Many people go through the motions of abdominal training because they want six pack abs, a perfectly flat tummy, or just to look drop dead gorgeous by vacation time. The problem is most people go about abdominal training all wrong because they don't understand how abdominal exercises work and what else is required beyond these exercises to get the body they want.

If abdominal training is of interest to you, then it's time to consider some realistic tips on how to do it effectively. These tips will save you a lot of time and help you get much better results from your ab workouts and training efforts:

You cannot do excessive abdominal exercises and expect your body to drop fat from your abs. You have to burn fat from the entire body and you never know specifically where the fat will come off of.

Functional exercises that move your muscles in a natural manner should be the foundation of your abdominal training.

In order to be effective, your ab workouts should isolate muscles and challenge them to exhaustion. This should be the first goal when you start training your abs.

You don't start jogging one day and run a marathon the next, so you shouldn't expect to jump into abdominal training with the most difficult moves. Start with very simple moves that are still challenging and with time you will be able to advance to more difficult movements and exercises that bring even greater results. You can injure yourself doing movements your body is not ready to handle.

Isolating your ab muscles means eliminating the help of other muscles in the body. This is why form is so important when performing abdominal exercises. You should be able to feel the contraction in the abdominal muscles throughout every movement and if that cannot be felt you may be relying upon other muscles too much.

Abdominal training is best performed slowly. When you go too fast you allow momentum to do some of the work, which is just as bad as allowing other muscles to take over.

Breathing is extremely important in abdominal training. If you get caught up in the movement and hold your breath you can get dizzy and the quality of your movements will suffer. Breathing goes hand in hand with slow, deliberate motions that concentrate on isolating the muscle. In fact, you shouldn’t hold your breath in any of your workouts.

Abdominal training is not a race. It's not about who does the most crunches every day or who can hold their plank the longest. Form is extremely important and when you rush through the exercises, form will always suffer. It is much better to do less but make sure that your form is perfect so you get the most from your abdominal training.

Effective ab workouts take some time to develop. The first step is not to beat someone else, but to learn the basics of form so you know when you are doing something effective and when you are wasting your time.