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Killer Abs! Old School Style

Title: Killer Abs! Old School Style

By  Line: Tom Venuto

Website: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Word Count: 3818

I have a confession to make. This might shock you. Are you ready? Don’t hate me. Okay, here it is:

I don’t train my abs very much. Once a week for about 15 – 20 minutes. That’s it. Seriously – no kidding. I work my abs like any other small body part, maybe even less.

Now, you’re probably wondering, how can I possibly get “Killer Abs” with only one ab workout a week?

Well, if you already own my Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) fat burning system, or even if you’ve simply followed my articles and newsletters closely for a while, you already know the answer…

LESSON #1 – Get rid of the fat or you’ll never see your abs, no matter how often you train, no matter how many reps you do or no matter what exercises you do

LISTEN TO ME: AB TRAINING DOES NOT BURN FAT OFF YOUR STOMACH!

This is probably the biggest misconception that people have about exercise today and I don’t think the general public is EVER going to get it. The myth that ab training burns fat off your abs is so pervasive that I suspect it will never die and simply continue to be passed down from generation to generation.

The truth is, getting six-pack “killer” abs has almost nothing to do with training. It has everything to do with low body fat.

Ironically, I believe the abdominal muscles are quite easy to develop; much, much easier than building an 18 inch muscular arm, a 315 pound bench, a 400 pound squat, or a wide, V-shaped back, for example.

Some people might argue that I was just blessed with good genetics in the ab department, which may be true, but based on my experience with others who have less favorable genetics, I still believe that developing the abdominal muscles is easy. The hardest part is getting your body fat low enough for your abs to show.

Most people grossly over train their abs. Training your abs daily or even every other day for hundreds or thousands of reps is totally unnecessary and a complete waste of time. Even  before competitions I only train abs twice a week!

AB EXERCISES DON’T BURN FAT!!!

You lose fat with nutrition and cardio. If you want to see your abs, tighten up your diet and do more cardio! The bottom line is, if your abs are covered with a layer of fat, you won’t be able to see them, no matter how much ab exercise you do! If you need help with a fat loss nutrition plan, check out my BFFM fat burning system

LESSON #2 – The same old basic ab exercises that have been around for years, STILL work – and that means CRUNCHES!

“Core training” and “functional training” are the “IN” things today. Devices and modalities such a stability balls, medicine balls, core balls, ab wheels, kettlebells, functional exercises, and so on, are all valuable tools, but they also represent what is trendy and fashionable in fitness training today.

“Core” and “functional training” come largely from the sports world, and if you’re a competitive athlete, martial artist, golfer, tennis player, or you play any sport recreationally, this type of training is worth looking into.

Very recently, a well-known ab training “guru” wrote in one of his books that “Crunches are worthless.” Funny how things change. It wasn’t so long ago that powerlifter and exercise physiologist Fred “Dr. Squat” Hatfield wrote, and I quote, “Crunches are the Cadillac of abdominal exercises.” (I would have said, “Mercedes of adbominal exercises” but oh well, that’s Fred).

So what’s the deal? Should you crunch or should you ditch this “old” exercise in favor of all the “new stuff?”

The truth is, there’s a happy medium! Crunches are not “worthless,” they’re simply over-used. You can and should incorporate a wide variety of crunch variations into your program, but also be sure to include some “functional” work which will help develop your core musculature and allow you to strengthen and develop your abs through every plane of motion.

However, for pure “cosmetic” ab development, there’s nothing new under the sun. The “old school” methods are as valid as ever. And that starts with crunching exercises. Why? Because a primary function of the abs is to flex the spine and shorten the distance between the sternum and pelvis – which is exactly what crunching exercises do.

Despite all the new and trendy ab workouts and equipment being promoted these days, the good old crunch is the oldie but goodie I always come back to time and time again. I’ve used crunches and their many variations in almost all my training routines for years.

The best Crunch variations (upper abs) 1. Feet on floor reach through crunch 2. Feet on floor, hands crossed over chest crunch 3. Feet on floor hands behind head crunch 4. Feet on bench hands behind head crunch 5. Feet in air hands behind head crunch 6. Feet in air, hands behind head, pull in knees, touch elbows 7. Weight on chest crunch 8. Weight behind head crunch (caution – can strain neck) 9. Weight held at arms length above chest crunch 10. Stability ball crunch, bodyweight 11. Stability ball crunch, with resistance 12. Weighted supine crunch machine 13. Bicycle crunch 14. Twisting elbow to knee crunch

LESSON #3 – Crunch with cables too.

Bodyweight crunches performed off the floor are good. Cable crunches might be even better. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve seen more than one out of fifty people perform the exercise properly.

Cable crunches can be performed seated, standing or kneeling. My favorite for bodybuilders and the “six pack abs look” is kneeling cable crunch. Performed properly, this is an AB-solutely KILLER exercise!

KNEELING CABLE CRUNCH

Most people perform the cable crunch like they were bowing. They bend only at the hips brining the elbows straight down to the floor, while the entire spinal column stays in a straight line. This does not cause the abs to contract dynamically through their full range of motion, it only gives you an isometric contraction of the abs, while bringing the hip flexors strongly into play.

Proper form on the kneeling cable crunch is a curling motion, almost like a carpet being rolled up. Another way I like teach this exercise is to have a trainee visualize that a log is in front of them about a foot off the floor, and ask them to imagine they are wrapping their torso around the log, rounding the back over and curling the spine in a circular range of motion, curling the elbows over and around the log and back in towards the knees.

Also, some people perform this facing away from the weight stack, which is one acceptable variation. I prefer facing towards the weight stack and holding a rope with my hands pressed against my forehead or top of my head

Master the proper form on this exercise and you’ll see your abs start coming into focus at an alarming rate.

LESSON #4 – After you’ve developed a substantial level of ab strength, learn how to do this advanced killer ab exercise: Hanging leg raises from the chin up bar

If there’s any “secret weapon” in my ab training arsenal– the one exercise I’ve ALWAYS turned to when I wanted major results is the hanging leg raise, and its “younger brother,” the hanging knee up. These can be performed hanging by your hands from a chin up bar, although it’s much easier with “ab slings” because grip strength is no longer the limiting factor.

I remember many years ago when Bill Phillips once made fun of this exercise in his magazine. He showed a picture of his Brother Shawn swinging precariously from the ab slings in a mocking fashion. I’m not sure why he blasted this movement, and Shawn certainly has a six-pack rack with the best of them. But personally, I think the hanging leg raise and knee up are two of the best ab exercises in existence.

I think the problem is that this exercise is so difficult that most people can’t do them properly. Usually the first time you attempt a hanging leg raise from the chin up bar (with no back support behind you), you swing uncontrollably from front to back. So most people try these once or twice and then give up. Like anything else, practice makes perfect. Hanging leg raises are a very advanced and very difficult movement. Don’t expect to do them like a pro on your first try – and don’t even try them if you’re a beginner.

If you’re a beginner, the best way to develop the strength necessary to do these properly is to start on the support leg raise (also known as the “Captain’s Chair”). That’s the piece of equipment found in almost every gym that has the pad for your forearms and elbows to support your body weight and a back support behind you. Start with support knee ups, then progress into support leg raises with the legs nearly straight. It’s important to use a full range of motion on this exercise and get your knees high up in front of the chest because the lower portion of the range of motion is largely initiated by the hip flexors.

Once you’ve mastered the support leg raise, then you can move on to the hanging knee up and ultimately to the hanging straight leg raise. When you master the hanging leg raise, there’s an even higher level: You can begin to superset from the hanging leg raise (until fatigue) into the hanging knee up. Once you’ve reached the point where you can perform three supersets of 15 to 25 reps of hanging leg raises to hanging knee ups with STRICT form, I guarantee you will have amazing abdominal development (provided of course, that your body fat is low enough).

SIX PACK ABS! LESSON #5 – Yes, you can train your lower abs

One of the biggest controversies in ab training is the question of whether you can “isolate” your upper and lower abs. There are experts who swear you can, and experts who swear you can’t. If someone wants to get technical and split hairs, then it’s true – you CAN’T isolate lower and upper abs. The word “isolation” is somewhat of a misnomer because muscles work in conjunction with other muscles at all times.

For example, a bench press is often called a “compound” exercise because the pecs are heavily assisted by the triceps and deltoids, while a dumbbell flye is usually referred to as an “isolation exercise” because it “isolates” the pecs more. However, the pectorals do not and cannot work in complete isolation from the triceps and deltoids; there is simply a smaller degree of involvement from the assisting muscles in the flye exercise. Therefore, the flye is an “isolation” exercise, relatively speaking, but not literally speaking.

The same is true of the abs. You can’t completely isolate the lower from the upper abs or the abs from the obliques, but you CAN put greater emphasis on the lower or upper abs depending on the exercise you select.

The abdominals are a unique muscle. They are not a single long muscle belly like the biceps, which has continuous fibers running the entire length from origin to insertion. The ab muscles have a tendinous band in between each section. This is what gives the abs their segmented, “six pack” appearance.

Each segment of the abs flexes a portion of the lumbar spine and or pelvis. The lower abs are the part responsible for the flexion of the lower lumbar vertebrae and backward rotation of the pelvis. The upper abs are responsible for the flexion of the upper part of the lumbar spine.

The practical application of this information is simple: Exercises that draw the lower body towards the upper body, such as reverse crunches, hip lifts, and leg raises, emphasize the lower abs. Exercises that draw the upper body towards the lower body, such as crunches, emphasize the upper abs (but neither completely isolates one or the other).

One last tip: Because most lower ab exercises require more coordination and stability (they’re harder), do your lower abs first most of the time (especially if you’re using hanging straight leg raises – doing them last is extremely difficult).

The best lower ab exercises 1. Support knee ups 2. Support leg raise 3. Hanging knee up 4. Hanging leg raise 5. Reverse crunch 6. Incline reverse crunch 7. Stability ball reverse crunch 8. Reverse crunch with medicine ball behind or between knees 9. Hip lift (“toes to sky”) 10. Bent knee leg raise/hip lift combo 11. Incline hip lift

LESSON #6 – Avoid weighted side bends, which thicken the waist. Instead, opt for body weight elbow to knee twisting crunches, twisting hanging knee ups and side crunches to develop your obliques

Which would you rather have: (A) a tiny waist that narrows down from broad shoulders and V-tapered back or (B) A muscular, but thick, wide and blocky waist.

Yeah – I picked “A” too. So do most other people. However, not a day goes by in the gym when I don’t see people doing side bends with heavy dumbbells. I could NEVER understand why people would ever want to do these. I suppose, once again, people mistakenly think they’re burning fat with this exercise.

The way to develop a beautiful and symmetrical physique is to create an illusion: Broad shoulders and a V-shaped torso must flow down into a tiny waist. You want to increase the size of your lats and deltoids (yes that includes you ladies too), while decreasing the size of your waist. Anything that makes your waist bigger will destroy your shape. Weighted side bends can make your waist thicker and wider by developing the muscles on the sides of the waist known as the obliques.

There’s a big difference between sports training and bodybuilding (or “cosmetic”) training. Unless you’re an athlete with a need for a strong, thick trunk musculature, I’d suggest avoiding weighted side bends and all other weighted oblique exercises completely.

Instead, simply do twisting elbow to knee crunches, twisting hanging knee ups, and side crunches only with your body weight. These exercises tend to hit the diagonal fibers of the obliques a little higher up on the waist, not the portion of the obliques on the lower, lateral area of the waist.

LESSON #7 – Sit ups and leg raises are mediocre exercises that can aggravate low  back pain

I’ve found that all varieties of sit-ups aggravate my lower back. Fifteen years ago I sustained a rupture of my fourth lumbar disc (L4) so severe that a neurosurgeon told me that I could forget about bodybuilding, I should never lift more than 40 pounds and I would eventually have to get surgery.

Despite the surgeon’s grim prognosis, I rehabilitated my own back, but to this day, I still have a sensitive lumbar area. Doing the wrong abdominal exercises always brings back the pain almost instantly. I look at this as a positive thing because it has taught me a lot about what’s really happening during certain ab exercises. It has also prompted me to modify my routine to avoid certain troublesome exercises that pull on the lumbar spine more than develop the abs.

Most people think sit-ups are primarily an ab exercise. They’re not. Sit-ups work the abs, but largely in an isometric fashion. Sit ups are an “integrated” exercise that work the abs and hip flexors, but the hip flexors do most of the work (especially the way most people perform them – quickly, with the feet anchored, and with extra weight).

The psoas muscle, which is the primary hip flexor involved in the sit-up, originates on the lower lumbar vertebrae and inserts on the lesser trochanter of the femur (the top of your thighbone). Because the psoas is so heavily involved in the sit up and because the psoas is attached to your lumbar spine, sit ups cause a tremendous amount of “pull” to occur on your lower back.

Visualize an imaginary hand reaching through your stomach, grabbing a hold of your spine, and pulling on it as if the hand were trying to yank your spine right out the front of your stomach. That’s essentially what’s happening when you do sit ups or roman chair sit-ups. Ditto for supine full range straight leg raises.

You might say, “But I feel it working – I feel the burn!” Yes, but your abs aren’t contracting dynamically through their full range of motion, they’re contracting isometrically – and that causes the burn. It’s similar to when you hold a dumbbell out at arms length in front of you for as long as you can. Before long your shoulder is burning like crazy to the point where you cant even hold the dumbbell any longer. You get great burn from this, but that’s not how you’d train your shoulders is it?

Sit-ups have made somewhat of a comeback lately, as the sports training and core training gurus claim that the hip flexors should be integrated into your ab routines. Well, unless you’re an athlete with a specific need for strong hip flexors, you have no history of lower back injury, and you already have a strong lower back and strong abdominals, forget about using sit-ups as your primary exercise. They’re a mediocre exercise at best, and for some people with injuries (even “old” injuries like I have), sit ups are contraindicated completely.

Now… I know what you’re thinking… You know someone who does a zillion sit ups a day, they have great abs and have never had a back injury. Well, first of all, if the individual has strong abs and lower back and no pre-existing injuries, sit ups done with good form won’t necessarily cause an injury. Second, as I said earlier, developing the abdominal muscles is not difficult. To a certain degree, you can develop the ab muscles from almost any ab exercise – even nothing but sit-ups or isometric contractions from indirect ab work.

When I was back in my “human guinea pig” days, I once went over a year without doing any ab exercises whatsoever. After I dieted down to about the mid single digits in body fat, there were my abs, looking almost as good (easily 80%) as they did the year before when I was training them twice a week. Knowing this, I’m often tempted not to train abs at all, except that I know strong abs are important for stability and injury prevention, not to mention that I want my abs looking 100% their best, not 80% or 90%.

Just because someone has great abs doesn’t mean they’re using the best routine. Part of it may be genetics, but mostly it just means they have low body fat! Let me drive this point home AGAIN – Having “killer six-pack abs” has less to do with training than with low body fat. Everyone – including you – has a six pack! Most people just can’t see theirs yet.

LESSON #8 – When you reach the advanced level, begin using supersets, tri-sets and giant sets (circuit training) in your ab workouts.

One of the fastest ways I know of to develop the abs is to use supersets, tri sets, giant sets or circuit-style ab training, where you perform two or more exercises in a row without stopping. Coincidentally, this is also a great way to get your workouts finished faster. This is advanced form of training and you’ll need time to build up the strength and endurance necessary to use these techniques.

A SUPERSET is where you perform two exercises in a row without stopping. For example, you might do a reverse crunch for 15-25 reps, then without any rest whatsoever, go directly into a regular crunch for 15-25 reps, for a grand total of 30 – 50 reps non stop. That’s one superset. You would then take your usual rest interval and repeat for the desired number of sets.

TRI-SETS are the same as supersets, except you perform three exercises in a row without stopping. For example, you might do the reverse crunch, hip lift, and regular crunch all in a row with no rest between exercises. (ouch!)

GIANT SETS are when you perform four or more exercises in a row without stopping. Some people call this circuit training, although performing “circuit training” for a single body part is generally referred to more often as “giant setting.”

PART II: My Favorite “old-school” killer ab Routines

The best way to finish up an ab article is with some routines, don’t you agree? All of the following routines are actual programs that I have used and/or are currently using now. I have tested them and they’re all KILLER!

Basic straights sets routine 1. Reverse crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 2. Floor crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 3. Elbow to knee twisting crunch (or side crunch) 3 sets X 15-25 reps

Advanced straight sets routine 1. Incline reverse crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 2. Kneeling cable crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 3. Hanging twisting knee up 3 sets X 15-25 reps

Heavy-light routine Select three ab exercises, all using resistance, for example: 1. Kneeling cable crunch 2. Weighted stability ball crunch 3. Supine Ab crunch machine

Perform three sets of each exercise. Every other workout, change repetition range as follows:

Workout A: (light) 15-25 reps, tempo 1011 Workout B (heavy) 8-12 reps, tempo 2022

Tempo (seconds) 2 eccentric 0 pause in stretch pos 2 concentric 2 pause in contracted position

Superset routine 1. Hanging knee up 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps superset to: 2. Kneeling cable crunch 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps

3. Reverse Crunch 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps superset to: 4. Crunch with feet on bench 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps

 

Tri-set routine 1. Hanging Leg raise 3 sets X 15-25 reps no rest, go directly to: 2. Hanging Knee Up 3 sets X 15-25 reps no rest, go directly to: 3. Weighted supine crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps rest 60 seconds, repeat for a total of three tri-sets

The Ultimate Killer Ab Routine (giant set) 1. Hanging straight leg raise 15-25 reps 2. Hanging knee ups 15-25 reps or as many as possible 3. Hip lift 15-25 reps 4. Reverse crunches 15-25 reps 5. Weighted supine crunch 15-25 reps 6. Bodyweight crunches 15-25 reps

Each sequence of six exercises is one giant set. Rest 60 – 90 seconds after you finish exercise #6, then repeat for a total of three circuits. (if you can get through three circuits of this routine with strict form, including hitting 25 strict leg raises and 25 knee strict knee ups, you are in elite company) Good luck!

Conclusion These eight principles and the sample routines are just the tip of the iceberg in my ab training arsenal but it’s all I have time for in this article. However, this should be more than enough ammo for you to begin an all out assault on your abs.

If you employ these techniques in conjunction with a supportive fat loss nutrition and cardio program such as Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM), your abs will come in so fast it will almost scare you!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, Fat Loss Coach Author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle www.BurnTheFat.com Founder and CEO of the Burn the Fat Inner Circle www.BurnTheFat.com/InnerCircle

Q. & A.: How To Get Your Abs To “POP” Out

Title:How To Get Your Abs To “POP” Out: The Real Secrets To Exposing Your Six Pack

URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

By: Tom Venuto
words:2523


Q: I’ve managed to get my body fat down to about 6.5%, according to my calipers. I’m starting to see the outline of my abs in certain lighting conditions, but they certainly don’t pop out like a washboard. I must also say that I’ve only been training them with a vengeance in the last 4 months. What I’m wondering is do I keep trying to lose more body fat to expose them, and will this level of body fat be sustainable, or do I increase my calories on the basis of increasing the muscle size of the abs to expose them?

A: EXPOSING YOUR ABS is a matter of getting very low body fat levels. The lower your body fat level, the “thinner” your skin will be (actually the “skinfold” which contains skin and subcutaneous fat), and the more your abdominal musculature will show through.
DEVELOPING YOUR ABS – is a matter of training, and in that respect, the popular maxim “abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym” is not entirely true. It’s only true that without the proper diet (“kitchen”), the ab exercises by themselves are useless because well-developed abs can remain covered up with a layer of fat and it’s possible to out-eat any amount of exercise.
I’ve discovered that there are two personality types with regards to getting great abs…

Personality A is the person with the mindset that, “as long as I get super lean, my abs will show,” so they blow off ab workouts or train them very minimally thinking they will have ab EXPOSURE and ab DEVELOPMENT just by being lean.

Personality B (which includes a lot of women) is the type of person who cranks out a 30 minute or even a one HOUR ab class every day, but they’re not informed about the importance of low body fat – or they are, but they don’t put the effort into nutrition so they never get their body fat low enough.
Here’s the true secret of exposing your abs and getting them to “pop out” more: It’s absolutely a combination of both – low body fat to EXPOSE aka UNCOVER them (reveal the muscle that’s already under there), and training to DEVELOP the ab muscles, aka build what is not there yet.

Some people find abdominal development difficult. I’ve always found it easy – the removal of the fat was the harder part for me. It took me years before I figured it out. The good news is, after I learned how to get ripped just once, I owned it for life. It’s like riding a bicycle – you can always get back on and ride even if you haven’t ridden for years, once you know how.
So which personality type are you? Are you toiling away like the girl in the class with an hour of abs a day (utterly unnecessary and a TOTAL waste of time) but you still can’t see enough abs because your skinfolds are too thick, or are you personality B – youre super strict on nutrition and you are very lean but you’re still frustrated with your abs because they don’t pop like you want them to… meanwhile, you blow off ab workouts or treat them as an afterthought… a few sets at the end of your real manly workout: chest and biceps!
Or… are you personality C? That’s the person who takes nutrition (revealing the abs) and training (developing the abs) as equally important and can recognize which area needs the work. Personality C always gets the best results.

The Value of Body Fat Percentage Vs. Skinfold Measurements
Another suggestion I have is not to put so much stock in the body fat number by itself. That number is valuable for tracking your week to week fat loss progress, assuming you can measure consistently. The number itself is worth nothing but bragging rights if it’s low, because for one thing, man A can look RIPPED at 9% body fat while man B may not look ripped until 5-6% body fat.
Furthermore, the body fat percentage measurement doesn’t tell you how thick your skinfold is. Some people are tracking overall body fat percentage, but not paying much attention to the individual skinfolds. It’s very possible for skinfolds on the extremities and even in the hip bone area (illiac crest skinfold site) to be quite low and to have body fat more concentrated in the abdominal area near the umbilicus.
In trying to figure out if you need to get leaner and get “thinner skin” to reveal your abs more, you should not just look at bf% but also the actual skinfold thickness in the abdominal area.
This means that skinfold testing is more useful than bodyfat testing methods like bioelectric impedance analysis when youre trying to gauge your progress in getting your abs to pop because you literally know the skinfold thickness covering the abs. Measure skinfolds as well as body fat percentage and you have more feedback to judge progress. What gets measured gets improved.
For example, an illiac crest skinfold of 3.5 mm is ULTRA LEAN. That skinfold is not going to get much lower than 2.0 to 2.5 mm because that’s the approximate thickness of skin, without the fat. I dont recall seeing below 2 mm except on a scant few occasions when I had a digital SKYDEX caliper which can show readings like 1.9 mm or 1.7 mm.
But also remember, that the illiac crest usually becomes the Lowest skinfold. Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Two areas on a guy retain more fat than the illiac crest: One is the circular area right around your belly button – just draw an imaginary circle around it and there is almost always a pocket of fat there EVEN when the illiac crest fat has “run dry” and even when the very lower lower ab region is starting to show veins.
If you have veins running across your belly button area and your abdominal skinfold is 2.0 to 3.0 you are bloody ripped. The abdominal skinfold is usually at least a few millimeters higher than the iliac crest. Your abs are showing as much as they’re going to show – if you want them to look different, it’s all training at that point.
The other “stubborn” area is the love handes and lower back. Reach around and pinch, not gingerly, but for real – grab the biggest hunk of skinfold you can around the side of your waist, toward your back. Tell me it isn’t WAY bigger than the illiac pinch? But guess what – that’s not an official skinfold site at all.
If you want to be brutally honest with yourself on your level of leanness, find the largest skinfold and use that as your benchmark, not your smallest skinfold. Testing the abdominal skinfold and keeping an eye on the umbilicus area is most telling. It certainly is for me…
I could (sometimes ashamedly) show you pictures ON STAGE – day of contest where I was ripped head to toe and looked great all over except that one little spot right around the belly button was retaining the last bit of fat even at sub 5%-6% body fat. I didn’t quite have that “shrink-wrapped,” “drum-tight” skin there yet.

Abdominal Shape and Genetics: What Training Can and Cannot Change

As for DEVELOPING the abs more – that’s achieved with training, and though I realize that some people say they have a tough time getting the abs to develop, I’ve always found abdominals easy to develop. Achieving the low body fat (the “revaling” abs) part was harder than the developing abs part for me and I think that’s true for a lot of people. Admittedly, this is partially related to genetics. Some people have “easy to develop muscles” (mesomorphs) and some have “hard to develop muscles” and that’s dictated by genetics on an individual level.
But one thing you have to realize, is that whether you have the best or the worst genetic potential for muscle size, the structure of your abdominal musculature is entirely genetic. NOT EVERYONE HAS A PERFECT 6-PACK. The six pack is three rows of rectus abdominus separated by tendinous horizontal bands and one large tendinous band down the middle called the linea alba.

Bodybuilder with a wide linea alba... no amount of training will fill in that gap - the muscle shape is genetically determined - but these abs sure POP don't they?

Some guys have a wide and deep lina alba, to the point it looks like a gap. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just an individual’s genetically given muscle shape.

Some people have only 2 visible rows of abs and below that where the 3rd row is usually located is only a flat sheet of tendinous tissue – no 3rd row. Others have 4 visible rows if you count the lowermost portion of the abs – an 8 pack. Some people consider having the 8-pack being the ultimate in “genetic freakiness.”

Some people have even rows of abs horizontally, while others have the abs offset as in slightly “checkered.” Some people consider the even rows to be more aesthetically pleasing (though there have been plenty of Mr. America’s, Mr. Universes and Mr. Olympia’s who did NOT have even rows of abs).

Ladies and gentlemenYOU CANNOT CHANGE ANY OF THIS! If you have a 4 pack, all you can do is develop the 4 pack you have. You can make that 4-pack “pop out” more, but you can’t build a 3rd row for a 6 pack where there is no muscle fiber to begin with. If you have a 6 pack with even rows, you are considered genetically gifted, at least in a muscle aesthetics sense. If you have a nice, even 8 pack, then we are probably going to call you a genetic freak, LOL!

If you have a deep and wide linea alba you can’t change that either. Some people think that is not aesthetically pleasing, but on the other hand, it does manifest itself as a “deep cut” down the middle, so and even if some people dont like those aesthetics, the wide linea alba does makes your abs POP.

Developing Abdominal Muscle Size

Given that you understand the limitations of your genetics, the abdominal muscle fibers that you DO have can be developed like any other muscles – they can hypertrophy with direct training. The difference between the abs and other muscles is that the abs don’t grow OUT so much as a muscle with a large muscle “BELLY” because the abs are literally a long flat sheet, whereas a bicep is a muscle with a large belly and therefore will “plump out” and become more round and peaked (“popping out” literally), as it hypertrophies.

Last but not least, can you develop your lower abs amd make them pop more, to the exclusion of your upper abs? NO they cannot be isolated completely. Can you put more emphasis on your lower abs than the upper abs with exercise choice? That is very likely, but that is also controversial. You have guys like Dr. Stuart McGill, one of the worlds TOP experts on spine biomechanics and if he speaks, many trainers receive his words as if they were the word of God. When highly regarded experts like McGill say you can’t train your lower abs (apart from upper abs), then that’s it, you can’t work them, say a large group of trainers.

But not everyone agrees with that. Some trainers argue that there are different innervation points for different segments of the adbominals. Others point to EMG studies which show greater activation of the lower abdominals (the EMG studies may be controversial, but most experts DO agree that some “ab” exercises activate the obliques more than the abdominals, so it’s not like you can only work your abdominal region as if it were one giant region of muscle – different exercises DO have different effects.

Most bodybuilders and many trainers believe that some exercises activate the lower abs more. Usually these are the exercises that bring the legs toward the upper body and or tilt the pelvis posteriorly. These include hanging knee ups, hanging leg raises and reverse crunches. Keeping in mind what I mentioned about 4 packs vs 6 packs and 8 packs, these exercises may help bring out the washboard appearance and make your abs pop more by putting more stress on that bottom row of abs.

Adding weight to abdominal exercise may also help your abs pop, by increasing hypertrophy. The abs are a muscle that can often be trained very effectively just with body weight. The problem is, most people stick with bodyweight exercises exclusively, even when they can do more than 25 reps per set, sometimes even 50 or 100 reps. At that point, you’re training pure endurance and not hypertrophy. Yes, it’s absolutely a myth that endless high reps gives you better abs – you might be better off with lower reps and adding some weight.

I know some girls who can do abs for an hour, it seems (I’ll never figure that one one… guys, unless youre related to Jack LaLanne, don’t try to keep up with those girls who teach ab classes, they will embarrass you, LOL… I bow to women’s ab endurance). But anyway, remember that muscle hypertrophy is achieved in the 8-12 rep range and even if abs are a slighly more higher rep responsive muscle, 15-20 with some weight ouught to do it.

If it’s abdominal muscle development you want, there is simply NO reason whatsoever to do hundreds of reps of ab work. If your goal is endurance or personal satisfaction about your endurance and conditioning abilities, that’s one thing, otherwise doing hundreds of reps on abs with bodyweight is the wrong approach.

Warning: Build Your Abs, But Don’t Build Your Obliques!

I do have one final warning though, about weighted exercises: don’t train your obliques with heavy weight if you’re prone to easy muscle growth there. Exercises like weighted side bends can make your waist larger and blockier and throw off your symmetry.

Pro bodybuilders who are naturally blocky and NOT born with the “Frank Zane tiny waist” and symmetry are not doomed – just look at Jay Cutler, Mr Olympia. However, Jay had to blow up his delotoids up to ridiculous size to compensate visually and be utterly paranoid about doing anything that would make his waist wider. The dual effect of larger wider shoulders and simulaneously shrinking waist size PLUS rectus abdominals development and low body fat is STUNNING!

Conclusion

So, I think I’ve made the case pretty clear that abs are made in the kitchen AND in the gym, not one or the other.

If you’re a freak mesomorph, you might diet down and find that the abs are already there. I know people who never train their abs and they have amazing six packs. On that note, I know people who have freaky calves who never work them either. Chalk up both of those scenarios to genetics.

For most of us in the normal range of the genetic bell curve however, it’s going to take strict diet and hard training to get ultimate abs develoment and see that washboard pop!

Train hard AND eat right, gang!


Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.BurnTheFat.com!

Founder & CEO of
Burn The Fat Inner Circle
Burn the fat inner circle

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the
Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and
Fitness Models.
Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert
who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs or supplements.
Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn body fat, find out
which foods burn fat and which foods turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss
report and mini course by visiting Tom’s site at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Q & A : What’s the Required Bodyfat Percentage to See Your Abs?

By:Tom Venuto
URL:www.BurnTheFat.com!
Word count: 1238 words

QUESTION: “Tom, I know what I want to look like and I follow your
advice about visualization and seeing my abs the way I want them to look. But
what I can’t figure out is what body fat % I should be aiming at to achieve that look? I am female, 35 yrs old and I’ve done awesome on your Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program. I started at 19% body fat and the lowest I’ve gotten so far was 11.8% body fat with a caliper test. I’ve been thinking about doing a figure competition, but even at that body fat percentage, which I know is very low, I still had some “patches” of fat. How do I know what body fat percentage I should target so that all the fat is gone?”

ANSWER: Congrats! For most women, 11.8% is ripped, and for many women,
that’s contest ready.

Just for comparison, I’ve done over 7,000 body fat tests during my career,and the lowest I have ever measured on a female was 8.9% (4-site skinfold method).
She was a national-level figure competitor and she was shredded – full six pack of abs… “onion skin!” However, I do know some women who get down to 11-13% body fat – by all
standards extremely lean, complete with six pack abs – but oddly, they still had a few stubborn fat spots – usually the hips and lower body – so this would confirm your experience.

I know a guy who looks absolutely chiseled in his abs at 11% body fat, but other guys don’t look really cut in the abs until they get down to 6-8% body fat.
That’s the trouble with trying to pin down one specific body fat number as THE body fat level for seeing 6-pack abs (or being contest or photo-shoot ready).
Everyone distributes their body fat differently and two people may look different at the same percentage.

Here’s what I’d recommend:

Get familiar with some benchmarks for body fat levels.
My www.BurnTheFat.com!
has a body fat rating scale, which includes averages and my suggested optimal body fat percentages.
This is my own chart, which I created with a combination of research
literature and my own personal experience.

:: Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle Body Fat Rating Scale ::
WOMEN:
Competition Shape (“ripped”): 8-12%
Very Lean (excellent): < 15%
Lean (good): 16-20%
Satisfactory (fair): 21-25%
Improvement needed (poor): 26-30%
Major improvement needed (very poor):
31-40+%
MEN:
Competition Shape (“ripped”): 3-6%
Very Lean (excellent):< 9%
Lean (good): 10-14%
Satisfactory (fair): 15-19%
Improvement
needed (poor): 20-25%
Major improvement needed (very poor): 26-30+%

Just a quick note: You’re not destined to get fatter as you get older, but in the general population (non fitness and bodybuilding folks), the average older person has more body fat.

What I did to accomodate this is to include a range instead of one number, so younger people can use the low end of the range and older people can use the higher number.
Also, just so the average reader can keep things in perspective, single digit body fat for women and low single digits for men is far beyond lean – it’s
RIPPED – and that’s usually solely the domain of competitive physique athletes. Competition body fat levels were not meant to be maintained all year round.
It’s not realistic and it may may not be healthy, particularly for women.
The average guy or gal should probably aim for the “lean” category as a realistic year round goal, or if you’re really ambitious and dedicated, the “very lean category.”
You’ll probably have to hit the “very lean” category for six pack abs.However, the bottom line is that there’s no “perfect” body fat percentage where you’re assured of seeing your abs.
Besides, body fat is one of those numbers that gets fudged and exaggerated all the time. I hear reports of women with body fat between 4 and 8% and I usually dismiss it as error in measurement (or there’s some “assistance” involved). Body fat testing, especially with skinfolds, is not an exact science.
All body fat tests are estimations and there is always room for human error.
The low numbers are nice for bragging rights, but the judges don’t measure your body fat on stage. What counts is how you look and whether you’re happy with that (or whether the judges are happy with it, if you’re competing).You can use my chart to help you set some initial goals, but for the most part, I recommend using body fat testing as a way of charting your progress over time to see if you’re improving rather than pursuing some holy grail number.
One final note: there are always a few people out there who take exception to my body fat rating scale. More often it’s females than males. More often older than younger. And more often non athletes than athletes. Usually it’s because they have a body fat of 26% or 27% or thereabouts, they are perfectly healthy and they are not significantly overweight. They argue that a body fat of 26% or so should not be rated as “poor” and that the standards on my chart are too high.
Having been influenced by the bodybuilding and physique world my entire life,I do have high standards, and my chart is admittedly skewed slightly toward an athletic population. However, for a young girl, 26% body fat and for a 40 or 50-something woman, 30% body fat, does in fact, leave plenty of room for improvement which is exactly what the chart says.

I’d like to encourage all my readers to consider setting higher standards and loftier goals. Not everyone wants or needs to be “ripped.” But in my opinion,many people set goals too low and settle for what they think they can get, not what they really want. With that said, please use my chart only as a guideline and not as gospel. Ultimately, it’s up to you to set your own goals and standards. if 6-pack abs are your goal, I think this info should give you a better idea of what it will take.
In my Burn The fat, Feed The Muscle system, you can learn more about how to measure your body fat – professionally or even by yourself in the privacy of your own home.
Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle explains why body mass index and height and weight charts are virtually worthless, and shows you how to track your body composition over time and “tweak” your nutrition and training according to your weekly results.
Get more details at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Train hard and expect success!

Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Musclewww.BurnTheFat.com!

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the
Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and
Fitness Models.
Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert
who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs or supplements.
Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn body fat, find out
which foods burn fat and which foods turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss
report and mini course by visiting Tom’s site at: www.BurnTheFat.com!