The question always comes up, and even you have probably asked it a time or two in your life—‘How do I get a flat stomach,’ or ‘How do I get a 6-pack?’
Most people seem to think that the way to get this perfect, sexy stomach is to do endless crunches and sit-ups. That solution is so 1980’s and absolutely WRONG! You can do 10,000 sit-ups a day and it won’t make much of difference in bringing out cut, defined abdominal muscles. The key for getting and keeping a 6-pack stomach lays in these foundational principles I’m going to layout in this article. But first, let me share with you some flat-stomach no-nos with you.
Why you are not seeing your abs—Reason #1
If you want to see your abdominals then you need to focus on fat loss. Everybody can have a sexy 6-pack, and everybody does. Those people that cannot see their abs have a layer of fat over the top of them. Some people more than just a layer. You want to try and reduce the amount of body fat you are carrying and increase the amount of lean body mass (muscle, water, bone, tissue, organs). When you do your body composition will improve and you will begin to see those coveted abs.
But be mindful of what causes fat loss. Diets do not promote fat loss, especially fad diets. So say you are 30 pounds overweight and decide you want a 6-pack, but instead of going the smart way (I’ll cover the smart way later on), you decide to go on a diet. So over the course of 2-3 months you shed those 30 pounds. But the majority of those 30 pound came from muscle and water and not fat. Your metabolism slowed down a lot, and now your actually worse off then before. You still can’t see your abs, and you feel like crap.
Why did this happen? Because diets focus on weight loss and not fat loss. Now if you were to focus on fat loss you wouldn’t be worried about the scale. I recommend weighing yourself no more then once a week. It’s even better not to do it at all. The best ways to gauge your progress are: 1. Body fat tests 2. Before and after pictures 3. How your clothes feel 4. How you look in the mirror.
Why you are not seeing your abs—Reason #2
Are you one of those people who do endless abdominal work? You can’t train your abs and magically just make body fat come off your stomach. It doesn’t work that way. When you burn body fat off your body it comes off proportionally all over. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard that nothing comes in one-size-fits-all for pretty much everything, and the same goes for fat loss. Different people will lose more fat quicker in certain areas and slower in other areas—everybody’s body is different. The stomach might be one of those slower areas for you. Don’t get discouraged.
To even start fat loss you need to burn off calories and create a caloric deficit. Crunches and sit-ups are not the best ab exercises. It’s not even close! They don’t involve a lot of muscles so they don’t burn as many calories as other exercises. You need to train your whole body during your workouts. Focusing on compound movements that involve multiple body parts for each movement. Crunches and sit-ups really just create a ‘burn’ in your stomach. The forward bending of these movements are not what the rectus abdominis is for; the RA is for preventing hyperextension. Crunches and sit-ups are also known to cause back and neck pain from all the forward bending.
The movements that do this the best are bridging exercises or planks. These are the exercises that will make your stomach and core extremely strong and also help to prevent injury. They also train the transverse abdominals, which are a deep stabilizer muscle that help to protect the spine and other vital organs. But you are probably more worried about seeing them, not just getting them strong (we’re almost to that point!).
Why you are not seeing your abs—Reason #3
There is a very dark side of exercise. The Darth Vader of exerciser. And that is cardio. It’s ruthless, hard to kill, and always hinders your progress. Many health and fitness experts recommended for years that the best way to burn body fat was through cardiovascular exercise, or aerobics. This is absolutely wrong! It’s one of the biggest myths about exercise out there right now. It actually is causing you to slow your metabolism down. The constant, low-intensity of cardio causes your muscles to adapt; they need to have better endurance to perform cardio, therefore they don’t need as much size. So the muscles become smaller (think marathon runners) and more efficient at cardio. But the result is a lower metabolism, which means fat burning is also reduced throughout the day, which also means that it will be much harder to see that 6-pack that is hiding behind that fat.
So what do you need to do about it?
1.) You need to burn off the body fat!
Seems obvious enough. But how? You need to eat. Food is energy to your metabolism. You need to eat a minimum of 5 times a day and every 2-4 hours to stoke your metabolism to new highs. This is not something you will do for a few months this needs to be a lifetime commitment. Eating this way will help you reach your dream body over time, but you will not experience the effects of yo-yo dieting ever again.
You should focus on lean proteins, fibrous vegetables and fruits, and healthy good fats. These are the foods that actually require your body to work and burn calories to digest them. Simple sugars like pastries, candy, soda, white flour, and processed goods don’t require any work by the body to digest and will most likely be converted to body fat.
A short list of these foods is chicken and turkey breast, lean cuts of meat, milk, eggs, nuts, nut butters, green leafy vegetables, oats, whole grains, barley, quinoa, whole wheat, fruits, cottage cheese, yogurt, coconut, avocado, olive oil, salmon, tuna fish, white fish, and whey protein.
Don’t forget to drink your water! If your body is not hydrated it won’t work properly. If it doesn’t work properly then that means it won’t be able to burn fat.
2. Perform exercises that will burn off body fat!
Obviously cardio is not the way to do this. So what is? The answer lies in interval training and weight training. Lean muscle tissue is #1 when it comes to increases your metabolism. But that doesn’t mean you need to be big and bulky like a bodybuilder. Think lean, strong, sexy physiques. Athletic type of physiques.
How do you get these types of physiques? Through weight and interval training. The weight training should be whole body workouts using compound movements. None of those wimpy biceps curls, triceps kickbacks, or leg extensions for you! Movements that create the biggest calorie burn, muscle building effect, and fat loss effect. Some of those movements are the squats, deadlifts, rows, presses, pushups, pull-ups, swings, get-ups, and lunges.
You also want to train your abs the way there are supposed to be used. The true function of the abdominals is for stabilization. Plank/Bridge exercises are killer! And will get you a super strong core in no time. The movement is really no movement at all. You simply hold your self as strait as you can be, like a diving board, bridge, or plank. You’re on your forearms and your toes. Virtually every major muscle has to stabilize together in order for this to work. It’s awesome!
Some other full body abdominal exercises for you would be side bridges/planks, Swiss ball bridges/planks, Swiss ball jackknives, Swiss ball rollouts, ab wheels, V-Ups, Bicycles.
Yes, core training has progressed a lot over time. Long past is the day of 100’s of crunches or sit-ups to get a flat stomach. Just follow these tips and you will be good to go with a flat, sexy, 6-pack.
Jason Yun, a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Sports Nutritionist, is the owner of Yun Strength and Fitness Systems, LLC and runs Yun Fitness Bootcamps in Columbus, OH and the Metabolism Makeover Nutrition Course. Please contact him by email at jyun@yunbootcamps.com
