Abs

The Secret and Myths to Six Pack Abs

Abs is widely debated by experts. In reality, what works for someone else may not work for you. Since everyone has a different body type, results will vary from person to person. Abs workout tips. There are several exercises you can do for abs. Many of the people do not realize that most abdominal exercises are either ineffective or not needed.

There are some so called fitness experts out there who say that you can have one “cheat day” where you basically eat anything that you want all day. Don’t believe it. Six pack abs are a result of applying what I call the mathematics of weight loss a part of which means staying within your daily caloric requirement. A full day of cheating, where you stuff your face with all kinds of garbage, can add so many calories that it ends up ruining all the progress you made from 6 days of adhering to a strict diet. If you must cheat, have no more than one cheat meal a week which can include a nice desert. And if you are really serious you should offset that cheat meal with enough aerobic exercise to burn all the extra calories that you put into your system.

Six pack abs don’t come in a box or a bottle.

You don’t need fancy fat burners, dangerous diet pills, expensive equipment, or anything else they try to sell on television; if those things worked every couch potato in America would have six pack abs and the body of a fitness model. What you need to develop six pack abs are knowledge and discipline. You need the knowledge to know exactly what to do and the discipline to get your self to do it day after day until you reach your goal. And if you have the knowledge and the discipline it doesn’t matter how old you are or how much fat you have to lose or what type of genes you have. EVERYONE CAN HAVE SIX PACK ABS!

First let’s start with some basic anatomy. Abs are short for the abdominal muscles. The abdominal muscles are composed of 3 separate muscle groups. The main muscle group in the front of the torso is called the rectus abdominis and if you look closely you will see that it is split into 8 blocks. The next group of muscles on the lower sides of the torso just above the hips is called the obliques. And the muscles that tie into the rib cage are called the seratus. Everyone has a six pack. If you can’t see yours its not because they’re not there, they are just hiding underneath a layer of fat. Not thick skin, not loose skin, but fat.

The secret to six pack abs are Discipline and Patience.

Everybody wants to have six pack abs, but so few are willing to do what it takes. Most people don’t have a clue about what it really takes to develop well defined abs. Most people think that developing six pack abs requires thousands of stomach crunches or situps. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is you can do crunches all day long and still never achieve the low body fat level definition required to sport the well defined abs that everyone desires. Stomach workouts are one of the least effective ways to develop washboard abs. Yet most people begin the search for six pack abs by searching for an ab workout.

Abs are like buried treasure. The treasure is there, you just have to find it. To find the treasure you only need to understand one thing…

Bodyfat Percentage

Whether or not you can see your abs comes down to one thing and one thing only…

Is Your BodyFat Percentage Low Enough?

Understanding your body fat percentage

and its relation to uncovering your six pack.

Bodyfat percentage is an expression of how much of your body is fat, and how much is lean body mass (LBM). Bodyfat is both subcutaneous (under the skin) and visceral (around the internal organs). As you age, more fat is deposited around viscerally, so that a 20-year-old woman may have much less total bodyfat than a 60-year-old woman, even if they appear to have the same subcutaneous fat measurements.

Abs don’t even start getting defined for most people until you are at less than 10% body fat for men and 15% body fat for women. So the goal becomes to reduce your body fat percentage to that level or better. Getting 6-pack abs is quite simple but requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Two things you need to do to get 6-pack abs. The first is to do ab exercises but that isnt as important as you might think. The second, and most important thing you need to do to get 6-pack abs is to lose weight.

Much of the frustration surrounding the abs is due to misinformation and unrealistic expectations. Despite the hard work of trainers everywhere, people still cling to outdated ideas on the proper way to work their abs and get the much-desired ‘six-pack.’ Examining the myths surrounding your abs is the first step towards setting reasonable goals for yourself.

Ab Myth No. 1: Doing Ab Exercises Gets Rid of Abdominal Fat

Unfortunately, spot reduction doesn’t work, either for the abs or for any other body part. The fallacy of spot reduction assumes that, if you have fat over your abs then exercising the ab muscles will make that fat go away. While exercising the muscle may increase endurance or strength, it won’t burn off the fat in that area.

The only way to burn fat from your belly is to reduce overall body fat by creating a calorie deficit. The healthiest way to do that is with consistent exercise (cardio, strength and flexibility workouts) and a healthy, low-calorie diet.

Ab Myth No. 2: Ab Muscles are Different From Other Muscles of the Body

Do you work your abs differently from other muscles in your body? If so, you’re not alone. Too often people work their abs every day without rest, hoping to burn the fat off with more exercise. But, your abdominal muscles are just like every other muscle in your body, so you should train them the same way you would train, say, your biceps or your chest. That means strength training 2-3 times a week, with rest in between and a variety of exercises to target different areas of the abs.

The trick to your abs is to realize that strength training is important to keep your belly strong, but ab exercises aren’t magic. Incorporating ab exercises into a complete routine is the only way to the wonderful world of six-packs. And, even if you don’t make it there, don’t worry. The rest of us haven’t either.

Do you ever do zillions of reps to work your abs? Haven’t we all? As you’ve read in the last few pages, your abs are just like every other muscle in your body. That means, you should train your abs the same way as the rest of your muscle groups. Ask yourself this question: would you do 100 bicep curls? Of course not, right? That makes no sense! Same thing applies to your abdominals. To make strength gains with your abs, you have to follow the same principles that apply everywhere else. That means you have to overload your muscles. The reason we feel the need to do so many reps is that we’re not working them hard enough, usually because of improper form. If you have to do 50 or more crunches before you feel fatigued, slow down and concentrate on your technique and having good form.

Check out my other guide on: Muscle and Nutrition vitamins