Stomach Vacuum Exercise

Do you often flex your abdominal muscles as you stand up in front of the mirror? This can look quite different from pushing out your stomach. Which look would you prefer?  It’s pretty obvious that your abs look their best when properly flexed.  Do you want to know how to keep this look consistent with your abs? Bruce Lee abs are within your reach, provided you do these unique breathing exercises. Tighten that stomach with the help of the Farmer Burns stomach flattener and the stomach vacuum exercise.

We have to declare something right off the bat before we go over the details. You will not get six pack abs solely from breathing exercises like these.  Sorry, you’re going to have to lose body fat through diet and exercise before that happens.  When you do planks, renegade rows, and other types of core exercises, you will get tighter abs, but you have to under go a strict fat loss diet in order to get the best results you possibly can.

The reason breathing exercises for abs work well is due to muscle memory or the mind to muscle link.  As you keep up your practice, you can keep your abs flexed without having to think about it. No matter what time of day, you will have nice, tight abs.

With this stomach flattener exercise, you just breath in deeply and flex your abs as you exhale.

1. Maintain a straight, tall stance, keeping your feel shoulder width from each other. 2. Breathe deeply through your nose to the point where your lungs are full, without puffing out your abs. 3. Blow the breath out forcefully as you flex. Make sure the breath you really release is as little as possible.  I leave my mouth slightly open while tightening my abs.  You can also keep your fists clenched as you tighten those abs to give a little assistance. 4. Take the next five to ten seconds to get your abs flexed as you exhale a bit throughout, until your breath is completely gone, then breath back in again and repeat.

Karate training can teach you the kind of breath that is necessary, which is used when you tense your abs to absorb a stomach punch.  I repeat this exercise for 10 times, but it’s probably best to start with 2-3 times initially. Deep breathing can make you feel lightheaded until you get used to it.  Form the muscle memory that you need everyday with these exercises. Put this into your ab training routine as you get better at the breathing.

The stomach vacuum consists of exhaling all the air in your lungs while sucking in your stomach:

1.  Start from a bent over position with your hands on your knees.
2. Push out all of your air.
3.  Slightly rise up while sucking in your stomach but avoid taking in any air.
4. Keep your stomach flexed like this for a few seconds, then do it all over again.

I change this up a bit, as I stand up all the way then arch back a bit, which lets my upper abs work a bit. As you begin, take it slow and try just doing the exercise itself. I do a ten rep set of this exercise too.

Farmer Burns stomach flattener and the stomach vacuum exercise are two ways to help improve the actual look of your abs.  They can’t spot reduce the fat that is on your belly, but you can get your muscle memory to the point to where you will start to exercise on your own without you knowing with these exercises.  Using this method, maybe one day your abs can look like Bruce Lee abs.