Individuals with flat stomachs are: 50% less likely to develop heart disease, 16% less likely to die of a first heart attack, 50% less likely to have erectile dysfunction, and 70% less likely to develop high blood pressure. Motivated yet?
The pursuit for six pack abs goes quite deep. You strive for a six-pack as if your life depended on it, and now science proves that it does.
At a meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity recently, research was presented declaring that waist circumference is more conclusive than either weight or body-mass index (BMI) as a measure of disease risk.
Therefore, having a lean and trim midsection has basically been dubbed one of the most important aspects of fitness.
Miami cardiologist Arthur Agatston, M.D., author of The South Beach Diet, puts it into his words: “Abdominal fat is different and more dangerous than fat elsewhere.
Unlike fat directly under the skin, belly fat adheres to organs, and is also associated with increases in C-reactive protein (CRP) and other markers of inflammation that can lead to heart disease and ultimately death.” Do we have your attention yet? Good. We’ll trust you lay off the greasy foods from now on.
A key fact you need to keep in mind when it comes to abs is that if your body fat is too high, it doesn’t matter how hard you work your abs, they won’t show. For most men, anything over 10-12 percent body fat keeps your abs in hibernation.
During the next month, use the following steps to work your abs. Also, to help with your nutrition, try this eating tip from Nancy Clark, R.D., author of Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook: “I make two peanut butter-and-honey sandwiches every day; I eat one for lunch at 11 and one for my second lunch at 3,” Clark says.
Notice that the 3 o’clock feeding is a second lunch, not an afternoon snack. Too many people equate snack time with snack foods, such as junk food. You’ll eat smarter (whole grains and muscle-building protein) and consume less at dinner if you allow for a second actual lunch.
Plus, you’ll have more energy for a better workout in the afternoon or even evening.
This will, in turn, keep your insulin levels stable. When insulin is in excess, from too much sugar and not enough exercise, it can turn on you, depositing fat into your gut. Or even worse, “When the pancreas burns out after years of producing excess insulin, that’s when buildup that can cause heart attacks and strokes begins in the arteries,” Dr. Agatston says.
But enough scary stuff here, there’s still time to hit the gym, and the beach for that matter.
Six Pack Abs Tips
1. Make Sure to Stay Hydrated:
This one’s almost too easy, but drinking plenty of water not only helps you burn fat, but also builds more muscle. “All creatine does is force fluid into the muscle,” says Hays. “Your body will do that itself if there’s enough water readily available and you have enough natural creatine in your body.”
2. Train Your Abs with Two Types of Exercises:
Some abdominal exercises are based on movement. Others focus on balance, making your abs contract harder to keep your body stable. “Most men have difficulty with either stabilization or mobilization,” says Carter Hays, C.S.C.S., a Houston-based personal trainer and a performance-enhancement specialist for the National Academy of Sport Medicine.
Include both types of moves in your ab workout to keep up the challenge.
For instance, try performing a Swiss-ball crunch (stabilization), followed by a Swiss-ball rollout (mobilization). To do the rollout, kneel in front of the ball with your forearms pressed against it. Keeping your knees and feet in place, roll the ball in front of you so your hips, torso, and arms slide forward.
Try to advance as far as you can without arching your back, then pull back to the starting position to complete the rep.
3. Get More Out of Your Cardio Sessions:
Strip away abdominal fat by switching around your cardio routine so you run hard early. In a study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, eight men ran for 30 minutes on 2 separate days.
In the first session, the men ran at a relatively high intensity, 80 percent of their maximum heart rate, for 15 minutes, then slowed to 60 percent for the final 15 minutes. In the other session, they ran the slower part first. Surprisingly, the men burned 5 to 10 percent more fat when they ran faster at the start of the workout.
“And this is only a 30-minute workout,” says Jie Kang, Ph.D., the study’s lead author. “If you stretch that to a longer workout three to five times a week, things can add up overall.”
Here’s why it works: To burn fat, your body first breaks down fat tissue into fat molecules. “Our study found that this works better when you exercise at a relatively high intensity,” says Kang. Next, molecules go to your cells to be burned, which Kang says can occur at relatively lower intensities.
The best part: You’ll feel as if you’re burning fat easier than ever. Kang measured the participants’ perceived effort—how hard they felt they were working. It turns out the body feels fatigued late in a workout, regardless of what you do. So, step it up in the beginning to shred off more fat!
4. Skip Extra Ab Workouts:
Edging closer to sharp abs can tempt you to work them every day., but don’t! Training more can actually make your abs show less. “You don’t need to overwork your abs—they’re no different from any other muscle,” says Hays.
“If you’re always in a state of overtraining, you’re going to get more laxity in your muscles.” In other words, they’ll appear soft. Instead, add resistance to make moves you already do more challenging. For instance, hold a light weight plate during a Russian twist or Swiss-ball crunch. Then give your muscles plenty of time to rest and recover.
5. Accomplish More Total-Body Exercise:
Isolation moves like crunches are great for developing your muscles, but they don’t burn much fat. You’re better off training multiple muscle groups at once, says Hays. Total-body exercise burns more calories and also causes a greater release of muscle-building hormones.
6. Go as Deep as Possible:
Abdominal muscles are surprisingly, deeply multi-ayered, but most men focus only on the outermost layer with exercises like the crunch. Try to look for moves that work the abdominal muscles closest to the spine, such as the plank.
Strengthening these tiny stabilizers will provide a solid foundation to allow your six-pack muscles to grow stronger and bigger over time.
Try combination moves, like the reverse lunge to cable chest fly. Stand between a cable station’s weight stacks and grab a pulley handle with each hand. Hold your arms straight in front of you.
Then step back with one leg, bend your knees, and let your arms move out to the sides. Pause when your back knee is just about off the floor and your upper body looks like a T, then push yourself back up while you pull your arms together.
Repeat the move with your other leg in the back position.
7. Hop Up Off the Floor:
Define the lower portion of the rectus abdominis (your main, six-pack muscle) with a Swiss-ball reverse crunch, but instead of doing the move on the floor, hop on a bench. “It allows for a greater range of motion and balance,” says Gregory Joujon-Roche, C.P.T., president of Holistic Fitness, in Los Angeles.
The pursuit for six pack abs goes quite deep. You strive for a six-pack as if your life depended on it, and now science proves that it does.
At a meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity recently, research was presented declaring that waist circumference is more conclusive than either weight or body-mass index (BMI) as a measure of disease risk.
Therefore, having a lean and trim midsection has basically been dubbed one of the most important aspects of fitness.
Miami cardiologist Arthur Agatston, M.D., author of The South Beach Diet, puts it into his words: “Abdominal fat is different and more dangerous than fat elsewhere.
Unlike fat directly under the skin, belly fat adheres to organs, and is also associated with increases in C-reactive protein (CRP) and other markers of inflammation that can lead to heart disease and ultimately death.” Do we have your attention yet? Good. We’ll trust you lay off the greasy foods from now on.
A key fact you need to keep in mind when it comes to abs is that if your body fat is too high, it doesn’t matter how hard you work your abs, they won’t show. For most men, anything over 10-12 percent body fat keeps your abs in hibernation.
During the next month, use the following steps to work your abs. Also, to help with your nutrition, try this eating tip from Nancy Clark, R.D., author of Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook: “I make two peanut butter-and-honey sandwiches every day; I eat one for lunch at 11 and one for my second lunch at 3,” Clark says.
Notice that the 3 o’clock feeding is a second lunch, not an afternoon snack. Too many people equate snack time with snack foods, such as junk food. You’ll eat smarter (whole grains and muscle-building protein) and consume less at dinner if you allow for a second actual lunch.
Plus, you’ll have more energy for a better workout in the afternoon or even evening.
This will, in turn, keep your insulin levels stable. When insulin is in excess, from too much sugar and not enough exercise, it can turn on you, depositing fat into your gut. Or even worse, “When the pancreas burns out after years of producing excess insulin, that’s when buildup that can cause heart attacks and strokes begins in the arteries,” Dr. Agatston says.
But enough scary stuff here, there’s still time to hit the gym, and the beach for that matter.
Six Pack Abs Tips
1. Make Sure to Stay Hydrated:
This one’s almost too easy, but drinking plenty of water not only helps you burn fat, but also builds more muscle. “All creatine does is force fluid into the muscle,” says Hays. “Your body will do that itself if there’s enough water readily available and you have enough natural creatine in your body.”
2. Train Your Abs with Two Types of Exercises:
Some abdominal exercises are based on movement. Others focus on balance, making your abs contract harder to keep your body stable. “Most men have difficulty with either stabilization or mobilization,” says Carter Hays, C.S.C.S., a Houston-based personal trainer and a performance-enhancement specialist for the National Academy of Sport Medicine.
Include both types of moves in your ab workout to keep up the challenge.
For instance, try performing a Swiss-ball crunch (stabilization), followed by a Swiss-ball rollout (mobilization). To do the rollout, kneel in front of the ball with your forearms pressed against it. Keeping your knees and feet in place, roll the ball in front of you so your hips, torso, and arms slide forward.
Try to advance as far as you can without arching your back, then pull back to the starting position to complete the rep.
3. Get More Out of Your Cardio Sessions:
Strip away abdominal fat by switching around your cardio routine so you run hard early. In a study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, eight men ran for 30 minutes on 2 separate days.
In the first session, the men ran at a relatively high intensity, 80 percent of their maximum heart rate, for 15 minutes, then slowed to 60 percent for the final 15 minutes. In the other session, they ran the slower part first. Surprisingly, the men burned 5 to 10 percent more fat when they ran faster at the start of the workout.
“And this is only a 30-minute workout,” says Jie Kang, Ph.D., the study’s lead author. “If you stretch that to a longer workout three to five times a week, things can add up overall.”
Here’s why it works: To burn fat, your body first breaks down fat tissue into fat molecules. “Our study found that this works better when you exercise at a relatively high intensity,” says Kang. Next, molecules go to your cells to be burned, which Kang says can occur at relatively lower intensities.
The best part: You’ll feel as if you’re burning fat easier than ever. Kang measured the participants’ perceived effort—how hard they felt they were working. It turns out the body feels fatigued late in a workout, regardless of what you do. So, step it up in the beginning to shred off more fat!
4. Skip Extra Ab Workouts:
Edging closer to sharp abs can tempt you to work them every day., but don’t! Training more can actually make your abs show less. “You don’t need to overwork your abs—they’re no different from any other muscle,” says Hays.
“If you’re always in a state of overtraining, you’re going to get more laxity in your muscles.” In other words, they’ll appear soft. Instead, add resistance to make moves you already do more challenging. For instance, hold a light weight plate during a Russian twist or Swiss-ball crunch. Then give your muscles plenty of time to rest and recover.
5. Accomplish More Total-Body Exercise:
Isolation moves like crunches are great for developing your muscles, but they don’t burn much fat. You’re better off training multiple muscle groups at once, says Hays. Total-body exercise burns more calories and also causes a greater release of muscle-building hormones.
6. Go as Deep as Possible:
Abdominal muscles are surprisingly, deeply multi-ayered, but most men focus only on the outermost layer with exercises like the crunch. Try to look for moves that work the abdominal muscles closest to the spine, such as the plank.
Strengthening these tiny stabilizers will provide a solid foundation to allow your six-pack muscles to grow stronger and bigger over time.
Try combination moves, like the reverse lunge to cable chest fly. Stand between a cable station’s weight stacks and grab a pulley handle with each hand. Hold your arms straight in front of you.
Then step back with one leg, bend your knees, and let your arms move out to the sides. Pause when your back knee is just about off the floor and your upper body looks like a T, then push yourself back up while you pull your arms together.
Repeat the move with your other leg in the back position.
7. Hop Up Off the Floor:
Define the lower portion of the rectus abdominis (your main, six-pack muscle) with a Swiss-ball reverse crunch, but instead of doing the move on the floor, hop on a bench. “It allows for a greater range of motion and balance,” says Gregory Joujon-Roche, C.P.T., president of Holistic Fitness, in Los Angeles.
