Most people tend to use traditional exercises such as crunches exclusively and expect to see results. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. To get seriously toned and defined abs you have to do more than just the typical exercise. One of the most effective and powerful ways to build up your abs is by incorporating exercise ball ab workouts into your routine.

Exercise ball ab workouts are intense, powerful routines that work literally every part of your abs. These workouts focus on your inner obliques, outer obliques, abdominals and others. This is essential to ensure that you get the toned abs you want. If you have never used an exercise ball for any workout you may be surprised at how difficult and intense the workouts are using one. The one thing that makes using exercise ball ab workouts so much better than traditional exercises is that you have to teach your body to balance itself while doing them. This one little difference makes the workout incredibly intense and forces your body to work muscles you wouldn’t normally touch with other workout routines.

There are quite a few exercises you can perform on an ab ball, too. You can do crunches on an exercise ball, sure, but there are many other things you can do on it as well. Crunches are much more intense and difficult when using an exercise ball. You have to learn to perfect your form by balancing yourself correctly and completing the exercise without straying off of the ball as well. This may sound easy but it really isn’t. You will feel the burn in your abs while on the exercise ball more than you ever have doing them on the floor or even on a bench.

Another popular move that is performed in exercise ball ab workouts is the reverse crunch. These are incredibly effective at working your lower obliques. The exercise is performed by lying on the ground with your feet located on top of the exercise ball. Then you proceed to lift the ball, by using your heels and thighs, and bring your knees in toward your chest. Afterward you slowly return the ball back to the floor. These are great to do about 10 repetitions of.

You can also perform exercise ball ab rolls. This involves getting on your knees and placing your hands on the ball in front of you and slowly roll the ball forward. You roll the ball as much as you can without causing back pain or arching the back at all and then slowly roll back. Do about 10 repetitions of these exercise ball ab workouts as well.

I don’t know about you but the longer I train the more I wish there were things I could do to shorten a workout. Just a few simple changes to any workout can improve the efficiency and speed of it. This secret training tip will shave minutes of those routine biceps exercises and will begin building bigger biceps.

The incline Dumbbell curl is one of the routine biceps workouts, and is the example that I am going to share with you today. It is common knowledge that the incline dumbbell curl is one of the most effective biceps exercises you can do, as it puts an enormous stretch on the bottom of the bicep muscles and it’s key to building bigger biceps.

The normal way of doing a very effective biceps workout by the way is lying back on the bench, letting your arms hang down beside you then curling the dumbbells up to the highest position. This is the normal style and has been tried and tested for years, there is nothing wrong with it, but it can be improved with just a few tiny adjustments, and your not reading this article because you want normal results are you?

So here’s the technique on How to Build Bigger Biceps using the Incline bicep curl…..

Right…..Instead of sitting right back on the incline bench as you would do normally, you are going to pick up your dumbbells first of all, then your going to straddle the incline bench. Once in that standing position, move your butt all the way onto the incline bench. The sit on the incline face of the bench and set your feet on the seat of the bench with your knees bent.

You with me so far?…..Now, the top end of the bench should be in line with your shoulder blades or just below. Now arch your back over the back over the top end of the bench as though you were trying wrap your back over and around the bench end if that doesn’t sound too painful…Trust me it’s fine Then turn your palms forward throughout the exercise for maximum results. In this bottom position, you should feel an increased stretch on the biceps beyond what you normally get with the incline bicep curl.

Now…the reason behind the increased stretch on the biceps comes from the actual position of the chest and the shoulders. When you’re in a standard position doing the incline bench curl, your shoulders are over-lapping your chest which doesn’t allow your chest to fully open. Don’t get me wrong you still get a pretty good stretch doing it this way but you don’t get the maximum stretch, which is the absolute key to performing this exercise to it’s best.

When your shoulders are off the top end of the bench and are not supported, the weight of the dumbbells pulls the shoulders back down, allowing the chest to open more and create a larger stretch on the bicep muscles.

Perform this exercise as you would normally do on an Incline Dumbbell Curl. Start off with the normal squeeze of the biceps, lift all the way to the top of the movement, doing your best to keep the upper arms vertical, then hold it for a second at the top.

Here’s the big secret…On the way back down I want you to keep your palms faced outwards, keep them facing forwards all the way down to the bottom of the movement. This is the most important part of the exercise and is were you will feel the most benefit. Make sure you lower the dumbbells under a complete smooth action, and for an extra shot of tension on the biceps, try pushing your elbows forward ad you lower the dumbbells. To do this you need to imagine that your trying to push a button with your biceps – it takes quite a bit of patience and persistence as it can be very hard to get right, but it definitely worth your while if you can master it.

Now…when you lower the dumbbells to the very bottom of the movement, you should let the dumbbells pull and stretch your shoulders backwards and down, therefore opening up the chest and creating much more tension on the biceps. This negative part of the movement together with the increased stretch caused by your bodies positioning will lead to AWESOME muscle building potential.

You must take advantage of this tip and put it into practice as soon as you can, just remember not to lose the stretch and tension in your biceps. As you feel the stretch curl up again with same exact movement as last time. This exercise is a lot more strenuous on the muscles so make sure you start off with lighter weights than you would like to use at first. Applying the stretch like this alleviates the need for a heavier weight and just comes to show that it’s not how much you lift it’s how.