6 Pack Abs Uncovered

6 Pack Abs Uncovered       

Six pack abs the neverending quest for the lean fat free waistline. Your training style, nutrition, and mindset are all extremely important if you want to stand a chance at getting six pack abs… However, if I had to choose 1 component that is most important, it would probably have to be nutrition. Maybe you’ve heard the saying before that “abs are made in the kitchen”.

It really is true, and that’s where the majority of people go wrong in the goal to get super lean. Of course, this also ties into mindset, because you really have to get your mind in the right place in order to have the discipline to be able to eat consistently clean enough to get six pack abs.

Too much cardio

Some people, in their efforts to try to get lean, focus way too much on hours and hours of cardio exercise. The problem is that this can backfire on you by making you lose lean muscle mass over time, which decreases your resting metabolic rate. Once this happens, it becomes easier to pack on body fat than ever before.  I’ve even seen many people that do too much cardio and end up getting that “skinny fat” appearance, where they have very little muscle tone, yet they have excess stomach fat (even a “gut” possibly).

Instead of excess cardio, focus more on high intensity weight training (yes, even during a “cutting” cycle). This will help maintain your lean muscle mass throughout your body so you can see those 6 pack abs, and  you don’t experience the metabolic rate decrease. Maintaining as much lean muscle mass on your body at all times is one of the most important things for staying super-lean for life.

Not eating enough healthy fats

This is another area where I see people go in the wrong direction. They are trying to lose body fat and they end up going WAY too low on their fat intake. When you decrease your fat intake too much, you are basically messing up your fat burning and muscle building hormones. It’s not uncommon to see people decrease their fat intake too low and end up reducing their testosterone levels significantly.

Try to get some sources of healthy fats with every meal to make sure you don’t go too low..

Incorporate any form of clean & presses into your routines twice per week. This could be barbell clean & presses or using kettlebells or dumbbells.  If I had to choose one exercise that burns the most calories and has the biggest impact on increasing your metabolic rate, I’d have to choose high intensity clean & presses (with squats and deadlifts being at the top of the pack also).  I like alternating the use of barbells for C&P’s one workout and kettlebells for another.

The Clean and Press is a great total body exercise. If you want six pack abs you must do total body training. Training this way causes fat loss throughtout your body which in turn is what gives you those 6 pack abs.

The Best Workout For Six Pack Abs And Losing Stomach Fat

The answer to the age-old question of “What is the best ab workout for losing stomach fat?” is…

None! Ab workouts alone don’t create enough of a metabolic response in your body to create fat loss.

As a trainer, nutrition specialist, and fitness professional, I often get asked what the best types of exercises and workouts are for losing stubborn stomach fat in order to bring out visible six pack abs. The problem is that most people with excess stomach fat looking to try to uncover their abs are searching for some “miracle abdominal workout” that is going to slash the fat off their abs in no time.

The thing is… they are going about the problem entirely the wrong way! The truth is that you don’t lose stomach fat by doing ab workouts.

The problem is that focusing most of your time and effort on abdominal exercises and abs workouts to try to flatten your stomach and bring out 6-pack abs is simply wasting your time from doing the correct workout programs that will acutally reduce your body fat for good.

If I were to choose an answer as to what the best exercises are for losing belly fat, my answer would include full body exercises such as the following:

Various forms of squats, lunges, deadlifts, clean & presses, snatches, swings, presses and pulls, mountain climbers, sprinting, etc.

These types of full body exercises would encompass a much higher percentage of the workouts I would design instead of abs exercises directly targeting the midsection. The way you combine those full body exercises into a strategic workout that maximizes your metabolism is also very important.

Don’t get me wrong… I do recommend a certain amount of exercises that directly target the abs and core, but these are only a small fraction of the programs I design for my clients as your time is better spent focusing on the full body exercises that stimulate the greatest hormonal and metabolic changes within the body. In addition, a side-effect of working out using mostly full body multi-joint combo exercises are that you indirectly work your entire midsection even though you are not specifically targeting the abs.

Keep in mind that the most important factor for losing belly fat to see your abs is actually in the nutrition arena. No matter how hard you workout, if your diet is full of junk, then your abdominals will be covered with ugly fat. Nutrition is without a doubt the “king of getting a six pack”.

So let’s clear this up for good…

Stop wasting so much of your time focusing on situps, crunches, leg raises, and all those silly worthless “ab contraptions” in your efforts to try to develop 6-pack abs. Instead focus on high intensity full body lifts using combination multi-joint exercises all strategically combined into highly effective fat loss workouts. Couple that with a healthy diet full of natural unprocessed whole foods as close to their natural state as possible, and those elusive six-pack abdominals will yours in no time!

Everyone will inadvertently hit a frustrating plateau in their training at one time or another. You’re cruising along for a while, gaining strength, losing fat, looking better, and then all of the sudden it hits. Suddenly, you find yourself even weaker than before on your lifts, or you find that you’ve gained back a couple of pounds. It happens to everyone. Most of the time, these plateaus occur because people rarely change their training variables over time. Many people stick to the same types of exercises for the same basic sets and reps and rest periods with the same boring cardio routine. Well, I hope to open your mind and bring some creativity to your workouts with this article!

There are many ways that you can strategically modify your training variables to assure that you maximize your

fat loss and/or muscle building response to exercise. Most people only think about changing their sets and reps performed, if they even think about changing their routine at all. However, other variables that can dramatically affect your results are changing the order of exercises (sequence), exercise grouping (super-setting, circuit training, tri-sets, etc.), exercise type (multi-joint or single joint, free-weight or machine based), the number of exercises per workout, the amount of resistance, the time under tension, the base of stability (standing, seated, on stability ball, one-legged, etc.), the volume of work (sets x reps x distance moved), rest periods between sets, repetition speed, range of motion, exercise angle (inclined, flat, declined, bent over, upright, etc), training duration per workout, and training frequency per week.

Sounds like a lot of different training aspects to consider in order to obtain the best results from your workouts, doesn’t it? Well, that’s where a knowledgeable personal trainer can make sense of all of this for you to make sure that your training doesn’t get stale. Below are a few examples to get your mind working to come up with more creative and result producing workouts.

Most people stick to workouts where they do something along the lines of 3 sets of 10-12 reps per exercise, with 2-3 minutes rest between sets. Booooorrrrring! Here are a few examples of different methods to spice up your routine.

•Try 10 sets of 3, with only 20 seconds rest between sets.

•Try using a heavier weight and complete 6 sets of 6 reps, doing a 3 minute treadmill sprint between each weight lifting set.

•Try using a near maximum weight and do 10 sets of 1 rep, with 30 seconds rest between sets.

•Try using a lighter than normal weight and do 1 set of 50 reps for each exercise

•Try a workout based on only one full body exercise, such as barbell clean & presses or dumbbell squat & presses, and do nothing but that exercise for an intense 20 minutes.

•Try a workout based on all bodyweight exercises such as pushups, pull-ups, chin-ups, dips, bodyweight squats, lunges, etc.

•Try a circuit of 12 different exercises covering the entire body without any rest between exercises.

•Try that same 12 exercise circuit on your subsequent workout, but do the entire circuit in the reverse order.

•Try your usual exercises at a faster repetition speed on one workout and then at a super-slow speed on your next workout.

•Try completing five 30 minute workouts one week, followed by three 1-hr workouts the next week.

•Try doing drop sets of all of your exercises, where you drop the weight between each set and keep doing repetitions without any rest until complete muscular fatigue (usually about 5-6 sets in a row).

There are many more ways to continue to change your training variables. I hope this article gave you some ideas on methods for you to take your body to the next level.

Thanks to Mike Geary for this article:

 Mike Geary is a nationally dual certified personal trainer (NCSF-CPT, AFAA-CPT) here in the US. He is the owner of Truthaboutabs.com and has authored the internationally selling book

 

The Truth about Six Pack Abs, with customers in over 50 countries world-wide. I’m also contributing writer for Muscle & Fitness Hers Magazine, a recognized “Platinum Expert Author” by Ezinearticles.com, and have had my fitness articles published on over 1000 fitness related websites around the world.

Get Six Pack Abs – Here’s Some Motivation

Six pack abs you want them but sometimes you get lazy (hey we all do) and don’t feel like working out. You know all the excuses we use to justify not to do something.

I found this and wanted to share it with you. Next time your feeling lazy look down at your abs then watch this.

 

Now go get those six pack abs!

6 Pack Abs Workout – Lose Body Fat Let’s Get Some Abs

6 Pack Abs Workout – Lose Body Fat Let’s Get Some Abs    

 High intensity workouts with some work for abs, core, and full body to take you to a new level of fitness in your quest for six pack abs and overall health and fitness.

Keep in mind that this workout I gave him uses bodyweight-only exercises, however, it is VERY intense and for people looking for advanced fitness levels.

With that said, keep in mind that if you’re not yet at an advanced level, you can still use this by simply using the basic format of the workout, and just do less of whatever exercises you struggle with, or choose an easier alternate exercise that’s similar.

Here goes…

To get to that next level in your workouts, we’re going to keep the intensity super high here and use the whole body. Keep rest periods short, and use full-body multijoint movements as much as possible.

I’ll give you a killer workout idea below that not only incorporates abs and entire core, but the entire body as well in an intense fashion. Not sure what (if any) equip you have available, so I’ll give you a great workout that’s bodyweight based. Here’s an example

Start with a 2-3 min warmup of light jogging, jumping jacks, or jump rope.

Then, move through these exercises in circuit fashion, one right after the other with only 10 seconds rest between each (repeat the circuit 3-5 times for a killer total body workout):

1. bodyweight squats – 12 reps

2. plyo pushups (clapping) – 10 reps

3. walking lunges up 6 steps and back 6 steps

4. floor mountain climbers for 30 seconds

5. lunge jumps – 6 reps to each side

6. lying leg thrusts (abs) on floor – 12 reps

7. squat jumps – 8 reps

8. side plank hold 30 seconds one side, then 30 sec opposite side

Rest 2 min after each circuit; repeat circuit 3-5x

Keep in mind this is a high intensity workout. Tone it down as I mention earlier and work up to the full load. Lose body fat and you are well on your way to those six pack abs.

Thaks to Mike Geary of The Truth About Six Pack Abs for this workout

Six-Pack Abs The Top Fat Loss Secrets

Six Pack Abs Fat Loss Secrets Tips And Advice

Q:  There are so many things out there as to what works and what does not work…if you had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get six pack abs and lose body fat , what would they be?

A:  The first and most important thing to get control of in order to get a set of six pack abs is cleaning up your diet. Exercise is important, but your diet is king when it comes to losing body fat so that you can see your abs.

There’s so much confusion these days about what a healthy diet that promotes body fat loss really is…after all, we are bombarded by conflicting messages in the media about what is healthy and what is not, and you have all of these gimmicky diet books about low carb, low fat, high protein, vegetarian, fasting, atkins, south beach, liquid diets, and hundreds more. There’s so much conflicting info, that the average consumer doesn’t even know where to start when it comes to eating for body fat loss.

The second thing that works time and time again, is to focus on the intensity of your workouts and focus on working the body as a whole in order to get the best metabolic response to lose that stubborn unwanted body fat. In order to really get lean, the workouts should have a high intensity, with short rest periods, working the largest muscle groups of the body, instead of trying to isolate specific small muscles like the biceps, triceps, or calves.

For the third thing, let’s talk about actually  ab exercises and ab workouts specifically. When it comes to ab exercises, if you want real results, I always recommend forgetting about the crunches and situps for the most part. They are ok for someone that is really deconditioned, but most people that already have some training under their belt need a much better stimulus for their abs than crunches. Crunches are one of the abs exercises that actually provide the least amount of resistance, and remember that resistance is what develops and tones the muscles.

There are many ab exercises out there but in the quest for six pack abs most people do them wrong. but one of  THE highest resistance exercises for the abs, is hanging leg raises (but NOT the way you see most people at the gym doing them). The key to doing these and actually working the hell out of your abs is to curl your pelvis up as you raise your legs. Almost nobody ever does this right. To be honest, the majority of people cannot do this at first, but I provide some strategies in my book as to how to progress to doing these correctly.

Q:  What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted “6 pack abs”?

A:  Well Geo, I know this sounds funny to most people, but the MAIN thing that people are doing wrong to get those flat 6-pack abs is…are you ready for this? They spend entirely too much time focusing on specific ab exercises. And I mean it way WAY too much time spent on abs exercises. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

Remember, having  flat and visible six pack abs is all about getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment in your body, and increasing your metabolic rate. That just does not happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like the abs.

Instead, you must use the majority of your time focusing on training the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, back, and chest. That’s what stimulates your metabolism and the fat burning hormones that will get you truly lean and sporting six pack abs!

Q: Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum defintion with their Abs and to get tose six pack abs?

MG: When it comes to developing six pack abs themselves, I again refer to any kinds of hanging abs exercises, as well as some good floor abs exercises like lying leg thrusts .

However, maximum definition in the abs and midsection comes from losing bodyfat, and the most effective exercises for that goal are various forms of swings and snatches (unique dumbbell or kettlebell exercises that almost nobody ever does in normal gyms), squats, deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, clean & presses, mountain climbers, sprinting, and other full body exercises and calisthenics. If you want a great looking set of six pack  abs, focus on those instead of focusing so much on training the abs directly!

Too much emphasis on doing countless ab exercises is not going to get you those six pack abs. For more tips and advice on what exercises and workouts you should be doing go to Six Pack Abs