Archive for April, 2010

22
April

Get Six Pack Abs in Time for Summer

allie with abs

Open just about any magazine even slightly related to health and fitness and you’ll find some variant or another of ‘six weeks to a six-pack’ or ‘awesome abs’ or ‘core training secrets of the stars’ or the like.

It’s amazing!

It’s as if the whole world is fixated with the abdominal region and will happily sit through pages and pages of ‘samey’ information just to get to the one or two ‘secrets’ that’ll miraculously turn us from fat and flabby to fit and fabby over night.

Well, as much as you’ll hate hearing it, the truth is that most ‘celebrity sixpacks’ have very little to do with the special core routine of their favourite personal trainer with their multitudes of crunch variations or ‘secret’ exercises.

Likewise any well conditioned track athlete, martial artist or gymnast.

You’ll rarely, if ever catch one of these well proportioned and highly defined athletes even entertaining the idea of crunches, let alone doing one, yet they all get to sport year-round leanness and definition that most people would kill for.

Why is that?

Why when some of us are spending HOURS every week hitting our waists from every angle are we still looking soft around the middle when these abdominal training atheists are able to achieve such great results?

I can tell you up front, you’re not going to like the answer I have for you!

First though, some basic anatomy.

That muscle you think of as ‘the six pack’, the one that runs from your groin all the way up to your ribs is called the Rectus abdominis and is just one of several very important muscle groups that create your waist or ‘core’ as is now popular.

Every single movement you make, from standing to sitting, walking to running, bending twisting, pushing and pulling all originate here and so, far from requiring even more training, your core muscles are already there and already looking like that sixpack you’ve got your heart so set on.

Right there, buried under all of that fat you’ve worked hard all winter (maybe longer) to lay down is a sixpack that any bodybuilder or gymnast would die for. The only reason you can’t see yours is because it’s buried!

(I told you it’d be basic)

The only thing stopping you from ‘un-burying’ your six-pack is the lack of discipline required to control what goes into your mouth on a daily basis along with the dispelling of a few myths that are conspiring to keep you soft around the middle.

Myth Number 1 – You CAN’T Spot reduce

It’s a weird one this, as most of us seem to know this already, on a surface level at least, yet still it’s common to find six-pack seekers grinding out rep after tedious rep of myriad variations of curls and crunches.

Listen up. The body just doesn’t work that way!

If it did, the people who did the most crunches would have the most visible abs and this is clearly not the case. In fact, it’s probably the other way around!

Once and for all let’s get this straight. When the body burns fat it takes it molecule by molecule, gram by gram from the whole body, not just from the area you’re exercising. What’s more, by performing such small, isolated exercises you’re not burning many calories or much body fat anyway!

The answer is to get off of your back and carry out more of your exercises from a standing position and using many more of your muscles each time you train. That way, without even directly targeting the abdominals you’ll be burning many, many more calories AND conditioning your core at the same time.

You’re far more likely to see your sixpack this way.

Myth Number Two – Cardio is king if you want to get lean

Not so. Especially if you do it the way most people do.

Just look around the gym next time you’re there. How many of the cardio junkies that are glued to the treadmills, rowers and crosstrainers are sporting the look you’re after?

Not many I’ll bet!

And the reason is, they’re doing so much cardio that the hormones that keep them going for those extended periods are actually commanding their bodies to give up muscle more rapidly than fat. The net effect is that they end up slowing their metabolism way down and creating bodies that are potentially fatter than before.

Not what most exercisers are after but nevertheless, what YOU’LL get if you insist upon training the way that most gym goers do.

No, to get lean you need to work harder for shorter duration. Short circuits, intervals, relays that get you breathing hard then rest. 5 mins at a time are all you’ll need if you train this way.

Better yet, skip those boring machines anyway and use strength exercises with bodyweight or free-weights in to send your metabolism into warp drive.

I call this type of training my ‘six hundred rule’.

In short, you’ve six-hundred or so muscles in your body. Incorporate exercises and movements that challenge as many as possible at once. Exercises like pushups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, jumps forward bends, deadlifts. Y’know, those honest to goodness ‘old fashioned’ exercises that people used to use before gyms got hi-tech.

Myth Number 3 – you’ve got to cut calories to get lean

Well, I’ve got to admit, this is partly true, especially if you overeat often, but much more important than cutting calories is to cut the rubbish foods out of your diet altogether.

You see, your body fat is used as a ‘toxic dump’, a waste-ground when your system is overburdened by foods it can’t handle. When too many toxic foods find their way into your body, regardless of the calories you eat, your body will dump these toxins into wherever you hold your fat. Your waist among other places.

So if you truly want to get lean, you’ve gotta get clean!

That means removing many of the foods that your body considers toxic like:

Alcohol, Caffeine, Processed foods,Sugar (or substitute), anything with a number or unpronounceable word in it and most wheat products.

These foods are KNOWN to create either allergies or intolerances in increasingly larger numbers of people and should be avoided for good health as well as for the aesthetic goal of seeing your abs.

Replace these foods with wholesome, nourishing foods that offer support to your body and you’ll almost immediately see fat beginning to strip off. Foods like:

Fresh meat, fish and poultry (especially organic), Fresh fruit and veg (organic where possible), Nuts and seeds, Olives and Fresh, filtered water.

These are basic fundamentals of any healthy diet yet few people come anywhere near these basics within their own eating and lifestyle plans opting instead for quick-fix, processed, toxic foods.

You can cut calories all you want but if you’re still eating foods from the top list and not enough from the bottom then you’ll ALWAYS end up back where you started.

See, I told you that you wouldn’t like what I had to say!

But will you listen?

No, more. Will you actually follow this advice and make some of these changes to your diet and lifestyle for the next 30 days?

If you do, I GUARANTEE you that you’ll lose more fat, gain more firm, lean, shapely muscles where you want them and look and feel better than you have in ages. What’s more, you’ll have put into place a habit that will serve you long after those 30 days are over.

And when you walk onto the beach this summer you’ll look down to where your new-found waistline is on proud display for all to see and know that you finally did it. You achieved what only a tiny percentage of people ever do.

14
April

The Truth About Six Pack Abs – Part 1

Hey, look at my Six pack abs.............

If I was born fat I will be fat forever. If I was born with wide hips I won’t be able to change it. These prejudices are very common. You know, almost 90% of people aren’t satisfied with their body. They want to look better, to have a slim, toned body with flat stomach or even six pack abs and that’s why they are very disappointed when something goes wrong, so they try to explain their failures. Don’t believe in these prejudices. Everything is in your hands and only you can change your body. That’s why I am writing this article telling you about amazing weight loss ebook called the truth about six pack abs, which has helped many people to get toned body.

The book “The Truth about Six Pack Abs” is a hit with readers around the world that are looking for the truth, and a good honest program that reveals the tried-and -true training and nutritional strategies to lose your stubborn belly fat and develop a flat lean six pack of abs for life. The author of the book – Michael Geary, holds a Bachelors of Science degree from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA. He is a professional fitness instructor and a certified nutrition specialist. That’s why the Truth About Six Pack Abs isn’t full of hype, it doesn’t promised anything that can’t be accomplished by you, or anyone who decides that now is the time to change their life for the better. The Truth About Six Pack Abs is a guide that reveals the correct way to train your abs, and it is all about burning the fat. Moreover the ebook reveals exactly how to do that in a very short amount of time. Michael reveal the same tried and true training methods and nutrition that his customers use to strip away the stubborn stomach fat. However this book is not just a book about training your abs. As mentioned above, Michael is a professional nutrition specialist and his book is different because it explains directly how to use foods to burn fat away too.

Many people think that the book is only for men. But that’s not true. It will suit anyone at any level of fitness. It doesn’t matter whether you are a man, woman or child, everyone can benefit form what you’ll learn.

Are you satisfied with what you see in your mirror? Are you ready to change your body and stop hiding your it under layers of clothes? If you answered yes, the truth about six pack abs is undoubtedly the book you need. I don’t want to ramble on, but I really do recommend this book whether you have 5lbs to lose, or even 50. Just visit the link in my author’s bio to learn more.

12
April

How to get six pack abs – Part 5

Best-Abs-Diet V ups

Over the years I have seen a lot of flimsy ideas of how to get a set of six
pack abs. The most common scams are special machines that will do it and
sometimes some kind of drink. I remember at one point Slim Fast seemed to be
showing chubby people suddenly spawning a set of six pack abs.

Anyway I wanted to put this notion to rest that there is some magic to
getting a six pack. Sure there is some genetics involved in sculpting
perfect abs but the two most important factors are diet and exercise.

What? Did you think there was a shortcut?

The diet part is fairly simple; you need to drop any extra fat. You have
probably heard this before but there is no such thing as spot reduction when
you are losing weight. You will lose weight proportionately, generally, as
you lose weight. What you may find is that you have a large stomach and if
that is the case of course you will lose that fat faster than you lose the
fat on your legs but that is just because that is where the fat deposits
will be easiest for your body to use.

As you probably know from reading other posts of mine I subscribe to the
idea that people eat too many carbohydrates generally but I still do not
support the Atkins diet generally. I believe that you must increase your
protein to 20% of your diet, keep fats at about 20% of the calories of your
diet and then have carbs as the other 60% of the calories of your diet. If
you still have trouble losing you may be a bit sensitive to carbohydrates
and you can up the protein a little.

As for exercise, to get a set of six pack abs you will have to do two
things; get in an hour of cardio a day to increase your metabolism and start
really dropping the fat and secondly make sure that you do your abdominal
exercises at the start of your workouts.

For cardio exercise it does not really matter what kind of cardio exercise
you get but it is always best to vary your exercise so that you do not
overtrain any one muscle group. I never see people speak of this in regards
to cardio training but I have found in the past with my bicycling that when
I am riding a lot my legs get sore but the rest of my body recovers fine. So
maybe try to alternate some kind of biking, swimming, hiking, running, brisk
walking and even using a rowing machine if you have a chance. Do cardio
almost every day, five or six days a week is good, seven days a week is
pushing it a little too much in my eyes.

Next is the abdominal exercises themselves. There are three places to target
for your abdominals, the obliques, which are on your sides, your upper
abdominals and your lower abdominals. Doing abdominal exercises is something
that some people believe you should do every day but I really believe you
are doing well if you just do them every second day or three days a week.

For your obliques you can do twists. Simply sit on a bench with you body
straight up and down and put some kind of a light bar or broomstick across
your shoulders and then do twists twist from one side to the other as far as
you can go for two sets of 100 reps. The key is to not use much weight at
all as gaining muscle on your obliques will widen your midsection which is
not something most people want to do.

To work your upper abdominals you want to do some kind of sit ups or
crunches. I am more a fan of crunches as they are easier on your neck and
mower back. Lie on your back with your legs up on the seat of a chair so
that your legs are at a 90 degree angle to your body and then just lift your
shoulders a few inches of the ground and then let them down again. This
should put stress on your abs and you should feel it pretty intensely after
just a few reps. be sure to do this exercise slowly and for at least three
sets of 30 reps.

To work your lower abdominals you need to do something that raises your legs
in the air as opposed to lifting your upper body into the air. The exercise
that I prefer for this is a kind of reverse crunch that I do not have a name
for. I lie flat on my back and hold something behind my head to keep my
upper body stable and then I just bring my knees up towards my chest and
back down to the ground again. If you get really strong this way you can try
just lifting your legs straight out and up but sadly I am not that strong.

If you follow this plan you will se results very quickly and depending on
how much fat you have to lose you can see rock hard abs fairly quickly. The
other great thing about strengthening your abs besides looking better is the
fact that strengthening your core makes you stronger overall and help out
with your balance and even your stamina.

9
April

How to Get Six Pack Abs Fast – Part 1

Best-Abs-Diet arms legs up 2

Believe it or not, you can get six pack abs fast, without any expensive equipment, gym memberships, or gimmicky devices. In fact, all you really need to get a six pack is a little dedication and some open floor space (preferably carpeted).

There are certainly a wide variety of products on the market promising to give you lean, defined abs if only you’ll plunk down the fifty or one hundred bucks for their product. It might even seem plausible that these products could be effective – after all, the models using them always look great. Some of these products are even effective, at least partially so. But none of them have been proven to work better than the basic ab exercises most of us know so well.

In fact, a recent study by the American Council on Exercise showed that the three most effective abs exercises (gimmicky machines included) are: the bicycle maneuver, the captain’s chair, and the exercise ball crunch. You can do any of these exercises with very basic gym equipment (such as an exercise ball).

The best news from the study was that the first two exercises — the bicycle maneuver and the captain’s chair — target both sets of abdominal muscles, the rectus abdominus and the obliques. Therefore, a routine incorporating these three top abs exercises is all you would need to develop your entire abdominal area. Therefore, you don’t need to go to great lengths to target your separate abdominal muscle groups. These three top abs exercises will tone and define everything from your six pack to your love handles.

Of course, you can do all the abs exercises you want and still not get a six pack if you don’t also burn off the layer of fat covering your abdomen. One great way to burn fat is to reduce your carb intake, replacing the carbs with protein and fat. Another way is to build up muscle mass by starting a weightlifting routine.

There are many great fat burning diet plans and muscle building routines to try. So start doing your homework today and choose the diet and workout routine that suite you best, and start doing those ab exercises every three days. A combination of fat burning and stomach muscle developing is utterly doable with just a little determination.

So skip those gimmicky contraptions and jump right into a fat burning, ab building routine, and you’ll get six pack abs in less time than you think.

8
April

Whats The Truth About Six Pack Abs

Best-Abs-Diet Seated Bicycle right

Yeah, I fell into a couple of them and ended up wasting some money only to find that their ebook was just filled with the same old (fill in the blank) and no results. But alas, I was still out in search of my six pack abs and I came upon yet another ebook called The Truth About Six Pack Abs how true is it?Alright the first and best thing about The Truth About Six Pack Abs is that they dont go around talking mumbo-jumbo, they take you right to the point, what you want to know, which is of course how to get a six pack! Not only that but it actually tells you how to really shed off the fat and keep it off. With pills you have to be buying them monthly, but in this ebook Mr. Geary teaches how an average Joe can lose weight, keep in shape and stay that way!Best of all it doesnt bore you with things you already know, it goes straight to the facts and things you need to know to start losing weight now. Mike Geary doesnt go along with the typical routines and hype like other weight loss ebooks, what his ebook contains really stands out from the rest, and you will realize this especially if youve already read other weight loss ebooks.I could go on, but why waste time talking about it when you can try it for yourself? The Truth About Six Pack Abs has remained one of the top online abs ebook in the whole history Internet.