6 Pack Ab Workout Videos

6 Pack Abs Routines, Fat Burning Cardio Workouts, Fitness and Workout Videos

Six myths from ab workout videos.

Most commercials for abs workout videos are often packed with misleading claims and bad information, especially for beginners. You're looking for a 6 pack abs workout, but what you will likely find is a six pack of crazy notions about ab routines. Fitness workout DVDs promising astounding results through gimmicks and easy-to-use machines are just what they seem: too good to be true. If your home workout DVDs are promising too much and delivering too little, toss them in the trash and look for real fitness videos that deliver fat burning workouts backed by fitness experts, who know the latest research, like the experts at Beachbody®. When assessing workout DVDs, consider the following tips:

Ab workout videos that rely only on the old-fashioned crunch or even the sit up are as bad as gimmick abs workout videos using silly contraptions because any limited-range movement you can do 50 times without hitting muscle failure probably isn't doing you much good. Great ab routines don't require elaborate machines, but they do require you to do a resistance workout challenging enough that you can only do it for a short duration. Advanced fitness workout DVDs, such as "Ab Ripper X" on P90X® by expert trainer Tony Horton, achieve this with a range of floor exercises that at the intermediate and expert level require no more than 25 reps.

Abs workout videos forget to tell you that lots of reps don't do much to improve the abs. A 6 pack abs workout is like every other exercise in that lots of reps are meant for endurance and conditioning training, but when you want to build impressive muscle, you need fewer reps, using resistance training. Ab routines, just like other muscle-building exercises, are subject to the plateau effect, where the body finds a comfort level with a repetitive exercise and stops advancing. The best 6 pack abs workout requires Muscle Confusion™ found in P90X, where the muscles are stimulated by a program of carefully modulated changes in demand and intensity. Also, fitness DVDs such as Horton's 10-Minute Trainer® can deliver results in a short time with effective exercises that are strategically sequenced to give the best results, rather than endless repetition and boredom.

Too often abs workout videos present their abdominal exercises as part of a straight steady-state cardio workout. Cardio workouts are great for the heart, but fat burning workouts require resistance training and high intensity intervals. Fitness DVDs should promote muscle building, as muscle continues to burn off fat after the workout is done. Advanced home workout DVDs, such as TurboFire® by Chalene Johnson, incorporate high-intensity intervals that really crank up the fat burning. According to research by Stephen H. Boutcher of the School of Medical Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, the effect of regular aerobic exercise on fat is minor and high intensity intervals are more effective at getting rid of fat than other exercises. (National Institutes of Health)