How to get six pack abs
- By:Patrick Altoft
Over the years I have seen a lot of flimsy ideas of how to get a set of six
pack abs. The most common scams are special machines that will do it and
sometimes some kind of drink. I remember at one point Slim Fast seemed to be
showing chubby people suddenly spawning a set of six pack abs.
Anyway I wanted to put this notion to rest that there is some magic to
getting a six pack. Sure there is some genetics involved in sculpting
perfect abs but the two most important factors are diet and exercise.
What? Did you think there was a shortcut?
The diet part is fairly simple; you need to drop any extra fat. You have
probably heard this before but there is no such thing as spot reduction when
you are losing weight. You will lose weight proportionately, generally, as
you lose weight. What you may find is that you have a large stomach and if
that is the case of course you will lose that fat faster than you lose the
fat on your legs but that is just because that is where the fat deposits
will be easiest for your body to use.
As you probably know from reading other posts of mine I subscribe to the
idea that people eat too many carbohydrates generally but I still do not
support the Atkins diet generally. I believe that you must increase your
protein to 20% of your diet, keep fats at about 20% of the calories of your
diet and then have carbs as the other 60% of the calories of your diet. If
you still have trouble losing you may be a bit sensitive to carbohydrates
and you can up the protein a little.
As for exercise, to get a set of six pack abs you will have to do two
things; get in an hour of cardio a day to increase your metabolism and start
really dropping the fat and secondly make sure that you do your abdominal
exercises at the start of your workouts.
For cardio exercise it does not really matter what kind of cardio exercise
you get but it is always best to vary your exercise so that you do not
overtrain any one muscle group. I never see people speak of this in regards
to cardio training but I have found in the past with my bicycling that when
I am riding a lot my legs get sore but the rest of my body recovers fine. So
maybe try to alternate some kind of biking, swimming, hiking, running, brisk
walking and even using a rowing machine if you have a chance. Do cardio
almost every day, five or six days a week is good, seven days a week is
pushing it a little too much in my eyes.
Next is the abdominal exercises themselves. There are three places to target
for your abdominals, the obliques, which are on your sides, your upper
abdominals and your lower abdominals. Doing abdominal exercises is something
that some people believe you should do every day but I really believe you
are doing well if you just do them every second day or three days a week.
For your obliques you can do twists. Simply sit on a bench with you body
straight up and down and put some kind of a light bar or broomstick across
your shoulders and then do twists twist from one side to the other as far as
you can go for two sets of 100 reps. The key is to not use much weight at
all as gaining muscle on your obliques will widen your midsection which is
not something most people want to do.
To work your upper abdominals you want to do some kind of sit ups or
crunches. I am more a fan of crunches as they are easier on your neck and
mower back. Lie on your back with your legs up on the seat of a chair so
that your legs are at a 90 degree angle to your body and then just lift your
shoulders a few inches of the ground and then let them down again. This
should put stress on your abs and you should feel it pretty intensely after
just a few reps. be sure to do this exercise slowly and for at least three
sets of 30 reps.
To work your lower abdominals you need to do something that raises your legs
in the air as opposed to lifting your upper body into the air. The exercise
that I prefer for this is a kind of reverse crunch that I do not have a name
for. I lie flat on my back and hold something behind my head to keep my
upper body stable and then I just bring my knees up towards my chest and
back down to the ground again. If you get really strong this way you can try
just lifting your legs straight out and up but sadly I am not that strong.
If you follow this plan you will se results very quickly and depending on
how much fat you have to lose you can see rock hard abs fairly quickly. The
other great thing about strengthening your abs besides looking better is the