Routine & Plan

If you're on a mission to get ripped abs, it's important that you take some time to come up with an abs workout routine & plan that is going to help you get lean quickly. If you don't have a proper plan to follow as you go about this goal you're going to find that you spend far more time feeling frustrated than you do noticing results.

The ab muscles are ones that do take some work to expose fully but if you are using a good abs workout routine & plan, it's definitely possible. How long it takes you to get ripped abs is always going to depend on your starting point with those who have more body fat to lose taking longer to see success than those who are already quite lean, but if you work hard at it, you can most certainly get your ab muscles to show fully the way you want them to.

Let's get started and show you the best abs workout routine & plan that you should be following.

Interval Training

The very first thing that you should work into your abs workout routine & plan is interval training. This form of cardio workout is going to be the best for getting ripped abs since you'll burn of fat at a much faster pace and increase the metabolism in the long run.

Those who are only performing steady state moderate paced cardio training are far more likely to see a plateau in their results and may even start to lose lean muscle mass.

Interval training kicks the intensity up a notch and you can be sure that you'll really enjoy the results you see form it.

Your Workout Split

Second, the next thing that you must consider when coming up with your abs workout routine & plan is the workout split that you're using. The best approach for the beginner who is looking to get ripped abs is going to be a full body workout plan since this will allow you to work every single muscle fiber at once, at a high frequency each week.

While you may have tried body part splits in the past where you did a chest workout one day, a leg workout another, then did a shoulder workout the day after, these generally tend to be far less effective and are definitely not ideal for the beginner.

Instead, use a full body workout program that's going to really get you burning calories and seeing results quickly.

Your Exercise Selection

Now, when it comes to exercise selection with your abs workout routine & plan, you must choose carefully. To get ripped abs you want to burn as many calories per workout as possible so this means working as many muscle fibers at one instant as you can.

To do this, choose exercises such as bench press, bent over rows, squats, deadlifts, and shoulder presses. These are going to really up your calorie burn and also help you gain additional muscle strength in the process.

Leave out the isolation exercises such as bicep curls, leg extensions, lateral raises, and so on until the very end of the workout if you really want to add these in as they will just take away from the overall results that you're seeing.

Your Set and Rep Range

The factor of set and rep range when figuring out your abs workout routine & plan must also be thought about. Ideally you want to be challenging the muscles hard with a heavier weight so go for a set range of 2-3 sets per exercise and a rep range of 6-10 reps.

This is going to be best for the beginner since it's going to help keep the volume on the lower side of things so that you don't start to overtrain.

If you do start to notice that you're experiencing a high level of fatigue from workout to workout, this is an instant signal that you're not recovering enough from your sessions and should immediately back down on the total volume slightly so that you can give the body more time to rest and recover.

Remember, if you're not recovered by the time you go back into the gym for that second session, you're just breaking the body down further rather than building it back up.

Your Abs Training

Finally, the last part of your beginner's abs workout routine & plan to think about is the abs training. Since you definitely do want to work those ab muscles in the program to develop your core and help create a more aesthetically pleasing image, you should devote ten to fifteen minutes to ab work at the end of each session.

Ideally you'll want to focus on those ab movements that are going to have you as off balanced as possible as this is what increases the overall muscle fiber recruitment in the ab muscles and allows you to see results faster.

If you're stuck performing crunches day after day after day, you'll never be engaging the ab muscles fully enough and that will really hold back your progress.

Instead look to various tools you can use to increase the intensity such as exercise balls or medicine balls, both of which are going to reduce your balance or base of support and increase the demands that your muscles are exposed to.

So there you have all the main key components that must be considered as part of your abs workout routine & plan. If you aren't touching on each of these key issues there's a very good chance that you may be going wrong somewhere and are going to struggle with your quest to get ripped abs.

Remember that it's going to be a combination of the right interval training, the right weight lifting workouts, along with a smart eating plan that gets you the results you're after, so be sure that all have a place in your program plan.

Here are some good training resources:

http://www.the-abs-workout.com/turbulence/

http://www.the-abs-workout.com/rippedabs/

http://www.the-abs-workout.com/burnfatfeedmuscle/

http://www.the-abs-workout.com/7minutesmuscle/

Free Workout Routine Guide for Download - Hotzone Workout Routine Guide