In your efforts to increase your muscle mass, the most troublesome muscle group is usually your abdominal muscles, yet one of the things we all want is to have amazing abs. Man of us, but women especially, try to build their ab muscles using "crunches", with little results. You can do 100 crunches every day and "feel the burn", but that alone will not give you a visible "6-pack".

Your core, or trunk, is where much of your excess fat develops and covers your abdominal muscles. Your abs are one of the most troublesome muscle groups to effectively build, but that's because we usually go about it all wrong. Your abs actually get the most work out during other activities, even simply sitting and walking; even more action than they get through excessively repeated crunches. Every workout can strengthen your core and build your ab muscles.

Being told to stand up straight and have better posture as a child was probably the best advice anyone has ever given you, when it comes to building great abs. By practicing having better posture all the time, during aerobic workouts and weight-training sessions, and in your daily life as well, you can utilize all of your core muscles more effectively. Proper posture requires more core strength, because it makes your body work a little harder to support your trunk, your spine, and your upper body. So this is a simple, but valuable key to building your ab muscles and getting that flat tummy or 6-pack you've always dreamed of.

Instead of trying to isolate your abdominal muscles and work them to death with crunches and expensive ab-workout contraptions, you can just change how you carry yourself on a regular basis and have better results! It's fun to practice good posture anyway, pretending you're Superman or Wonder Woman will help you stand taller and straighter, and result in a stronger core and better ab muscles!

It's also important to remember than in order to build muscle, you must have calories and fat for your body to burn. Dieting to decrease your calories and intake of fat is going to make it harder to build more muscle and can even reduce the integrity of your existing muscle tissue. To diet this way and try to increase your muscle mass, you will be short-changing yourself and making the process much more difficult.

Exercises such as Yoga and Tai Chi also challenge your core to stabilize your body, effectively causing your body to develop more core strength and build your abs. These techniques are also great for stretching and stimulating your muscles between intense workouts.