When we talk about the training and formation of your belly muscles or abs (abdominal muscles) there is often lots of misinformation and mythology about it. Men and women have written plenty of so called “wrights” and “wrongs” about this particular part of the human body. When checking magazines and TV ads they often promise you that you can get those amazing abs with just a few minutes workout per day, but that’s absolutely wrong.
Let me explain to you how you should train those abs to their maximum limit by using equipment often found in fitness centers. The muscles behind our belly fat are really nothing special. You can compare them to any other muscles or muscle groups in the male and female body. If you want to train them correctly, train them the way you do it with biceps, triceps or any kind of muscle.
These critical elements are ones you should not overlook when training the belly muscles:
1. High intensity muscle overload (15 to 20 repetitions)
2. Progressive intensity (higher weight) every week that past by
3. Avoid muscle burnout or under training by proper spacing (taking a day or two off)
I’m sure you’ve tried sit-ups or crunches just like everybody else. These 
exercises are good and can satisfy our point one. But how many people are using them to get to point two?
You should consider the fact that muscles only develop when they’re overloaded – greatly above normal intensity. So if you make 10 crunches a day, every day of the year, why would your belly muscles develop beyond their maximum strength? You’re right – they don’t.
If you want to expand your abs and grow them, you have to increase the intensity. You could add a few crunches every day, but this only increases duration. There’s a better way to get hot belly muscles.
1. Weighted Crunches (exercises wight weights)
2. Weighted incline sit-ups
3. Weighted sit-ups
How to do weighted crunches? Easy! Just lie on the floor with your head close to the low pulley weight stack. Use the rope handle attachment and grasp the ends, thus pulling the cable until it’s tight. Your hands should be resting at the side of your head near your ears. In this position you must now contract your ab muscles in a crunch that lifts your shoulders off the floor and draws the weight stack up an inch or two. Don’t worry if you don’t have the low pulls. You can always use a high pulls that is normally used for lat pull downs. Don’t forget to make 7 do 14 repetitions for each exercise (lower repetition with higher weight gives you the bulk appearance – this is what men like).
The next alternative you should try is – just lie on the floor and do sit ups while holding a barrel plate against your chest. The downside of this exercise is that it’s not safe to hold enough plates on your chest safely. But that’s a good problem to have, right? On each successive workout, shoot a 5 – 15% increase of weight you use. If you can’t add 5% increase, it’s time to add more days off between your workouts.