Archive for October, 2009

15
October

The Truth About Six Pack Abs: No More Crunches

Best-Abs-Diet legs up

If you want The Truth About Six Pack Abs – don’t waste your time on the hundreds of crunches, sit ups and other stomach exercises!

Firstly ab workouts alone are not that effective to burn that tummy fat – it’s just offer very little resistance. In other words, easy workout equals no result.

Training your abs directly is not a great way to build those abs.

Secondly, the key to getting those rock hard abs is to lower your body fat. The most important thing you have to realize is – it’s your stomach fat that is hiding those ripped abs!

Hence, a combination of healthy nutrition and a properly designed full body workout program is the most effective way to lower the body fat and stimulate more fat burning hormone levels in the body.

This is what The Truth About Six Pack Abs by Mike Geary is all about – it exposes some of the common myths about ab workouts and shows you the most effective ways that will strip off the body fat, indirectly works the and more importantly works the entire “core” area of your body.

Although there are some ‘Ab Exercises’, it is a minor component of The Truth About Six Pack Abs program.

The major aspect of The Truth About Six Pack Abs is, nutrition – you need to eat right, not less, to reduce body fat. Getting a balanced nutrition daily will not only fuel your body but kick-start the fat burning metabolism.

And couple this with high variable intensity training and strength training, your body will be a fat burning machine – exposing those rock hard abs.

15
October

Top 5 Reasons Why You’ll Never Have Six Pack Abs

Best-Abs-Diet Seate Bicycle left

If you have been dreaming of six pack abs and pumping out thousands of crunches a day in the hope of being beach ready then it’s time for a reality check. Here are my top 5 reasons why you’ll never get your ripped stomach:

1. Too much Sugar – Sugar is my number one reason why you’ll never get your 6 pack abs to show. If you want that cheese grater abs look then you must keep your blood sugar levels balanced to lose fat and this means cutting out your sugars.

Most foods nowadays contain sugar in one form or another and sometimes they are hard to spot. Here’s a tip, check the ingredients of your food and drink and look for anything ending in “ose”, these are sugars in disguise eg. sucrose, glucose, maltose etc. As a general rule most things that are not fresh will contain sugars of some kind because it’s a natural preservative.

2. Too many Sit ups – Cranking out a 1000 sit-ups every morning will not give you six pack abs. There are 2 reasons why sit-ups or crunches will not help.

Firstly, performing regular sit-ups will not burn fat from around your stomach, if it was to burn any calories, which it barely does, it would come off in layers from all over the body and not just from the stomach.

Secondly, sit-ups and crunches are ineffective, bad for your back and unnatural. To really target the abs you need to address them from a number of angles. The stomach takes loads from all directions and just exercising them in one way will not get you the results you want.

3. Doing long Cardio – If you are going out for long runs or spending hours plodding along on the treadmill each week to bring out those 6 pack abs then STOP right now. Research has shown that short bursts of high intensity cardio is far more effective than long boring cardio for blasting belly fat.

So if you want that washboard stomach you need to start working at a higher intensity and for shorter periods. So, running at a fast pace for 1 minute and then walking for 2 minutes is far more effective than 3 minutes of slow paced cardio.

4. Not strength training – If you are not performing full body strength training workouts then you really are missing out on your six pack abs potential. Strength training creates muscle tone which in turn raises your metabolism, which then burns more calories for you, even at rest!

Target all the large muscles of your body and hit as many muscles in one go as you can. Base all of your workouts around the squat and the deadlift. Forget about biceps and triceps and perform all your exercises standing up so your abs are constantly working. Believe me this will bring out your abs better than any sit up or crunch.

5. Too many Toxins – The gut is used as your natural dumping ground so anything that your body doesn’t like or understand often finds itself in the gut. Too much caffeine, drugs and medication, artificial food and drink additives, smoke toxins, alcohol, all find there own hiding place in the gut. So to avoid that bloated feeling and pooch belly you have to eradicate toxins from your life.

3
October

Six Pack Abs – These 3 Mistakes Will Ruin your Success

Muscle Hacker in 2006 - Six Pack Abs, Pecs and Arms shot

If you are working to get six pack abs then there are a few things that will be absolutely vital to your success.

First, you need to understand the difference between getting six pack abs and simply losing body fat. Getting six pack abs is a all about having extremely low levels of body fat. For men, the optimal body fat percentage is around 8% and for women it is around 15%. Training and eating to get body fat levels this low is much different than someone who just starts a diet and wants to lose 20-30lbs.

If you are just trying to lose a lot of weight, then making small changes to your diet will help you make a lot of progress very fast. For example, if you were to only drink water, unsweetened iced tea, and green tea, then you will not be consuming any calories from beverages. For someone who just wants to lose weight, a small modification such as this can make a big difference.

For someone who wants to get six pack abs, the process is much more detailed. These are two common mistakes that people make when trying to developing six pack abs.

Six Pack Abs Mistake #1: They try to do too many crunches and ab exercises.

While crunches and other ab exercises will help to build a stronger core, they will not help you get down to a low level of body fat. Trying to use endless reps of ab exercises simply does not build enough muscle or work your body hard enough to burn significant calories.

The myth of “spot” reduction is where a lot of people get caught up. The concept of spot reduction basically states that if you want to lose fat in a certain part of the body you should work the muscle underneath it. Our bodies do not store fat in one specific place, therefore you cannot lose fat in one specific place either.

I guarantee you will never see someone who has six pack abs in the front and is flabby around the rest of their midsection. If spot reduction actually worked this is what would happen. In the real world however, you need to concentrate on losing fat all over your body in order to develop a toned and sexy six pack.

Six Pack Abs Mistake #2: Trying to use infomercial ab gimmicks

When you see an advertisement for an “miracle” piece of ab equipment, the people who are using them usually have great bodies, low body fat, and a great six pack. However I can guarantee you one thing, and that is they did not get that way to using one single piece of abdominal exercise equipment.

Like we just talked about with why lots of crunches do not help you get six pack abs, the same holds true for any ab crunch machine or anything else you see on an advertisement.

This all goes back to the false concept that working the abs with lots of exercises will directly lead to a six pack. All the people who have the best abs got them by exercising their whole body and by adhering to a very strict diet. Not by using some ab crunch gimmick for “two easy payments of $29.95.” Six Pack Abs Mistake #3: Eating too many calories.

Sounds overly simplistic doesn’t it?

This is one of the core concepts that is absolutely crucial to understanding how to lose body fat and getting six pack abs. So many people try to eat healthy and still have trouble losing weight. Sometimes they think they have something physiologically wrong with them and their bodies simply cannot lose weight.

Before you fall into this trap and start seeking “miracle” quick fixes, you need to know that not being able to lose body fat is simply a matter of taking in too many calories. If you try keeping a food journal for a week and counting the calories you consume you will be amazed at the insight it will give you.

Even if you eat 400 extra calories a day from little snacks here and there (which is not difficult at all), you will be taking in an extra 2,800 calories per week. For some people, taking in an extra 500-1000 calories per day can easily come from foods that are extremely calorie dense but do not help you feel full. Such foods include bagels, donuts, muffins, potato chips, soda, any kind of fast food, and more.

So before you think that getting six pack abs or simply losing body fat is impossible for you, try taking a few days to really track what you are eating. You will be surprised that losing weight can really be as simple as cutting out small calories dense foods from your diet.

A wise man once said that having sexy six pack abs feels better than the best tasting food in the world. Remember this concept and start taking action today. Good luck!