How to get abs - Advice and Information to cut that midsection
"What can I do to lose this flab around my waist?" "What exercises do I do to get my six pack to come in?" These are probably the most frequently asked questions I get from my clients. Unfortunately, the only simple answer I can give creates only more questions and is often more difficult for many than a few crunches every other day.
When it comes to developing that all important six pack look, what you eat will play a much larger role in your success than any ab routine you may have read in the latest muscle magazine. I know very few lean physiques that don't possess a nice set of abdominals to go with. While it is true that exercising your abdominals regularly they become more developed and chiseled muscle, what good is all that work if your gut is covered with fat? When I prepared for my first bodybuilding show in March of 1999, I didn't even begin training my abs until a month before the show (after my training partner convinced me I needed to). I was, however, very conscious of the food I was taking in.
I think what most people fail to appreciate is the relationship between calories in and calories out. Unless you're burning about 500 calories more than your taking in on a daily basis you're not going to lose fat to any significant amount. I say 500 calories a day because if you burn 500 calories each day for seven days, guess what. That would equal 3500 calories burned, the same amount of calories in a pound of body fat! If your can burn those calories doing ab exercises great, but I doubt many of us can. Most will need a piece of cardio equipment that involves the larger muscle groups. Larger muscles equal larger calorie expenditure. My favorite is the Precor EFX, but if you have a different type of elliptical trainer that's fine. The Freerunner by Stairmaster is also a good piece of equipment.
Ok, so we know we need to adjust our diet somehow and do cardio. What now? First, I have my body fat checked. I need to know where I'm starting from so that I can monitor my progress or lack there of. I continue to check my body fat periodically to see how I'm doing as I strip the fat off. What I have found the most useful is to find out what I'm taking in for calories. I do this by writing down everything I eat for about 3-5 days. During this time I don't binge and I don't skimp on my foods either. I just try to eat as close to normal as I can with the exception that I measure and weigh everything so I know exactly how many calories I've consumed at the end of the day.
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After I've nailed down my daily calorie intake I make a daily goal of eating exactly 500 calories less than that everyday. I don't hit the cardio equipment yet and I don't go nuts eating all the diet foods I can find. I simply drop 500 calories from my daily intake. I stay very true to measuring everything to insure I give myself correct data. If for some reason I am not losing fat I need to be able to look back on my records to see how I've been eating and fix the problem.
Every two weeks I check my body fat. This way I can tell if I need to make any adjustments in my program. If I am losing fat at an acceptable rate I just continue to do as I'm doing. Eventually, my body will adjust to my new way of eating and my metabolism will slow down and my progress will cease. This is when I implement my cardio sessions. I keep the same caloric intake, but add 3-4 20 min cardio sessions a week. This not only gives my metabolism a little boost but it also helps burn additional calories.
Throughout the remainder of my fat cutting program all I have to do is make adjustments to my original game plan. When my metabolism adjusts I change something. I can add more cardio (I seldom do more than an hour a day). I could split my cardio sessions up throughout the day to give my metabolism a couple of boosts. I can alter my diet plan. Altering my diet is almost always the most effective tool for me to strip off fat. I need to give my body a reason to use body fat for fuel. When calories are cut to drastically your body responds by holding on to the fat and eating muscle. This is your body's survival mechanism kicking so you don't starve to death. Your body is saying, "Hey this guys not eating enough, we must be starving. I'd better not use up all this fat because we might need it later. We'll use this muscle instead, he's not using all of it right now anyway." Sounds silly, but it's true. In time of need your body would rather eat excess muscle than excess fat. Anyway, I battle this trend by not going too low on my daily calories. What I can do though is lower my weekly calories. Lets say I'm eating 3000 calories a day down from my 3500 maintenance calorie intake. I can eat 2700 calories for two days and on the third day up it to 3200. This way I've convinced my body that I'm not going to starve and yet in a three-day period I actually dropped another 400 calories from my daily intake! You can make all kinds of variations of this to suit your needs, 1 high and 1 low 2 high and 3 low, whatever as long as at the end of the cycle your in a caloric deficit.
Hopefully, I've stressed the need for really focusing on your eating for getting your abs or any body part to shine. With that here is my ab routine:
I rotate between two ab programs. I stick with workout one for three weeks then move to workout two. My body adapts to workouts fairly quickly so even with an increase in weight and reps I need to periodically change things up.
Workout One
Hanging leg raises-(keep upper body from swinging at all times. 3 sets to failure with 20 second rest between sets. While in a decline bench, I have a partner throw a 10kg medicine ball at my face, during the negative portion of a sit up. As I come back up I throw the ball back. 3 sets to failure
Standing Oblique crunches using cables- get a nice stretch at the top and squeeze down. When fully contracted hold for 5 sec squeezing as hard as you can. 3 sets to failure.
Workout Two
Roman Chair- at the top of the movement I have my workout partner push my legs back down. This makes the negative portion of the movement extremely difficult so not a lot of reps should me expected. 3 sets to failure, superset with stability Ball Crunches.
Stability Ball crunches- directly after completing a set on the Roman Chair, I hit the Stability Ball to failure.
Oblique crunches on decline bench- 3 sets to failure. When my reps get to be to high, to easy I add weight using a medicine ball held above my head.
If you do this routine and give it everything you've got, once a week should do the trick. If you need to hit your abs more, you probably didn't work hard enough on these exercises the first time around. I find this to be one of the most common problems in my clients workouts, abs or otherwise. You won't get results for long with any body part if you don't give it every thing you've got. Have a mind set to get a job done and do it! If you go to the gym with any other mind set, you're not going to be able to put 100% into your physique and your just wasting time. I realize you can't always give it your all. Sometimes we have other things going on in our lives that keep us from giving it our all, that's normal. When your norm is not being able to lift with 100% intensity, then your just wasting your time and your partner's time as well.
I hope this will help you along to developing the abs you've always wanted. Stick with it. If you know what you want and your meticulous in your efforts to achieve your goals, they will happen.
Here's also an look at my weights workout routine:
-Matthew Lowden-
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