I’m going to give you a set of simple, step by step six pack exercises tailored to you, as I doubt anyone has ever given you one before. If you want an amazing six pack, you must first shape up your mental game. Be clear that that is your ultimate goal. Now, you must take an unbiased look at the body you carry around. Are you too fat to see your abs, which I will henceforth refer to as category A, or do you simply lack the abdominal muscles (now category B)? This shouldn’t be hard, but you must be clear which you are. If you are in A, remove any notions about building muscle and losing weight at the same time, until you do that I can’t work with you. It is a myth in most cases, and if you were so genetically gifted in the first place you wouldn’t be coming to me for advice. I will address the six pack exercises for each group separately after the section on mindset, take what applies to you and ignore the rest.
Mindset for both categories: In this day and age, “I want” has become synonymous with, “Yeah, I’d take it if someone gave it to me, but to hell with doing any work to get it myself.” Prefacing anything with “I want” is like putting it on a wish list, and sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Santa isn’t stuffing a six pack in your stocking this year. Replace “I want a six pack” with, “I must have a six pack.” Flimsy desires manifest flimsy actions, or sometimes none at all. Make a list of the driving reasons you want a six pack or collect some inspirational photos, and view them any time you feel like skipping your six pack exercises.
Category A: Your primary goal is weight loss. Trash the sodas and the sugared drinks and prepare to guzzle down gallons upon gallons of water in the coming weeks/months. If you’re maintaining your weight at your current diet, you can lose weight if you simply break the same number of calories into more meals. Optimally, you want to eat about every three hours. Focus on protein and vegetable intake as a higher percentage of their calories are burned just in digestion. That will drop your weight fast as many vegetables are negative calorie foods. If you want to lose weight even faster, mix in a fair amount of healthy fats (about 30% of your overall diet in calories).
Your six pack exercises consist largely of anything that makes you sweat. Get in your cardio in whatever way you find most enjoyable, be it running, swimming, wii boxing, I don’t really care as long as you’re sweating for at least twenty minutes. Do this every other day. On non-cardio days you’re going to be doing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). If you don’t know what HIIT is, it’s preformed by doing intermittent all-out sprints, lasting for about a minute (or until just before your heart explodes), followed by a minute to two of walking. You’re aiming for about ten sets of sprints. This seriously blowtorches fat, but the nervous system can’t handle doing it every day. Mix in six pack exercises for your abs every other day to avoid losing muscle as you lose fat. The HIIT also creates a very anabolic environment in your body, so if you want to do more complete workouts, you have a chance to hit the Holy Grail (losing fat and gaining muscle) on a smaller level.
Category B: Your primary goal is muscle gain. Congratulations, you have it easier in a way, because although you can’t spot reduce, you can spot gain. Most people in this category have a very stable weight, meaning you have a solid reference of your maintenance caloric intake. You need to bump up your meal frequency to once every few hours. Get your fair share of protein and fat at each one of these to avoid having a catabolic environment in your body. Over the day you want to take in an about 750 calories more than you used to (some sources will tell you 500, but your metabolism goes up with meal frequency and an increased protein intake). Also, if at all possible, focus your starchy carb intake around the time you do your six pack exercises. Aside from that, you have a bit more freedom in what you eat as most of the things that are bad for you also increase growth hormone or testosterone.
Your six pack exercises include what most people consider to be six pack exercises (my definition encompasses every action you take towards that end). This is your almost-traditional ab workout. You don’t want to be doing hundreds of worthless crunches, as endurance doesn’t really build muscle; it just shifts the composition to slow-twitch fibers. To build muscle, you need low repetitions and high resistance. Grab a weight and put it behind your head or on your chest during your crunches until you’re down to about twenty reps (if you go with very low reps, be sure to increase the number of sets) for about three sets.
For All: Don’t give up, remember the old saying, every time you don’t do your six pack exercises God kills a kitten…or something like that. The path is never easy, but it’s always simple; stay on it and results are sure to follow.
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