You may have noticed that people with the best set of abs are boxers and MMA fighters. That’s because their entire profession has to do with twisting and flexing their core, abs in particular. When you watch a boxer in the ring, they don’t just punch with their arms, they put their body into it with force that comes from the core strength of rotating their trunk for power. Same thing with kicks from martial arts fighters. They twist their core for the power needed to make a forceful kick.

The other reason for their great abs is that they train them incessantly as protection from their opponent. When you flex your abs, you are making a hard surface that doesn’t budge when hit. Left un-flexed and you would cave and become dismobilized if hit in the gut with any real force.

Todays guest author is Chad Howse, and he teaches us 5 great ways to train our abs. Chad was formerly a boxer before he became a personal trainer, and he uses these techniques to train his clients to be their leanest. You can use these 5 strategies yourself next time you’re in the gym to start getting firm, toned abs.

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Guest Author: Chad Howse

1. Train abs every time you’re in the gym.

Boxers train their abs every time they step into a gym. That doesn’t mean daily, but it’s not too far off. When I was boxing, I was in the boxing gym 4 days a week, the weight room 3-4 days a week, and I did sprints or some other form of training almost daily.

It’s a way of life. A way of life that’ll get you rock hard abs.

A great way to break up your abs training is to work them in “rotating compartments”. Here’s how I did it:

Day 1: Train your upper abs with exercises like decline crunches, cable rope crunches, and conventional crunches.

Day 2: Train your oblique’s with side planks and single-arm farmer’s walk,

Day 3: Train your lower abs with hanging leg raise, hanging knee raises, and lying down leg raise.

Day 4: Make this a full day with roll-outs, planks and toe touches.

2. Punch often.  

Punching is one of the few exercises that involve your aerobic and anaerobic energy systems while also including trunk rotation at very high repetition.

What does this mean for your abs?

Hitting the ol’ heavy bag is one of the best ways to burn belly fat because it focuses on that problem area.

Hit the bag for rounds of 2-3 minutes, working on different combinations while alternating explosive speeds with slower tempos.

You can also go all out for 5 seconds, then slow down and recover for 5 seconds. This is a great way of incorporating HIIT into your heavy bag workout.

Even if you’re just doing straight lefts and rights, you’re going to be rotating your trunk back-and-forth, burning a ton of calories and fat around your mid-section.

Tip: keep your core activated whenever you’re throwing punches.

3. Skip.  

Jumping rope is one of the best, most under-used forms of cardio on the planet. You burn far more calories from skipping than you do from running.

When you jump rope, focus on keeping your core tight and firm. You’ll notice that you’ll start to fatigue in the midsection because of the multiple movements that you’re performing.

The twisting of the rope, the jumping, the different drills you can do, knee raises etc… all equate to a greater rate of fat being burned while skipping than you’d burn from running.

Skipping has been a staple exercise for boxers for over a hundred years because, just like boxing, skipping is a full body exercise. You need blood pumping through your shoulders and arms to turn the rope, as well as your legs. As you progress, add tricks to increase the difficulty of your skipping routine.

4. Keep them muscles flexed — always.

You can’t let your guard down when you’re in the ring — ever. One of the things that a referee says at the beginning of a fight is, “Protect yourself at all times.” And he means it.

Let your guard down for even a second and you could find yourself in a world of pain, or on the canvas looking up. Keeping your abs flexed for the duration of the fight protects your body. And a lot of boxers do this. You can also try it throughout your day.

This is also something that can help with lower back pain. By engaging your core throughout the day, you’ll burn more calories, and you’ll also bring more lactic acid to the area, which raises growth hormone levels and helps you burn more fat.

Give it a shot. Try engaging your core for a few minutes, then a few more. Add ten more minutes everyday until you’re walking around with a fully flexed six-pack.

5. Use weight to train your abs.

I never relied exclusively on repetition or bodyweight exercises when training my abs. I always added a few weighted exercises to help further develop the muscle.

Think about your abs just as you would think of your biceps or lats. Build the muscle, but also strip away the fat. By focusing on building that muscle, the fat will begin to drip away.

Try declined weighted sit-ups, cable crunches, and declined crunches with a 5 lbs plate held behind your head for starters.

Most of us focus only on stripping away the fat, which can get you lean. But if you focus on building the muscle as well, you’ll have a six pack that pops out like you’re viewing it through 3D glasses.

There you have it. Old school boxing methods for “armoring up” your abs, and delivering a firm athletic six pack that’ll be the envy of your friends and families — and the terror of your rivals.

Give these methods a try, and let me know how it went in the comments below.