Getting ripped abs is every man’s dream, that’s why so many business owner trying to offer “quick fix” for that, namely supplements, abs gadget, fitness machines, and books with hundreds of abs exercise variations. If you’ve been trying to get your six pack abs shown for a while, maybe you’ve tested some of those ‘quick fix’ method and I’m pretty sure the result is far from the one promised in their advertisement.
Why they didn’t work? Because all of them have one thing in common: they focus heavily to train your abs. That may seem logical, but here’s the truth: abs exercises are NOT the answer to gain six pack abs. In fact, abs exercises are the least important aspect in gaining six pack abs.
How come? Well, even if you already HAVE six pack abs, it will be BURRIED beneath the layer of fat, thus it won’t be visible no matter how much abs training you do. Yes, I’m talking about belly fat, stomach fat, or whatever you call it. Your aim now is to simply get your body fat percentage low enough to make your six pack abs visible. For men, it is about 10% body fat; as for women, 16-18% will be enough; read more about this at ways to lose belly fat.
So, here’s the answer to the question “how to get abs”: good designed full body training program and good nutrition knowledge that aim for long term maintenance instead of fad diet that make you gain the weight back as soon as you lose it.
If you’ve accustomed with typical cardio routine that you can do while watching TV such as treadmill or stationary bicycle, doing weight training may seems like a lot of work. But know this: you’ll get significant result a lot faster by doing strength and weight training instead wasting time on fruitless cardio.
So, what kind of exercises that you’ll need to do? Here’s a few example for beginners:
- Bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, step ups, and pushups.
- Dumbbell exercises like overhead presses.
- Body stabilizing exercises such as plank and stability ball exercises.
Strength and resistance training purpose are not only to train your muscle. Good designed strength training can also make you sweating, huffing and puffing, and increase your heart rate; this is a sign that you also train your cardiovascular system while doing strength training. Check examples of exercises that train both your muscle and cardiovascular system at best exercise to lose belly fat.
Another important note is make sure your training circuit consist of exercises that focus on different body movements, thus it’ll create high intensity fat burning workout that works almost every muscle in your body. Here’s a good circuit example:
- Mountain Climbers: 20-30 seconds.
- Dumbbell Squat and Presses (squat, then press overhead).
- Stability Ball Leg Curl-ins.
- Stability Ball Plank Holds.
The right way to do this is minimizing your rest time between exercises as much as possible and repeat each circuit several times before get to the next one.
Strength and resistance training are essential to get six pack abs, but they’re not the only answer to the question “how to get abs”. Nutrition knowledge holds the other half of the answer. These are some things that you must prioritize:
- Unprocessed organic foods.
- Foods that rich in nutrient.
- Fruit and vegetables.
- Good source of proper protein in every meal.
- High fiber food for appetite control.
- Fat; get from healthy source: nut, seeds, wild fish, organic eggs, virgin oil, avocado, etc.
Answering the question “how to get abs” is not that difficult if you’ve known the keys: strength training and good nutrition. By implementing these two properly, you’ll gain result a lot faster than the majority of the crowds that still rely on long boring cardio and tons of abs exercises. I highly recommend that you read further about a program that implement these two perfectly at a review of the Truth About Six Pack Abs.