Strange Abs! The Full Guide To Get The Six Pack

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This article focuses on ab exercises, ab workouts, ab myths, and how to maximize diet, supplementation and cardio to shred

your abs!

• Shredded six pack. Freaky abs. Nearly everyone on the planet wants a flat stomach or ripped abs. At times this goal can seem impossible. But if you are like most you continue to eat healthy and knock out crunches by the hundreds, determined not to give up.

• Is it really that hard to forge a waistline you are proud to reveal at the beach? Well, the truth is this: having a great set of abs is not easy! Nothing worth having is ever easy. Unfortunately, most people make the quest for a six pack much more difficult than it is by focusing too much on ab workouts, while putting very little thought into a proper diet.

• Just what exactly does it take to have great abs? Simply stated, you need to do the following:

• Build your abs - To build a thick and impressive six pack your ab workouts must be challenging.

• Reveal your abs - To reveal your thick abs you need to diet properly and shed fat while maintaining muscle.

• This article will help you to do both. We will explore common abs myths, look at some of the best ab exercises and workouts, and detail how to best eat to shed some fat and reveal your abs. We will also present cardio and supplementation strategies to help you amplify your fat burning efforts.

• So let’s get started. The beach is waiting!

Common Abs Myths

Endless crunches and situps will tone the abs, and result in a six pack!

• Wrong. You can perform 1,000 crunches and situps every day for the next 2 decades and you still won’t tone your abs and carve out a six pack. While ab exercises can help to build strong and thick abs, they won’t strip away the fat that is currently covering your abs. Only a proper fat cutting diet can tone your midsection, revealing the abs that lie beneath.

As long as you are eating healthy you will lose fat and tone your abs!

• False. While eating healthy is a good start, it doesn’t guarantee toned abs. It is possible to eat only “good foods” and still gain weight. It is also possible to eat the wrong types of healthy foods, which might cause you to lose muscle, making it harder to see your abs! To lose fatthe right way you will need to focus on the total amount of calories you are eating each day, while keeping an eye on protein, carbohydrate and fat consumption.

Resistance training isn’t needed when dieting for six pack abs!

• While resistance training isn’t needed when on a fat stripping diet, it will help you to tone and maximize your current muscle mass. On the other hand, if you don’t utilize some form of resistance training, you risk losing fat AND muscle while dieting. The end result might be six pack abs, but not much else to go with it.

Abs must be worked as frequently as possible with high reps!

• No, not exactly. While the abdominals are a smaller muscle group, and can generally be worked more frequently, you should still train them like any other muscle group. Far too often the abs are not trained with progressive resistance, meaning that the workouts do not become more difficult over time.

• It is more important to make ab workouts challenging than it is to perform an endless amount of easy repetitions.

• Also, abs should be worked about 1-3 times per week. As a rule, the more frequently your train your abs, the less daily volume you should use.

• Working abs everyday provides very little benefit, and makes it harder for your ab muscles to grow. As previously mentioned, an excessive amount of ab work will not tone your abs. Challenging your abs with more resistance will help to build a thicker six pack, and the larger your abs, the more prominent they become!

Working your abs will give you a bad back!

While overworking your abs, or any muscle group for that matter, could create lower back strain, a moderate and sensible amount of abs work will actually strengthen your lower back. The abs and lower back are opposing muscles and work synergistically during ab training.

Crunches are the best ab exercise!

• Not so much. Crunching your way into oblivion is not the best strategy for building thick, six pack abs. Most of us can perform 25 to 50 crunches (or more) right now without stopping. The fact that crunches are relatively easy to do, or will become relatively easy to perform after only a week or two, indicates that they are not providing enough resistance. Once the body has adapted and is no longer challenged it has very little incentive to “grow” a muscle.

You can stay “freaky” shredded 365 days a year!

• This is nearly impossible, unless you are a freak of nature. Fitness models or bodybuilders appearing on the cover of magazines are often 5-7% bodyfat or lower. It is very difficult to maintain a bodyfat percentage this low for weeks at a time. With that said, it is more reasonable and possible to keep 10-12% bodyfat for extended periods of time. You are a little more “smooth” at this bodyfat percentage, but you will look and feel healthier and should still have abs!

A low or no carb diet is the “only” way to shred the abs!

While low carb diets have many benefits, and are used successfully by some natural bodybuilders and fitness models, they are not the only “carb game” in town. Many fitness models and bodybuilders achieve great results with carb cycling which can involve high, moderate and low carb days. In addition, some of you will not need to cycle carbs at all, and may only need to eat fewer calories each day to strip away the fat. We will address diet later in the article.

It’s just as easy for women to get six pack abs!

• False. The female body naturally tends to hold higher bodyfat levels, and will often “fight” to retain bodyfat when it’s at lower levels. This does not imply that it will be impossible for a woman to have great abs, but rather it will be more difficult to have freaky shredded abs.

You must do an insane amount of cardio to have abs!

• In general, no. While resistance training will definitely help to build thicker, more prominent abs, you do not even need to train your abs to have a six pack. Everyone has ab muscles. At a bare minimum you don’t have to do any ab work to carve out a six pack. Once again, it’s almost all about diet. Many grade school age children have the outline of a six pack, yet they have very little ab strength. Remember this: diet reveals the abs, resistance training makes them thick. If you don’t care about having thick abs, and just wantbeach abs, you may not have to do any ab training at all.

Once you have abs, maintaining them is easy!

• Sorry, but this is incorrect. For the average person maintaining great looking abs takes an incredible amount of discipline. This means eating clean and training hard several days a week. If you develop a six pack, it only takes a few poor diet days for it to soften or even disappear.

Top Exercises For Building An Amazing Six Pack

• In this section we will look at some of the best direct and indirect exercises for building thick abs. Direct ab exercises are generally isolation exercises which only work the abs. Indirect exercises are compound lifts, and contribute to ab size because of the stress placed upon the core while performing them.

Best Direct Abs Exercises

• The Muscle & Strength abs exercises database features over 60 different isolation-style exercises to work your abs. While the following list includes some incredibly potent and effective movements, you may find that some of these exercises are beyond your current capabilities. If that is the case, don’t hesitate to explore new exercises that are not on this list.

• Walking Planks. The walking plank takes an incredibly taxing exercise, the static plank, and makes it more difficult. From a static plank position, move one arm slightly forward, then the next. Hop, walk or slide your feet up several inches, keeping your body as straight as possible without bending your hips upward. Continue this pattern.

• Sit Up, Stand Up. The sit up, stand up turns the sit up into an explosive ab destroying exercise. Start in a conventional sit up position, back against the floor and knees bent. Now instead of simplysitting up, explode forward doing your best to thrust your glutes towards your heels and gain momentum, while also trying to stand up. This exercise can also be performed with resistance, holding a medicine ball, kettlebell or dumbbell.

• Weighted Roman Chair Sit Up. With your legs straight and anchored, place your glutes on the high point of the Roman chair pad. Holding a dumbbell or Olympic plate, slowly lean back until you are at or near a horizontal position. Sit up, and repeat.

• Standing Cable Crunch. Using a rope attachment, place your back towards the cable pulley system and hold the ends of the rope above your shoulders and near your upper chest. With knees slightly bent, keep your lower body stiff and crunch downward, trying to touch your elbows to your thighs.

• Barbell or Ab Wheel Rollouts. Using a barbell loaded with 25 or 45 pound plates, or an ab wheel, kneel and place your hands in a comfortable position. Slowly roll the bar forward until your body reaches a near horizontal position. From here, roll the bar back to the starting position and repeat.

• Decline Bench Knee Raise (Reverse Crunch). Lie on a decline bench in the opposite position, with your head higher than your hips. Grab the padding of the bench somewhere near head level. Raise your knees, attempting to touch them to your elbows, then lower your legs and repeat. For added resistance, use ankle weights, or secure a cable pulley or resistance bands to your ankles/feet.

• Side Plank. Start by laying on your side with one hand on the floor and your feet on top of one another. If you prefer, you can rest on your elbow instead of your hand. Lift your hips up until your body is exactly straight. Now hold this position for as long as possible. You should feel this exercise in your abs and obliques. Do not let your body sag in the middle; always stay perfectly straight.

• Mountain Climbers. This exercise can be performed with your hands on the floor, on a bench, or upon an exercise ball. Start in a push ups position, with your arms locked and your body straight. Keeping your body still, raise your right knee towards your left elbow, and then return it back to the starting position. Repeat this motion, bringing your left knee towards your right elbow. Continue thisclimbing motion for the required number of reps.

• Hanging V-Style Leg Raises. Hanging from a pull ups bar, raise your legs until they are parallel to the ground, keeping them somewhat straight or in a locked position. Instead of returning your legs to the starting position of the exercise, flare your legs out until they form a V-shape. Bring them back together, keeping your legs parallel to the ground. Return to the starting position and repeat.

Best Indirect Abs Exercises

• Believe it or not, some of the thickest, most stunning sets of abs weren’t developed with an excessive amount of direct ab work. Compound lifts, or exercises that tax several muscle groups at once, require core strength and stability. They can help build great abs without the tedious need for set after set of situps. While it is not recommended that you forsake all direct ab training, the following exercises can help to varying degrees.

• Squats - Squats are considered the king of muscle building lifts, and require a strong core to help balance the body while descending and performing repetitions.

• Deadlifts - A very underused exercise, deadlifts are perhaps the most primal barbell lift. The abdominals work synergistically with the lower back while deadlifting to create an efficient and effective pull.

• Overhead Squats - Overhead squats may be the most obscure exercise in this list, and require an incredible amount of abdominal strength to perform.

• Overhead Presses - Not quite as taxing as overhead squats, overhead presses incorporate the abdominals and bring stability to this lift.

• Tricep Push Downs - During tricep push downs your abs are in a near constant state of contraction, working hard to stabilize your torso while you knock out reps.

• Straight Arm Lat Push Downs - Straight arm lat pull downs call the abs into play in the same manner that tricep push downs do, contracting hard throughout each rep.

• Kettlebell Wind Mills - If you’ve never trained with a kettlebell, you’re missing out on this incredible core blaster.

Thick Abs! Making Your Abs Workouts More Difficult

The cornerstone to building thick, rope-like abs is progression. Progression simply means making anabs workout more difficult over time. This change in difficulty does not have to be dramatic from workout to workout. Instead, you can focus on making small improvements on a weekly basis. Over time these small increases in progression will add up to big changes.

• Progression, or the adding of difficulty to an abs workout, can be increased in the following ways:

• Add Reps - Try to beat your previous performance on any given exercise by at least one rep. Over time small rep increases create an incredibly strong set of abs, and lead to some amazing feats of physical fitness. If you can currently perform 10 situps and add 1-2 extra reps per week, you will be knocking out reps like a machine in no time!

• Decrease Rest - One of the best ways to increase the difficulty of an abs workout is to decrease rest between sets. If you start with 120 seconds of rest between sets, and slowly lower that time by 5 seconds on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, you will be challenging your abs to adapt to new demands.

• Add Sets - As mentioned in the ab myths section, you do not need to work your abs with a crazy amount of high rep sets. A good rep guideline is 10-25 per set. This is not a hard and fast rule, and can be adjusted based on the exercise performed and to your specific body, needs and goals. Once you can easily perform 25 reps per set, adding in an additional set will amplify the stress. Obviously, you can’t continue to add sets forever. Overworking your abs with set after set is not the most effective form of progression.

• Add Resistance - Resistance is the force that works against you when trying to complete a rep. Resistance should be added very slowly over time. This gradual increase in stress will force your abs to be in a constant state of adaptation, leading to muscle growth and improved thickness. Resistance can be added with free weights (performing situps with a dumbbell or plate on your chest), ankle weights or a weighted vest (ankle weights on hanging knee raises), or with bands or a cable/pulley system (performing lying leg raises with one end of a band secured around your feet and the other anchored to a machine).

• Add Time - Certain ab exercises are performed in a static position, such as planks, side planks, and walking planks. By increasing the amount of time you hold these exercises, you are making the workout more difficult and forcing your abs to respond and grow.

• Slow Negatives - Slow negatives are an advanced training technique that involve performing a rep at normal speed, and then lowering the body back to the starting position of the exercise in a slow and controlled manner. This slow lowering is extremely taxing and should not be overused. Just as with other progression approaches, it is recommended that you add in slow negatives in a gradual manner. You can amplify the difficulty of a slow negative by increasing the amount of time it takes to lower your body. When using this technique, start with 3-4 second negative reps and slowly build up to 10 seconds.