There are many workouts and exercises you can do for abs but in order to make drastic improvements on your stomach and abs, you will need to make a lifestyle change. Healthy eating (a lower fat diet) will help reduce the fat in your body (along with physical activity). Doing crunches is not simple enough to achieve a six pack abs or washboard abs, it will take commitment and dedication but results can be had with hard work and a good diet.

First off I would recommend checking out AskMen.coms Ab Guide. They have some great information there as well.

Diet

I have already introduced the idea of eating healthy in order to achieve your Ab goals. I would work on cutting out the sweets from your diet. This will help drastically on the fat intakes you have. One tip I would like to pass along is to take out all your junk food from your cupboards and give it away, then go to the store and replace that junk food with healthy fruits, vegetables, and alternate snacks. Check out Wikipedias Healthy Diet entry for more information.

Cardio

Cardio is important if you need to burn fat, actually, it is great for your body either way and will help a lot with achieving your ab goals. A few things you could are running (10-20 minutes, whatever you can do, push yourself), swimming, and biking. The first two would probably be your best bet since biking does not rely as much on your abs as the others do. If you need to burn fat this is where you are going to do it, ab workouts only workout the muscle underneath the fat.

Ab Workouts

Check out these sites for many great ab exercises until our list goes up:

• Ab and Core Exercise Progression
• Real Women’s Fitness Ab Section (men can use them too)
• AskMen.coms Ab Guide
• How to Structure Your Ab Workout for Better Abs

There are many other resources online for great ab workouts, I will write a post in the coming weeks with my personal favorite exercises for abs. Comment below if there is anything you would like to add!

For many men the chest is a very important part of their workout routine. Well today you’re in luck, I am going to explain some basic beginner chest development strategies and lifts to help you reach your goals.

Bench Press

Probably the most common chest exercise, and for good reason.  The bench press is considered the major chest workout, and if used with a couple other chest exercises you can be looking more ripped than ever after a little work.

If you are unsure of the proper form while bench pressing I recommend taking a look at this guide.

If you are a true beginner for benching you could try the following workout below. Do not be afraid to customize this workout and make it your own, I would love to see your ideas in the comments!

Pushups: 4 sets @ maximum you can achieve (20 is a good starting goal). Once you get to your goal of completing all the sets/reps I would start on a real bench.

Bench Press: I would start off benching by using low weights so you can get used to the bar over the top of you and get a feel for the lift. If you are not a complete beginner I would start out with this routine to build chest muscle. Make sure you warm up and stretch properly before you begin the exercises. Remember to have an experienced spotter as well, never bench alone.

Day 1: 10, 8, 6 (reps). Use a weight you are confident you can achieve and adjust accordingly.

Day 2: 6, 4, 4 (reps). Go up in weight for the first set and push yourself to complete the reps while maintaining proper and safe form.

Day 3: 10, 3, 3, 3 (reps). On this day I would recommend a good solid high rep warmup (always warm up properly) and then higher weight at lower reps. What this will do is build muscle. Higher reps tone muscle, lower reps, higher weights build them.

*Note: Those are not consecutive days. The Day is representative of your chest workout day. I like to let my chest rest ATLEAST 3 days (or until not sore) to work it out again. If you workout while you are still sore you may risk injury and you will not develop how you should.

This is just an example I would do if I was trying to build a bigger chest using bench press. Remember before starting any workout routine to consult your doctor and if you are unsure as to what you should do I would recommend hiring a personal trainer.

The only way you are going to build a solid chest is to work hard and use proper form, I can not stress that enough. Your chest should be burning after each workout and you should really feel the weight.  Push yourself, if you can do an extra rep try to, but make sure your spotter is aware. Make sure you do not bounce the bar of your chest to try and do more weight or extra reps, this is extremely dangerous and can cause serious problems and injuries.

I hope this is helpful to beginners and experienced gym rats alike. More on Chest Development coming in the next few weeks.