FITNESS: 4-steps to a sexy six-pack (for real!)

As sweaters go back into closets and tank tops reappear, people start asking me the age old question: How do I turn this spare tire into a six-pack?

Fortunately, I've got the answer, but keep in mind that if it were easy, everyone would have one. But if you’re willing to make some positive changes, do the right things in the gym AND in the kitchen, you can shed the body fat and reveal your inner six-pack.

Here’s my 4-step plan to six-pack abs.

1. You ARE What You Eat (and so are your abs): Seventy percent of your results will come from what AND how you eat, and that includes eating breakfast! Eat a supportive meal, one containing roughly equal
portions of a lean protein, a starchy carbohydrate (whole grain) and a fibrous carbohydrate (vegetable) within thirty minutes of waking. Continue to eat a supportive meal every three hours. Eat until you are satisfied (but not full) and the calories should regulate themselves. Minimize sugars, simple starches and processed foods - your body will store these as fat. Eating in this way stabilizes your blood sugar creating a hormonal environment in which sugars are burned for energy instead of stored as fat.

2. Muscle Up!  Now that your nutrition is working for you, providing good energy to your muscles, it’s time to work them out. Lean tissue (muscle) not only makes you stronger but also is metabolically active (fat is burned in the muscle cells). Add muscle by working your major muscle groups with big, compound exercises (squats, chest presses, rows, overhead presses). You build the most muscle by doing sets of 8-12 repetitions. Keep track of how much you can lift and do either more reps or more weight each time you work out. Progressive resistance ensures you will add muscle.

3. Do Short, Intense Cardio. Do only a moderate amount of cardio, but make it intense. Always do cardio after your strength training, not before, when you’ve burned the sugar in the blood and muscle. By doing so, you’re going to burn more calories from fat. Work as hard as you can for a minute or two and then cool down for the same amount of time. Repeat this for 30 minutes, three or four times each week. This is called interval training and is most effective for fat-burning. Long, consistent cardio tends to burn more muscle than it does fat and is counter-productive if the goal is lean, toned abs.

4. The ONLY Ab Exercise You’ll Ever Need: As the fat burns away, you’ll want strong, hard abdominal muscle underneath. Build it by working it hard through it’s full range of motion. Here’s the single best exercise for building the six-pack (the rectus abdominis): Support your low back on a physioball; stretch back so your rib cage lifts upward and then squeeze your abs and press your ribcage down hard. That’s it! Repeat for 3 sets of 15 reps. Once you can do that, add weight each time by holding a dumbbell behind your head; start light and then progress the weight once you can do 3 sets to completion.

Following these four simple steps will put you on the path to carving out a sexy six-pack. If you start now, your abs could make their debut just in time for beach season. --Greg Rothman, MS PT (EmpowerFitness@aol.com or Empower Fitness on Facebook)

Comments

[Jim]

HI Greg, this is helpful Ive been doing nothing but crunches for weeks and not getting anywhere, it makes sense that eating right is just as important...

[Greg Rothman]

Yeah, the nutrition REALLY is the thing. Without it, you can have the BEST exercise program (which most people don't) and still see very little result despite your efforts.

If you want my "Empower Fitness Guide to Supportive Eating" - a great two page guide with THE RULES and a great list of the BEST FOODS, email me at EmpowerFitness@aol.com.

[Dell]

this is pretty easy to follow thanks! I hate crunches id rather focus on diet acutally to get a firm tum...

[matt @ medical equipment rental]

im forever working on my abs and im starting to see some progress but i get to the point where nothing seems to happen. i have to stay focus and eat the right stuff

[eskort istanbul]

im forever working on my abs and im starting to see some progress but i get to the point where nothinge seems to happen. i have to stay focus and eat the right stuff

[LA Fitness]

As a foodie I prefer to eat over pretty much anything else. But I love to workout, not only because it keeps me in shape but because I can eat more! It also helps me gain weight which is my main focus. I eat very healthy and I find it hard to gain weight unless I overeat which is never fun!

[SleeveBear]

Please expand and update tour obeisty, fitness and nutrition sections....

I am interested in talking 2 Bears, other gay men, who've had major weight loss, or surgery, and exercise. If you're one of these guys, say hi. Concern about issue of obesity/comorbidities in Gay Men's Health. Have lost 130# Feel differently re: these issues, than I did when active in social and sexual activities that encouraged/ rewarded body mass. Responses appreciated...rd

[Tummy Belt]

#3 - is an excellent point, by the way!)) I've never heard this point and have always been told the opposite.

[Gaston]

Getting strong abs withuot a machine is easy. There's always the basic exercise: the crunch. There are also many other variations, like the bicycle crunch, etc. For other muscles, try getting your parents to buy you dumbbells or other free weight equipment. With a weight lifting bench and some free weights you can easily do a lot of strength training exercises. Good luck! Free weights are more effective than machines when it comes to building muscle. People who use free weights versus machines build about twice the muscle and have fewer injuries (when they know what they're doing).

[Anthony]

My apartment has a Life Fitness home gym where you can do a viatery of arm and leg exercises. The tower in the middle contains about 20 weight plates, where you can adjust how much you're lifting. Typically, how many pounds is one of those plates?I have no idea how much (or how little) I'm lifting.Thanks!

[Pispa]

Years ago while in China, I dislocated my knee and had it plsetared for about 10 weeks while I toured during summer. That leg was completely amaciated by the time I got home I suppose that is what you want yours to look like.. but I can tell you.. I couldn't walk for ages the muscles are there for a purpose. Keep Running. Althletes have a hard time maintaining muscle mass because once the fat is depleted through rigourous training the muscles are all that is left to draw energy from and they soon deplete too. It is a difficult balance between training to gain strength and loss of strength due to lack of available fat to burn for energy. You could also do squats, cycle and lunges. Vixen is right.. you must stretch it helps iron out the muscle.

[Rasal]

Tom Venuto's eBook is fantastic. It's based on very good secince, a lot of personal experience and common sense info about diet, exercise and personal motiviation.It will basically teach you everything you need to know about getting into shape and losing fat, including how to calculate calorie requirements, how to eat better, tips for breaking fat-loss plateaus and training advice for adding muscle. I'm a huge fan of his and his articles and BTFFTM book are fundamental to not only my fitness knowledge, but also my training. I even lost my electronic copy once because my laptop crashed and Tom replaced it with his latest, updated version for free.I have not read Mike Geary's book, so I can't comment on that.Tom's work is highly recommended though.Best of luck!

[Ahmed]

Hi there not sure if its the best ab exercise out there. Most bgeennir clients have no shoulder stability to perform this and this is mainly due to tight pec minor/major or/and weak or inactive mid-fiber traps. Also what if someone had an infraspinatus injury or some other type of rotator cuff problem? You can strike this off the list of exercises they can do. Anyways it is a very amazing exercise, just something I wouldt do with bgeennir clients. Thanks for the demo! To your success!

[Fahd]

Its hard for you to understand if you dont know bout body bndiilug..He meant you cant build EXTRA muscle if you want to lose fat at the same time.Coz bndiilug extra muscles needs 500 caloric surplus and losing fats needs caloric deficit so they do both counter act each other..if you want to bulk up,you need more calorie intake and after six months what so ever depending on what your goals are..drop the calorie intake for defining muscle and change the workout program as well!

[Hadijah]

If you want to get fit, not only do you need to excercise, you need to be on a hlteahy diet as well. If you want fast results there are two really good options that can help you (exercise included). 1. The atkins diet: The diet primarily consists of meats, natural cheese and sallads. What you do is basically cut off the intake of carbs. for 1st two weeks you can only have about 7g of carbs a day. After the 1st two weeks limit yourself to 25g a day. After a while you can eat whatever you want as long as you watch what you eat.2. This is a diet that most bodybuilders use:eat 6 small meals a day. once small meal every 3-3 1/2 hrs.This diet constantly keeps your metabolism going. What you basically do is balance out the amount of fats, calories, and carbs that you intake.As far as a total body workout there is no single excercise (unfortunately) that can give you a total body workout.For upper body toning: Push-ups, pull-ups, etc.For bulking up the upper body: shrugs, arnold presses, bench dips, etc.The best workout that you can really do is called a dead lift: Deadlifts are a total lower-body workout and also works on your lower and upper back. The dead lift is one the best workouts you can do.There is a whole lot more to getting fit than what I have given you but I hope that this helps.