The secret behind gaining those ‘brick wall’ abs always seems to hide from everyone. Although there is so much advice out there, many follow a mixture of routines and diets in their quest to have nice looking abdominal muscles, yet fail. Follow some of these simple yet effective rules and enjoy that washboard stomach you always promised yourself, once and for all.
To begin with you need to forget about all the hype and rubbish you hear about how celebrities get that 6 pack. Doing 3000 abdominal crunches every morning is what they tell you. The truth is that there is no way this would work. Would you do 3000 bicep curls everyday, and if you did, what would your arms look like? They would look flat, tired and would not grow. What you are not being told is the diet that their personal trainer has done for them and how they are always put through their paces on the cardio front.
Yes that is right; your diet and cardio sessions will determine about 95% of your abdominal definition. The fact is the majority of you have a nice 6 pack; it is just that a layer of body fat is the difference between you and a cover model. Sure by working your abs out you will enjoy better separation and a thicker look, but you won’t see them unless your body fat is stripped away. This is because your waistline is the first place body fat will gather whether male or female. Therefore you need to understand fat burning cardio and diet control.
Fat burning cardio is relatively low intensity, with your heart rate always sitting way off maximum. This is because within this threshold fat is used as an energy source and it is burned more effectively. If your intensity increases then you get into your cardiovascular threshold and much less body fat is shed. The periods of cardio every week should be around 3-4 times, starting with bursts of 10 minutes. As your progress slows increase the time, say by 5 minutes a time. In 3 months you should be doing maybe 40 minutes a day, 4-5 times a week. The best forms of fat burning cardio are power walking, using the arms to increase body temperature and slow cycling.
Regarding your diet, it should consist of protein, carbohydrates and fats. The proteins should all be lean such as turkey breast, the carbohydrates should be low G.I. such as wholemeal pasta and the fats should be high quality from a source such as Flaxseed oil. By keeping your carbohydrates to around 150g a day, with no complex carbohydrates in the evening, your body fat will fall off along with good training and cardio. Now your abs will begin to poke out and you can enjoy counting each abdominal muscle.
When it comes to training your abs, they are relatively low maintenance where the gym is concerned. This is because as a core muscle group they are continually worked during weightlifting. Nearly every exercise you do uses your abdominals. So you only need to spend around 15 minutes twice a week. The training needs to be around 20 reps per set with each set to absolute failure. The rest periods should be short, almost non existent, totally fatiguing the muscles. Do one session hitting the upper abdominals such as regular sit ups and the other workout for your lower abdominals and obliques. Use lots of leg raises and other leg movements to get that awesome V at the bottom of your abs.
You now know exactly how to get your abs looking the way you always wanted them to, the secret has been lifted.