workouts, the long-held belief by some trainers and coaches was that, unlike other muscle groups, such as the legs, you could work abs every day because abs were slower to fatigue and quicker to recover. But the best abs exercise plans give those abdominal muscles their much-needed time to FULLY recover. An effective six pack workout means taking time off.

As a rule, ab workout exercises should only be taken up twice per week, according to fitness experts at Beachbody®. Although, for some stomach workouts, you can up the frequency of ab exercises at the beginning of the exercise program. According to the best abs exercise gurus, if you train with proper intensity, that's all that's required to sufficiently tax your muscles. For a six pack workout, this doesn't require a lot of time, but your abs should be aching for a break by the time you're finished. And, for that six-pack abs washboard look, you'll need to lose the fat too if your body fat is more than 20%.