By Vince DelMonte 
 
If you could sculpt one body part to perfection for next summer, what would it be?  Let me guess - six pack abs!  I don’t know anybody who does not want to shrink there waistline, lose body fat, eliminate low back pain and develop a jaw dropping set of rock-hard six-pack abs.   Building eye-popping abdominals is not the hardest thing to achieve in the world but it’s defintely not the easiest either.

Before you can start learing how to get six-pack abs and discover the truth about what it really takes to build a beach-worthy abdominal section, you must first expose the lies, myths and rumors.  Before we talk about how to get six-pack abs, the right way, we must re-program your hard drive and empty the trash can of garbage you have been fed. 

Because of all this hyped up and misguided information - even among so-called ‘fitness experts’ - you should skeptical of discerning about all abdominal training equimpment and programs.  Let’s first eliminate the top four ways not to get a six-pack:

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require expensive workout equipment promoted through obnoxious infomercials.  You can’t flick on the TV anymore without seeing two new abdominal exercise machines being promoted at once.  There are so many of them, that if you get suckered into these ‘ab workout’ gimmicks, you will be broke quicker than Ben Johnson sprints the 100 m dash!   And get this: Of the $520 million dollars a year spent on exercise equipment, abdominal machines get a $208 million dollar piece of the pie! 

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require thousands or even hundreds of crunches a day.  So much for the Brittany Spears ab workout!  Crunches are decent, but totally overused and associated with more being better.  Crunches is a very general exercise and general exercises get general results.  Excessive floor crunches shorten the abdominal wall, pull your head forward and emphasize poor posture.  They also involve a very low level of stimulation which negelets adequate muscle fiber recruitment.  

Learning how to get a six-pack does not involve starvation diets.  Starvation diets starve the muscle when instead, you should be feeding the muscle.  Guess what happens when you starve your body?  Your metabolism shuts down out of survival and causes your body to store fat.   Your body must get energy from somewhere so guess what gets sacrificed?  That’s right, your precious muscle which is in fact responsible for a maintaining a high metabolism.  Starve your muscle - great logic!

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require fat burning pills.  What did the last weight loss pill you bought do for you?  The same thing the next one is going to do - nothing! Except give you a thinner wallet but not a thinner waist line.  The entire concept of taking pills to ‘burn fat’ is built on a sandy foundation and misleading because diet pills only treat the symptons and not the root cause.  Without focusing on the root problems of a flabby mid-section, like nutrition, lifestyle and proper training, you will just end up where you started - farther away from having a six-pack for summer instead of closer.

Just Because Your Skinny Does Not Mean You Will Have A Six-Pack

The volume of interest I receive from skinny guys who wish to build their mid-sections is more than enough evidence to disprove the false reality of, "I should be able to ’see’ my abs if I have low body fat." I’m sure you know of a friend who is completely scrawny, yet, without a shirt, on he has zero abdominal definition! To me, that would be salt on an open wound. 

Abdominals Are A Muscle, Too!

You want your arms to be bigger, your shoulders to be broader and your chest to be fuller, correct? And what is the solution to making these muscle groups increase in size? High intensity weight training, overload, consistency and a healthy surplus of calories. Starting to sound familiar?

The same goes for your abdominals. Your abdominals are a muscle group that requires the same formula and attention and are not any different. For some reason many consider abdominals to be a ’special’ body part that requires a different set of rules and a completely different formula for training. Abdominals were not given a ’secret code’ to crack. To get thick, dense abs - those ones that ‘pop’ out - you must train them with intensity and overload. Here are some practical tips you can apply to your program so that you can be the ‘man’ or ‘gal’ at your gym with a ripped and muscular six-pack then I will provide a sample program!

Prioritize By Sequence

If your abs are your worse body part, then why do you keep training them last, at the end of your workout? Which muscles groups will receive the highest priority when you train? The ones done at the start of your workout or the ones done at the end of the workout? Of course, the ones done at the start of the workout while you have the most energy and focus. If abdominals are the muscle group you wish to prioritize, then don’t be afraid to disagree with the ‘experts’ who say "Never train your abdominals first because you’ll weaken your core muscles for the rest of your workout…". I completely disagree with this and often reply, "Show me the evidence." The typical response is "Nobody does abdominals first…". That is pure BS. This just supports the notion that many people who work out don’t ever question what they hear or do. They want to be spoon fed answers and follow the trends of others without thinking for themselves. I ALWAYS train abdominals first in a workout if they need the highest attention.
Prioritize By Frequency

What’s going to receive better results? A muscle group that is trained one time a week or two times a week (assuming you are recovered prior to the second workout commencing)? Of course, the muscle that is trained 2x a week. The more stimulus on a muscle, the more growth. That is why professional athletes are professional athletes. They have conditioned their bodies to such a high amount of stress that they are able to train more frequently.

How often you train your abdominals is based on the inverse relationship of intensity and volume. The harder you train your abs, the more rest they need. The less intense you train your abs, the more frequently you can train them! If your goal is rehab or injury prevention, then you will be able to train them often with more frequent and lower loads. If your goal is to make your abs more muscular and dense, then a higher load and less frequency would be ideal. If your goal is maintenance, then a medium load and frequency would be ideal. Refer to this table:

Purpose                              Frequency      Intensity     Volume    Reps

Endurance/Conditioning    5-7x a week    Moderate     1-4 sets    50-100    
Hypertrophy                          4x a week        High              6-12 sets  8-12

If building a sexy six-pack is on your ‘to do’ list for 2008, then start training abdominals 2-4x a week. I will teach you in a moment how to split your abdominals up into two different days based on movement.

Check back tommorrow for Part 2 of  "How to Get Razor Sharp Abs" by Vince Delmonte.

Share This