Building Six-Pack Abs Takes More Than Just Great Exercises—Here’s How to Sculpt Your Core and Define Your Midsection!
Must-Know Truths About Six-Pack Abs
1.You Don’t Need Daily Workouts to Effectively Train Your Abs
When you train other muscle groups like legs and back, you indirectly involve you abs, so your core gets a great deal of secondary stimulation. Of course, you only get that ab activation if you’re doing exercises like squats, deadlifts, and standing military presses, so never rely solely on machine work!
Still, you don’t need to train your abs daily. Just like any other muscle group, they need some recovery after workout time. Of course, you have more slow-twitch fibers in your abdominals as compared to your fast-twitch muscle fibers; you still gain best benefits from them by leaving sufficient recovery between workouts.
2. Training Your Abs Alone Won’t Burn Belly Fat—Here’s What You Need to Know!
You can do crunches until you’re blue in the face, but they’re not going to make a big difference in the amount of body fat around your midsection. There’s no such thing as “spot reducing,” so you need to get your overall body-fat levels down, and that means paying attention to your total caloric intake and burning more cals through exercise.
3. Your Six-Pack Will Stay Hidden Until You Shed Excess Body Fat
Unlike other muscle groups, your abs won’t show unless your body fat is very low, no matter how many exercises you do. To reveal your abs, you’ll need to either burn more calories or eat fewer. Genetics also play a big role in determining body fat levels, which is why it’s easier for some people to achieve visible abs than others.
4. A visible six-pack doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthy.
Six-pack abs can be one sign that a person is maintaining a healthy weight, especially given the incidence of obesity today, but it doesn’t automatically mean they’re healthy.
I know a number of individuals with six-packs who are unhealthy because they under-eat or consistently perform excessive cardio. Finding a balance is key to not just getting your six-pack but maintaining it.
5. Yes, You Can Achieve a Six-Pack—or at Least a Strong Four-Pack!
Metabolic abnormalities aside, I think this to be true, but it requires extreme dedication and consistency both inside and outside the gym. Remember, however, that the general outline of your six-pack is genetically predisposed.
You could have an 8- or 10-pack—yes, I’ve seen them—or just a four-pack depending on the genetic cards you’ve been dealt.
How to Eat Your Way to Six-Pack Abs
It’s hard to follow a mass-gain eating plan and expect your abs to become more visible. Sure, you can make your abs stronger through training, but more than any other muscle group, six-pack abs are made in the kitchen.
The Beginner’s Foolproof Guide To Six-Pack Abs
In fact, most physique athletes follow either a calorie-restricted diet or one in which they eat enough calories to maintain their current condition. It is the exceedingly rare individual who can add lean body mass and chisel his or her six-pack at the same time.
If you want a summer six-pack, your best bet is to keep a close eye on your diet. Instead of decreasing everything you’re eating, it’s smart to actually increase protein intake when on a calorie-restricted nutrition plan. This will help you stay satiated and spare your hard-earned muscle mass.
Besides monitoring your carb intake—especially sugars—be aware of how many calories are lurking in drinks and fill up on very filling vegetables that aren’t calorie-dense. The general aim is to consume fewer calories every day than you expend.
If you maintain a high level of protein intake, you’ll be less likely to lose lean tissue and burn more body fat. The basic science behind getting your abs to pop doesn’t get much more straightforward than that.
How to Train for a Six-Pack
It is an around-the-clock activity, but the training aspect only involves a 15-20-minute workout about every 2-3 days. Train your abs intensely and help them recover with proper rest and nutrition. The only other “secrets” to ab training are consistency and using good form.
You can pick any number of exercises to focus on (not necessarily isolate) specific areas of your midsection, and most people will end up with a few favorites. Here are a few of mine.
The Beginner’s Foolproof Guide To Six-Pack Abs
Lower Abs: Hit this area by lifting the legs with the upper body stabilized and pulling up at the bottom end of the rectus abdominis. Top Exercises: Hanging leg raises or captain’s chair leg raises, decline-bench reverse crunches, mountain climbers.
Upper Abs: This is the area targeted when stabilizing your lower torso and drawing your upper body towards it, thus shortening the distance between the ribcage and pelvis. Top exercises: Rope cable crunches, decline-bench crunches, machine crunches.
Obliques: Obliques run along the sides of your six-pack. I like to train them with more volume and lighter weights so that the muscles don’t build up too much over time, which affects the thickness of the midsection. Top exercises: Captain’s chair oblique raises, cable wood choppers (light to moderate weight), decline-bench Russian twists.
Essential Tips for a Killer Six-Pack Workout
- Choose three exercises—one from each category—and do 4 sets of each movement for your abdominal workouts.
Keep rest periods fairly short between sets, about 30-60 seconds.
For bodyweight exercises, use a controlled movement and go to muscle failure; don’t stop at a predetermined rep target.
For weighted upper-ab movements like machine or cable crunches, select a weight that allows you to hit muscle failure at 12-15 reps.
For weighted oblique movements, it should be light.
Do Russian twists for time-about 40 seconds.
Kickstart Your Journey to Six-Pack Abs
The ultimate goal is not to do hundreds of endless reps to achieve a tight midsection. Instead, train your abdominal core from various angles with different exercises to make it tighter. Eat below maintenance or burn more calories through exercise to drop body fat. Train and eat smart in concert, and your six-pack will begin to show!
