This is a subject that has been widely discussed, and yet there is still a huge amount of confusion still surrounding it, so today I am goin to clear it up once and for all!
The six pack or washboard effect is caused by the ridges in the abdominal muscle that run down your stomach. The function of these muscles is mainly to support your torso, in partnership with the lower back, and also to allow you to complete such everyday tasks as sitting up straight.
Something I would like to point out is that EVERYONE HAS THESE MUSCLES, so in effect everyone has a six pack in there somewhere! Ok so I have just said that everyone has a six pack, if that’s the case why can’t you see it?! The number one reason for not being able to see some ones six pack abs is that there is a layer hiding it! That is it, that is why we don’t all walk around with a perfect six pack. You need to achieve a low enough body fat level to see your six pack, this varies from person to person, but in general if a man get’s below 12% to 10% body fat percentage you can see his stomach muscles. I would also like to mention that spot reduction is a complete myth and is NOT possible, there are no exercises that will target specific areas of fat on our body, such as the stomach. When you lose weight you do find that fat will go from some areas before others, this can largely differ from person to person. Having an area on your body that seems to be more stubborn is not uncommon, but it will go eventually! How our six pack look’s once the layer of fat gone, is largely due to genetics, the symmetry and size of each split has generally already been decided for us. However we can improve the tone and even build up these muscles as with any other muscle in the body, we will go into this in a little while though…
We have mentioned that everyone has abs and 99% of the time, we just need to remove the layer of fat that is hiding them. So how do we do this? Hundreds of sit ups everyday? Buying the latest Ab workout apparatus? NO! These are some of the biggest mistakes that people make, if you are thinking that these are your answer then you are not looking at it it correctly. A good way to look at it is that your abs need to be revealed, the fastest most efficient way to do this is to undertake a diet and exercise program aimed at burning fat, rather than just concentrating on trying to improve the actual stomach muscles with a few exercises.
There are many exercise programs that you could undertake, but when picking one with the aim of losing fat and revealing that six pack, you should ensure that it includes the following:
1. A Cardio session lasting at least twenty minutes to start, working up to forty minutes, to be completed at least three time a week. Cardio is the ultimate fat burner, good cardio exercises including jogging, cycling and rowing.
If you would like a shorter but still effective cardio workout, you take on an interval training session. This is a lot harder than a steady cardio workout, and requires a higher level of fitness, but the rewards are great. Along with a great fat burning workout, you are also improving your fitness dramatically. A interval training workout should generally last about twenty minutes, there are several alternatives for organise this workout, below is an example:
2min Walking (Warmup)
1min Sprint (Work interval)
1min Slow Jog (Recovery interval)
Repeat the Work & Recovery intervals 8 times
2min Walking (Cool Down)
Total Workout time = 20mins
2. Resistance training session two or three time a week. Although your aim here may not be to build muscle, a good resistance training program will improve the tone and build up existing muscle, this is important when losing weight as it will prevent you from looking frail and weak when you have lost weight, and give you a more athletic look to complement your new six pack! You should also know that more muscle burns up more calories just by maintaining itself, how great is that! Resistance training can also be a good fat burning workout, keep your resitance training workouts intense with short rest periods between sets. Performing a full body workout, or a two day split will suffice. Resistance training can be performed using free weights, resistance machines, cables, or even bodyweight.
I have already mentioned that we can improve the tone and even build up our stomach muscles, so as part of our resistance training program we should also give our stomach muscles a good workout so they look their best when we get fat free and reveal them to the world! So as part of our resistance training program we should include exercises aimed at our abs, and we should include this in each resistance workout, twice at most three times a week to prevent over training them. I like to perform two different exercises, and usually three sets of at least twelve reps. Some good abs exercises are listed below.
Crunch
Weighted Crunch
Incline Crunch
fit ball crunch
Knee ups
Leg Raises
Crunch Cycling
As you can see none of these exercises are completed on any type of ab workout machine that you see advertised on the tv, I recommend that you stay away form most of these.
So we have briefly covered the exercise aspect of losing fat to reveal your six pack, now let’s look at your diet.
It has been said by several fitness experts that “A Six Pack is Made in the Kitchen”. This is pretty much true, and although you should be undertaking a good exercise program to greatly improve your fat loss results, your diet plays a vital role in achieving the low body fat levels required to show your six pack. An important part of a good diet for me is that it is healthy for the body and doesn’t starve your body of anything that it needs, which unfortunatley a lot of the fad diets and celebrity diets do. Starving your body of something may achieve some short term success, but your body is a very clever thing and will soon put a halt to the results you have gotten. Also these diets are just not realistic to stick to, and the moment you go back to your normal diet you will pile the pounds back on.
As a general guide your diet should focus on the following:
1. Calorie control. Although you should be burning away those calories via exercise, to maximize your results you should stick to a calorie controlled diet. By calorie controlled I mean that you should be creating a calorie deficit in your diet (i.e. consume less calories than you use up).
2. Consume enough protein. This is an area that people lack in when trying to lose fat. consuming enough protein will ensure that your body is burning away fat and not eating away at muscle, this also ties into one of the reason for performing resistance training, if you don’t use it you’ll lose it! Body see’s fat as a more important survival tool than muscle, so unless you are using those muscles and supplying them with enough protein to repair and maintain them, your weight loss will come more from muscle than fat, and this will not help you to reveal that six pack!
3. Watch those carbs! You need to be very careful with carbs, they are a necessary fuel source for the body, so completely cutting them out like some of the diets out there tell you to (e.g. Atkins), is not a healthy way of losing weight. Like i said before, losing weight in a healthy way should be your number one priority, and completely starving your body of something is NOT healthy. Different people react differently to carbs, if you are someone who struggles to lose weight when having two many carbs, you can try a moderate carb diet consuming forty percent of your calories from carbs, which is still at a healthy level. If you are close to having a six pack but can’t quite get rid of those last few pounds of fat, there are a couple of tricks that you can use. A technique used by bodybuilders to achieve low body fat levels is known carb cycling, this involves dropping your carb intake for two or three days at a time, then replenishing them on a high carb day. This avoids your body feeling like it is being starved of carbs, but also forces it to get it’s energy from your fat supplies. This is an advanced diet technique and should be left as a last resort, but it is perfectly healthy though.
4. Eat enough fat. “Are you mad?!” you may asked, well yes I am a little bit but that’s beside the point! Believe or not there are good fats and bad fats. While it is very important that you reduce your intake of the bad fats, these are saturated fats and even worse trans fatty acids (these are the really nasty ones!), it is also important that you are still supplying your body with the good fats, these being polyunsaturated and monusaturated. The REALLY good ones which are part of the polyunsaturated fats family,are known as the Essential fatty acids or EFA’s. The main ones being omega 3 and 6, which cannot be produced by your body, so you need to get them from your diet. Omega 3 helps preserve muscle, increase your metabolism and aid in the fat burning process. It may shock you to know that most people are actually border line deficient in omega 3.
5. The final point I want to make on your diet is the importance of eating as natural as possible. By natural I mean eating things that haven’t been modified or processed by man. Fresh vegetables, meat and poultry should be at the core of your diet. Processed and premade meals should be avoided at all costs, even the ones that claim to be health foods! These types of foods may be low in fat, but they are full of sugars and simple carbs that are just as bad as fat, your body will struggle to digest these and they are more likely to be turned straight to fat. So try to eat as many natural foods as possible.
So that briefly covers the diet aspect required to achieve that six pack look that so many people strive for.
So there it is, in summary to have a great six pack you need to reveal them by stipping away the fat that covers them. This is most effectively done with a combination of diet and exercise, also performing abdominal targetting exercises to tone and build up your exsiting muscles will make your abs look better once you have revealed them.
