I was visiting my parents a while ago and the fitness director at my mom’s gym asked me to teach an “abs class” while he was in town. The fitness manager was shocked when I politely refused!
When the fitness manager asked me why I declined his offer, I politely told him, “I don’t teach abs classes, sit-ups are done in the kitchen, not the gym. There’s no point in wasting your member’s time doing them so thousands.” of useless crunches in class every week. Making them do that won’t flatten a single tummy!”
This is what many people, including many trainers, overlook. The most important tool you need to develop your abs is diet. Regardless of what you may have heard, or what the latest fat loss pill promised you, abs are made in the kitchen. You might have the best training program ever, but if your diet sucks, so will your abs.
So how do I get better abs?
1. Diet is 90% of the puzzle.
To burn fat and reveal your perfect abs, it is important to eat a balanced diet that is made up of protein, healthy fats and some carbohydrates. Protein helps build the building blocks of muscle and is probably the most essential macronutrient of all, mainly because your body burns a ton of calories digesting protein.
Figuring out the right amount of carbs to eat can be tricky, but a good strategy to use is to eat most of your carbs post-workout. When you eat carbs post-workout, your body quickly absorbs the carbs directly into muscle tissue, promoting growth. Post-workout carbs also help your muscles recover faster, giving you better results faster.
Many people believe that eating fat will make you fat, but in reality, healthy polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, such as fish oils, nuts, and olive oil, will actually help you burn more fat than a low-fat diet. A mix of 20-30% fat in the diet will help keep insulin levels stable, which will help prevent you from gaining extra body fat.
The last dietary tip is to include plenty of fiber and raw vegetables at every meal. Vegetables are packed with tons of fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals that are essential for building a lean body and ripped abs.
2. Stop doing thousands of crunches and crunches
Full body, multi-joint, and compound movements will promote greater total fat loss and promote a much greater muscle building response than crunches and crunches.
Personally, I think it’s completely pointless to waste an hour of your time doing hundreds of useless crunches and crunches when that hour could be spent doing exercises that are more productive for fat loss.
Working as a fitness model, I usually work my abs for about 20 minutes two to three times a week. There is simply no reason to work your abs more than this!
Here is a list of great compound exercises to have in your training program:
Legacy: Barbell squats, lunges, deadlifts
Back: Military Press, Hang-Clean and Press
Arms: Dips, close-grip push-ups
Behind: deadlift, pull-ups
Chest: Bench press, push-ups
Once you get further into your training, you can incorporate Olympic lifts like cleans and snatches into the mix. These two exercises are very demanding and use almost every joint in the body. They can also trigger a large metabolic response within the body, as well as increase strength and balance.
3. Use smarter “cardio” methods
I’m sure you’ve probably heard that the best way to burn fat is to do long duration cardio at a slow to medium pace. This fat loss method is decent, but there is a much better way. I suggest doing interval training combined with abdominal exercises.
Here’s an example:
During the active recovery period of your interval training, perform an abdominal exercise. For example, if you’re doing interval sprints on a stationary bike or treadmill, run for 30 seconds at your top speed. Step off the machine and immediately perform a set of 20 stability ball crunches. Go back to the machine and turn it back on.
Repeat 5-8 times.
You can include a variety of different ab exercises during this interval session, such as reverse crunches, planks, etc.
In short, the key to getting rock-defined abs is to build your body with multi-joint compound exercises, then once you’re making decent progress, use nutrition and a solid maintenance plan to keep your abs tight all year long. .
