Thursday, February 14, 2013

How To Train Your Abs Like Sylvester Stallone

By Russ Howe


Learning how to build muscle can be a tricky affair. Many people get lost in the endless confusion and new fads to hit the market, getting nowhere fast. A lot of tire of trying to learn how to do it for themselves and instead go in search of workouts used by their favorite celebrities. The Sylvester Stallone abs workout is undoubtedly one of the most popular results in this category.

While a lot of celebrity workout plans leave a lot to be desired and tend to incorporate the latest fitness fad, you probably won't be surprised to hear that this one sticks to the absolute basics. If you can combine this with the principles of a good muscle building diet, however, you will get very far indeed.
Discover how to build muscle with 5 simple rules.


Despite sticking to the old classic moves, this workout delivers a very intense session. However, if you are trying to copy the style of The Italian Stallion you were probably expecting this much.

There are a few exercises in today's workout which you may not have encountered before so we will walk you through each one.

* Crunches on the floor or with an exercise ball.

* Oblique crunches.

* Upright knee raise.

* Broomstick Twist.

* Ab Wheel Roll-out.

The first stop in today's workout is a regular crunch. The trouble with crunches is most people perform them slightly wrong and put unnecessary stress on their neck by pulling from behind the head. For those who feel back discomfort while doing floor crunches, feel free to use an exercise ball instead. Sly himself made this change during the late nineties.

Attempt to perform three sets of thirty repetitions of the floor crunch. If you find this too difficult, you can start by aiming for fifteen and working your way up to the target figure at a later date. The key to crunches is maintaining a slow tempo, really focusing on the contraction of the upper abs each time you reach the top of a repetition.

Another of Sly's favorite exercises is crunches with an additional twist at the end of each rep. This allows you to place the emphasis of the move on the oblique muscles. Most of us know these as the tiny muscles which run down the outside of the six pack area.

Upright knee raises are another move which is often performed incorrectly in the gym. Many fitness enthusiasts unknowingly remove the stress from their stomach and place it on the hips by swinging their legs forward. Instead, perform this move with knees bent at 90 degrees and focus on pulling your knees through a contraction of the lower abdominal area, removing momentum from the equation altogether.

Perhaps the most surprising move in today's session is the next exercise, which Sly credits with building his best ever midsection during the mid-to-late 1980's. The torso twist is an often overlooked exercise which targets your obliques. However, by performing this move on a decline bench you will be able to switch the target to your entire core, incorporating every single muscle in your stomach and lower back. This is a great move for building core strength.

Finally, we move onto the wheel. This piece of equipment has existed in gyms for many decades and remains one of the most underutilized pieces of kit. The reason this exercise is kept until last is because you won't want to work out any longer if you get this technique correct.

The trick is all in the technique. Get this wrong and you won't feel it where you are supposed to, or you will end up falling flat onto your face! Slowly roll the wheel away from your knees until you reach a point where you cannot roll any further forward without compromising your balance. As you become stronger and more familiar with the move you'll be able to generate a bigger range of movement.

Make no mistakes, the Sylvester Stallone abs workout is every bit as tough as you would expect it to be. However, if your primary goal is to learn how to build muscle with classic, old school moves then this workout definitely has some great benefits to it.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment