Upper Ab Workouts

The upper abs are often the strongest area of the abs on people who do not work out or who do basic workouts. Still most people look to get their upper abs into better shape.

These three exercises, the butterfly, the curl, and the bench sit ups, all work the upper portion of the abs for a great workout.

Best Upper Ab Exercise – The Butterfly

The butterfly may look a little silly, but it works for a good start to an upper ab workout.

Sit on the floor as you would for a basic crunch: knees bent, feet shoulder-width apart, back on the ground. Let your knees drop out to the side and your heels come together. Your legs will form what looks like the wings of a butterfly, giving this exercise its name.

Keeping your legs bent, come up into a crunch, hold, and return to the starting position. This exercise keeps you from relying on your leg muscles the way you can do in a traditional crunch and works out the upper abs.

How To Do Ab Curls

The curl is very similar to a crunch as well, but it requires more upper ab strength.

Doing this upper ab exercise may be tough when you are just beginning, but keep working at it because it works really well. Lie down with your knees bent as you would with a crunch. Put your arms down at your side.

Slowly lift your head, neck, and chest and roll in as you would for a crunch. While you are rolling in, let your hands slide along the floor; do not lift them or use them for support. Then return to a sitting position. Most people definitely feel a burn from this upper ab workout.

Bench Sit Ups

The final exercise for an upper ab workout is a bench sit-up.

This exercise is to be done on a bench but can be modified at home if you do not have a bench available. Choose freeweights that will hold down your legs. For most people, a ten-pound is good. Lie with your feet at the top of the bench’s incline. Put the on your feet and then lie back.

Do a sit-up or crunch; the should hold your foot down. Learning to balance yourself is part of this exercise, and it will force you to rely on your ab muscles for strength. By beginning with this upper ab workout routine, you should begin to get your upper abs into shape quickly.

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Why You Should Have a Fitness Buddy

Getting physically fit is a very daunting task that takes time, patience, money, and endurance. Often, many women feel as if they are all alone in their journey and do not have someone to talk to or someone who understands their plight.

When this happens, they tend to want to give up and go back to their easier but unhealthy lifestyles. Having a workout, diet, and fitness buddy is such an important part of a successful lifestyle change.

Why Do You Need A Fitness Buddy?

First and foremost, people tend to stay more motivated when they have someone else there to encourage them along the way.

A buddy can help stay on your case when you start to “slack off” and they can also help you compare successes. They can really help you to maintain your accountability.

In addition, a fitness buddy offers up some friendly competition, which also stimulates and maintains motivation.

Sometimes people simply need a friendly reminder that they need to do things, and a fitness buddy is perfect for this.

They can help to remind you it’s time for your workout, or that you need to go grocery shopping for some fresh produce.

No matter what the reason, they make a great resource for helping to keep you in check, and sure that you’re holding up your end of the bargain.

When Can A Buddy Help You Out?

If you enjoy walking around your neighborhood as a form of exercise, a walking buddy is extremely important for safety reasons, and so you will have someone to chat with along the way.

Walking with a partner makes the entire trip seem much easier and it helps it to go by faster.

This concept also applies to working out at the gym. Your fitness buddy can be your spotter and can encourage and motivate you to lift just five more pounds this week.They can also be good for carpooling so you both save a bit of money on gas and on transportation.

When you feel a bit discouraged, you can turn to your buddy for advice or help. They can be a great support system in times of need or when you’re just feeling down.

It’s also nice to have someone who is going through the same thing you are, and whom you can share a goal with. There are countless reasons why having someone to share your fitness journey is a good idea for you, but for them as well.

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Barriers to Self Esteem

I don’t know about you but everywhere I look there are barriers to self esteem. If you are interested in self development but have low self esteem, the first thing you need to do is fix that. Until you do, it is much harder to accurately assess what you need to learn and change in order to achieve your goals. In fact, if you have low self esteem it can be difficult to even see what your goals are.

Imagine yourself as a dart board. Everything and everyone else around you has the potential to become a damaging dart pin, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self esteem and pull you down in ways you may not even be conscious of. It’s important not to let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So what are the dart pins to avoid, and how can you keep them from hurting you?

Barriers to Self Esteem

Barriers to Self Esteem

Negative Work Environment – Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. You may find you are working harder and harder for less and less return.

Stay out of this, it will ruin your self esteem. Find ways to manage your work within the normal working day at least 90% of the time. If you have to compete with others, compete on your own terms. Do not be drawn into power games or negative behavior that will make you feel badly about yourself.

Other People’s Behavior – Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, the walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers … all these negative behaviors in others will damage your self esteem, as well as to your self development program. But remember, it is not the person that is the problem: it is their behavior.

Changing Environment – You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. They test our flexibility, adaptability and alter the way we think. Changes will make life difficult for a while and often cause stress, but when we look back we will see that change is often the catalyst or cause of self development. Try not to resist it.

Past Experience – It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when we experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear by constantly thinking of the bad things that have happened to you or others in the past. It’s easy to wreck a relationship by bringing with you the issues you had in your last relationship, and expecting your new partner to be like your previous one. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson, and move on.

Negative World View – Look at what you’re looking at. Don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of worst situations.

Determination Theory – The way you are and your behavioral traits is said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits, your upbringing, and your current environment such as your friends, your work situation, the economy and even the climate of the country that you live in.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that your genetics or upbringing will determine how your life goes. You have your own identity. If your father is a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.

In life, its hard to stay firm, especially when things and people around you seem to keep pulling you down. There are many barriers to self esteem that you can help yourself by protecting yourself from. However, building self esteem will eventually lead to self development if we start to become responsible for who we are, what we have and what we do.

When we develop self esteem, we take control of our mission, values and discipline. Self esteem brings about self improvement, true assessment, and determination. So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self esteem and set you on the path to positive self development.

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