The basic power lifts are great for overall body development and actually impacts your core or abdominal muscles. The power lifts are the squat, the dead lift, and the bench press. There are other lifts that has a huge direct impact on our abdominal muscles. One of those lifts is the front squat. The front squat specifically works on the front quadriceps. You can also feel this lift impact your front shoulders and even back. If you are doing it correctly and the weight is heavy enough, you will feel it directly on your abdominals. You will feel it affect your abdominals more than doing a hundred crunches. One area of your body it impacts that is beneficial for those who want to have six-pack abs and look slim is the side abdominal muscles. These are the muscles that pull your gut in. Let us take a look at the front squat.
The front squat is best performed with an Olympic bar or a barbell bar. You can position your hands like you are doing a clean (palms facing you with the wrists bend toward you). But, the best way I believe for your arms to be in is crossing your arms in such a way that your right palms rest on your left shoulders and your left palms rest on your right shoulders. The barbell will rest on your front shoulders. Keep your elbow up and head up so that the barbell will not roll off. Start light at first to get the feel. If you are just starting, you can feel this front squat exercise just with the 45 pound Olympic barbell. Now, if you have skinny shoulders, you may feel a bit uncomfortable with the barbell resting on your front shoulders. It would be a great goal to beef up your shoulders by doing shoulder presses, bench presses, and other shoulder movements to get some size on those shoulders to act as pads for your body to do front squats. As you are going down, inhale and keep your heels down. As you are going up, exhale and still keep your heels down. Look up at all times. It is tempting to look down. But, your body will always go in the direction your head is positioned. Besides the future looks bright so keep your head up because you are doing front squats.
As you do heavier weights with front squats, you will get stronger. You will notice also that your abdominal muscles are getting quite a workout- especially the side part of the abdominal muscles. Start doing some front squats as part of your routine for six-pack abs.
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