A lot of you are constantly looking for information on how to get started with an abs training program that can help them achieve ripped abs without spending a lot of time in the gym.
Abs Training for a Flat, Lean Stomach
an interview with Mike Geary
I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a fitness professional from NYC, Certified Personal Trainer, Geovanni Derice.
The interview is below and I think you’re going to like it… I reveal some of the hardest hitting strategies for getting rid of that stubborn stomach fat to uncover those flat six pack abs that everyone wants.
Geovanni Derice: Welcome Mike to our 4-ever-Toned Fitness Journal. For those who do not know you, please tell us a few things about yourself and how you can help our readers with their fitness and health.
Mike Geary: Thanks for having me, Geo. Well, to go back a little, I have been heavily involved in fitness and sports for about 20 years now, ever since I was a teenager.
Being involved in sports in high school got me interested in strength training and conditioning.
At that point, once I started feeling more energetic, getting stronger, and looking better, I was instantly hooked for life. I’m 36 now and still addicted to the way living a healthy and fit lifestyle makes me feel energetic, confident, strong, and youthful on a daily basis.
I decided earlier in my 20’s that I wanted to make the commitment to help other people experience the excitement of being fit and getting in the best shape of their lives, especially since we’ve reached an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, etc.
That’s why I became a fitness professional. It just gives me so much satisfaction to help others, who have struggled for years to get in good shape and show them that it can be done, and it can be fun in the process.
I’ve expanded over the years from just reaching local individuals with personal training, into being able to help people all over the globe achieve their fitness goals with the reach of the internet. I only hope that my passion for fitness inspires people to take action and improve how they look and feel for life.
Geovanni Derice: Now Mike, there are so many things out there as to what works and what does not work… if you had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get flat lean abs, what would they be?
Mike Geary: The first and most important thing to get control of in order to lose your belly fat and get flat abs is cleaning up your diet.
Exercise is important, but your diet is king when it comes to losing body fat so that you can see your abs.
There’s so much confusion these days about what a healthy diet that promotes fat loss really is… after all, we are bombarded by conflicting messages in the media about what is healthy and what is not, and you have all of these gimmicky diet books about low carb, low fat, high protein, vegetarian, fasting, Atkins, south beach, liquid diets, and hundreds more.
There’s so much conflicting info, that the average consumer doesn’t even know where to start when it comes to eating for fat loss.
The second thing that works time and time again, is to focus on the intensity of your workouts and focus on working the body as a whole in order to get the best metabolic response to lose that stubborn stomach fat.
In order to really get lean, the workouts should have a high intensity, with short rest periods, working the largest muscle groups of the body, instead of trying to isolate specific small muscles like the biceps, triceps, or calves.
For the third thing, let’s talk about actually training the abs specifically. When it comes to training the abs, if you want real results, I always recommend forgetting about the crunches and situps for the most part.
They are ok for someone that is really deconditioned, but most people that already have some training under their belt need a much better stimulus for their abs than crunches. Crunches are one of the abs exercises that actually provide the least amount of resistance, and remember that resistance is what develops and tones the muscles.
I provide a ton of great abs exercises in my book, but one of THE highest resistance exercises for the abs, is hanging leg raises (but NOT the way you see most people at the gym doing them).
The key to doing these and actually working the hell out of your abs is to curl your pelvis up as you raise your legs. Almost nobody ever does this right. To be honest, the majority of people cannot do this at first, but I provide some strategies in my book as to how to progress to doing these correctly.
Geovanni Derice: What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted “6 pack abs”?
Mike Geary: Well Geo, I know this sounds funny to most people, but the MAIN thing that people are doing wrong to get those flat 6-pack abs is… are you ready for this?
They spend entirely too much time focusing on training their abs! WAY too much time spent on abs exercises. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.
Remember, having a flat and visible six pack of abs is all about getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment in your body and increasing your metabolic rate. That just does not happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like the abs.
Instead, you must use the majority of your time focusing on training the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, back, and chest. That’s what stimulates your metabolism and the fat burning hormones that will get you truly lean and sporting a flat sixxer!
Geovanni Derice: Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum definition with their midsection?
Mike Geary: When it comes to developing the abs themselves, I again refer to any kinds of hanging abs exercises, as well as some good floor abs exercises like lying leg thrusts (all described and illustrated in my book).
However, maximum definition in the abs and midsection comes from losing body fat, and the most effective exercises featured in my program for that goal are various forms of swings and snatches (unique dumbbell or kettlebell exercises that almost nobody ever does in normal gyms), squats, deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, clean & presses, mountain climbers, sprinting, and other full-body exercises and calisthenics.
If you want great looking flat abs, focus on those instead of focusing so much on training the abs directly!
Geovanni Derice: When it comes to diet Mike, people really have tried millions of ways to get one thing… and that is fat loss. What recommendations have you used to successfully help your clients lose body fat and keep it off?
Mike Geary: I have included a fully comprehensive discussion of this topic in my book, which accounts for almost half of the book, but I’ll try to make some nice simple generalizations to get people started on the right path immediately.
The most important thing is that your diet is as natural and unprocessed as possible. It almost always comes back to the overprocessing of food that makes it unhealthy and makes it totally wreck your metabolism and hormone balance in your body.
For example, why eat refined grains, when you can eat sprouted whole grains (keep in mind that I usually recommend strictly limiting grain-based foods overall for best results due to the problems with antinutrients and gluten in grains which are inflammatory).
Why eat refined sugar, when you can get natural sources of sugar from a high nutrient whole food like fruit. Why eat highly processed, refined, and hydrogenated vegetable oils (these are THE worst thing in the modern diet), when you can eat natural sources of healthy fats like nuts, avocados, fish, eggs, coconut milk, organically raised meat, and so forth.
The point is to not fall for some gimmick like extremely low carbs (although I do believe in a fairly reduced carb intake as that is a big problem for most people), low fat, super high protein, or any other combination that has you focusing on one macronutrient vs. another.
Your body needs all macronutrients to thrive and obtain a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc.
Trying to cut an entire food group out just works against what your body needs. I get into much more detail on this vitally important topic towards losing body fat (especially that stubborn stomach fat) for life in my book.
Geovanni Derice: Thank you very much, Mike, for sharing with us all of this great information.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this interview and plucked several nuggets of info to get you motivated and started on showing off your flat abs shortly.
If you don’t already own a copy, be sure to pick up a copy of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book and discover the entire system I’ve developed for ridding yourself of that extra ab fat for good! Click here to see the results many of my readers are getting in losing stomach fat and getting lean abs.
Excess Abdominal Fat is Not Only Ugly but Extremely Dangerous to Your Health
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
This is More Than a Vanity Issue!
The difference between subcutaneous fat and the more deadly “visceral fat”… Plus the simple steps to REMOVE this fat permanently
Although this picture depicts an overweight man, this article applies to dangerous types of fat inside the bodies of both men and women … and this discussion also applies even if you only have a slight amount of excess stomach fat.
Did you know that the vast majority of people in this day and age have excess abdominal fat?
It’s true — as much as 70% of the population in some “westernized” countries such as the US and Australia are now considered either overweight or obese.
The first thing that most people think of is that their extra abdominal fat is simply ugly, is covering up their abs from being visible, and makes them self conscious about showing off their body.
However, what most people don’t realize is that excess abdominal fat, in particular, is not only ugly but is also a dangerous risk factor to your health. Scientific research has clearly determined that although it is unhealthy in general to have excess body fat throughout your body, it is also particularly dangerous to have excess abdominal fat.
There are two types of fat that you have in your abdominal area. The first type that covers up your abs from being visible is called subcutaneous fat and lies directly beneath the skin and on top of the abdominal muscles.
The second type of fat that you have in your abdominal area is called visceral fat, and that lies deeper in the abdomen beneath your muscle and surrounding your organs. Visceral fat also plays a role in giving certain men that “beer belly” appearance where their abdomen protrudes excessively but at the same time, also feels sort of hard if you push on it.
Mike Geary is the author of 2 best-selling programs:
Both subcutaneous fat and visceral fat in the abdominal area are serious health risk factors, but science has shown that having excessive visceral fat is even more dangerous than subcutaneous fat. Both types of fat greatly increase your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep apnea, various forms of cancer, and other degenerative diseases.
Part of the reason visceral fat is particularly dangerous is that studies show that it releases more inflammatory molecules into your system on a consistent basis.
One of the major reasons that some people accumulate more visceral fat than others can be from a high carbohydrate diet that leads to insulin resistance over time (years of bombarding your system with too many sugars and starches for your pancreas to properly handle the constant excess blood sugar) … and studies show that high fructose intake, particularly from high-fructose corn syrup, can be a major contributor to excess visceral fat.
So what gets rid of extra abdominal fat, including visceral fat?
Both your food intake as well as your training program are important if you are to get this right and the good news is that I’ve spent over a decade researching this topic, analyzing the science, and applying it “in the trenches” with myself as well as thousands of my clients from all over the world to see what works to really stimulate abdominal fat loss.
I’ve actually even seen a particular study that divided thousands of participants into a diet-only group and an exercise & diet combined group. While both groups in this study made good progress, the diet-only group lost significantly LESS abdominal fat than the diet & exercise combined group.
From my research, two of the most important aspects to getting rid of visceral fat are:
1. The use of high-intensity forms of exercise and full-body resistance training. Low-intensity cardio exercise simply isn’t as effective for removing visceral fat in particular.
High-intensity exercise such as interval training, sprints (bike sprints or running sprints), AND full-body weight training is very effective at helping to improve your body’s ability to manage glucose and increases insulin sensitivity, a crucial step in removing visceral fat.
These types of high-intensity exercise routines are also very effective at increasing your fat-burning hormones and creating a hormonal environment conducive to burning off abdominal fat, including visceral fat.
2. In addition, it’s vitally important to get blood sugar under control to help restore insulin sensitivity through the right nutrition.
This means greatly reducing sugars and refined starches in your diet (including fully eliminating any use of harmful high fructose corn syrup!), and focusing more of your diet on healthy fats (such as avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut fat, olive oil, grass-fed butter, free-range eggs, fatty fish and fish oils, etc), as well as increasing protein and fiber intake.
The standard diet recommended by the government, which contains an unnaturally high grain intake is NOT conducive to controlling blood sugar and reducing visceral fat!
Reducing grain-based foods in your diet and getting more of your carbs from veggies and high fiber fruits such as berries can go a long way to helping to solve this problem.
Get another important tip on the next article below to specifically help you lose abdominal fat (and visceral fat)
Discover a specific “class” of veggies that FIGHTS against abdominal fat (how to counteract xenoestrogens to reduce belly fat and visceral fat)
VIDEO —– How to Get Abs Like a Victoria’s Secret Angel Model
5 Crazy Card Game Workouts to do with a Partner or Solo
Click here to Learn the Truth About Abs!
The Importance of Physical “Variability” in Cardio Exercise
Your Cardio Workouts may NOT be helping you unless you incorporate a high range of heart rate shifts in your training…
Are you a cardio junkie? Everyone seems to think that “cardio” is the best way to get in shape and lose body fat. I’m going to show you with this article why I disagree!
It is quite common to hear fitness pros, doctors, and other health professionals prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people who are trying to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations go something like this:
“Perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times/week
maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level”
Before you just give in to this popular belief and become the “hamster on the wheel” doing endless hours of boring cardio exercise, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it’s cracked up to be.
First, realize that our bodies are designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that “physical variability” is one of THE most important aspects to consider in your training.
This tendency can be seen throughout nature as most animals tend to demonstrate “stop-and-go” motion instead of steady-state motion. In fact, humans are the only creatures in nature that attempt to do “endurance” type physical activities such as running long distances at the exact same speed the whole time.
Most competitive sports (with the exception of endurance running or cycling) are also based on stop-and-go movement or short bursts of exertion followed by recovery.
To examine an example of the different effects of endurance or steady state training versus stop-and-go training, consider the physiques of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters carry a physique that is very lean, muscular, and powerful looking, while the typically dedicated marathoner is more often emaciated and sickly looking. Now, which would you rather resemble?
Another factor to keep in mind regarding the benefits of physical variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on our body. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise (different for everyone, but sometimes defined as greater than 60 minutes per session most days of the week) increases free radical production in the body, can degenerate joints, reduces immune function, causes muscle wasting, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases.
Highly variable cyclic training
On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training has been linked to increased antioxidant production in the body and anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate response (which can assist with weight loss).
Furthermore, steady-state endurance training only trains the heart at one specific heart rate range and doesn’t train it to respond to various everyday stressors.
On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training teaches the heart to respond to and recover from a variety of demands making it less likely to fail when you need it. Think about it this way…
Exercise that trains your heart to rapidly increase and rapidly decrease will make your heart more capable of handling everyday stress. Stress can cause your blood pressure and heart rate to increase rapidly. Steady-state jogging and other endurance training do not train your heart to be able to handle rapid changes in heart rate or blood pressure.
The important aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior over steady state cardio exercise is the recovery period in between bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially important for the body to elicit a healthy response to an exercise stimulus.
Another benefit of variable cyclic training is that it is much more interesting and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio programs.
To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows: improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear, increased muscularity (versus decreased muscularity with endurance training), increased residual metabolic rate following exercise, and an increased capacity for the heart to handle life’s everyday stressors.
Sports Workouts and Sprinting
There are many ways you can reap the benefits of stop-and-go or variable intensity physical training. Most competitive sports such as football, basketball, volleyball, racquetball, tennis, hockey, baseball, etc. are naturally comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion which trains the heart through a MUCH wider heart rate range compared to just steady walking or jogging.
Doing swimming workouts in a variable intensity fashion may also be more beneficial than just swimming for a long duration at the same speed. Same goes for bicycling — that is why mountain biking, which involves extreme ups and downs at various intensity levels may also be more beneficial than just a long flat steady pace bike ride.
One of the absolute most effective forms of variable intensity training to really reduce body fat and bring out serious muscular definition is performing wind sprints. Wind sprints can be done by sprinting at near max speed for 10-30 seconds and then taking 60 seconds to walk for recovery before your next sprint. 6-12 total sprint intervals is usually a very challenging workout for most people.
In addition, weight training naturally incorporates short bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods. High-intensity interval training (varying between high and low-intensity intervals on any piece of cardio equipment) is yet another training method that utilizes exertion and recovery periods. For example, an interval training session on the treadmill could look something like this:
Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog
Interval 1 – run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
Interval 2 – walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes
Interval 3 – run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
Interval 4 – walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes
Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute workout.
Also, don’t overlook other great ways to incorporate variable intensity cardio training by using a jump rope, a rowing machine, stairs running, or even outdoor hill sprints.
The takeaway message from this article is to try to train your body at highly variable intensity rates for the majority of your workouts to get the most beneficial response in terms of heart health, fat loss, and muscle maintenance.
Get further advice at the Truth About Abs Website!
Acquire The Abdominals You Dream Of
You must be a regular visitor to the local gymnasium if you wish to build your strength and fitness but you must have a good diet to run alongside this exercise. If your personal diet is bad then your efforts will be wasted.
Combine a Healthy Diet with the Right Abs Training
If you combine a healthy diet and increase your heart rate on a day to day basis then you will have increased results. A lot of individuals eat antioxidants in order to increase energy levels which generally increases metabolism and helps you burn fat faster.
Sit-ups are a well-used method of toning the abs and if you use weights behind the head then you will increase the tension on your stomach. Don’t ever go past the point of fatigue or your muscles will be damaged and cause pain.
Train your abs until the point of fatigue and then allow 24 hours rest before repeating the process. You will only grow these muscles if you put them under strain or load and then allowed to rest and rebuild.
When you have weak muscles in the midsection, you may experience back or leg pain as other muscles will have to carry the load of others. Its vital that your midsection is trained as you need them to support walking, bending and sitting up.
Do Sit Ups Slowly…
The best advice for having better results with the same exercise is not to do more but to do sit-ups slowly and more control. This provides prolonged strain without overdoing the actual movement itself.
If you can get hold of a large exercise ball then you can do your routine on this as this provides excellent stability and core control which directs the pressure to the right areas. Sit-ups are easier and more effective using this tool.
The only problem with a regular abs training routine is actually sticking to it. Some people might last a week or a month but very little last up to a year. Remain dedicated and have faith in yourself as if you do then I’m sure your results will speak for itself.
If you want to learn the truth about six pack abs then Mike Geary has the answer. Read about the author of the popular “Truth about abs” that explains everything you will ever need to know about gaining the results you want. Click here to learn more!
VIDEO —– 15 Min SHREDDED Abs Training | Get Flat Belly Fast
The 3 Best Abdominal Exercises that Are NOT Your “Normal” Ab Exercises
Instead of the typical ab routines that we see so often with crunches, situps, leg lifts, etc… I like to give my readers better options for metabolism-boosting high-intensity workouts that work their entire body while also working their abs… thus building rock hard abs & core, but also creating a much better fat-burning workout than a typical ab workout.
I’m going to show you an example today of one of my favorite “ab workouts” that doesn’t include any direct “ab exercises” at all. This is actually a full body workout that works your abs pretty hard indirectly, and stimulates a good metabolism boost! It’s in a tri-set format (similar to a super-set but alternating between 3 exercises instead of 2).
Here goes:
1a. Renegade Dumbbell Rows
1b. Front Squats with Barbell
1c. Mountain Climbers on Floor
A good rep scheme to use with this could be 3-4 sets of 8 reps for each exercise, or more sets for fewer reps, such as 5 sets of 5 reps of each exercise. Mountain climbers can be done for a time interval (such as 30 seconds) instead of “reps”.
Exercise Pics & Descriptions:
Renegade dumbbell rows are done starting in a pushup position with the hands on 2 dumbbells.
You then row one dumbbell up while stabilizing your body with the other arm.
Bring the dumbbell back to the ground and alternate the rowing arm while stabilizing with the opposite arm.
This stabilizing effect during the rows creates incredible work for your entire midsection core area. Trust me… you’ll feel it in the abs!
Front squats are done similar to back squats, however with the barbell in front of your body on the front of your shoulders instead of resting on the upper back as in back squats.
You stabilize the barbell on your shoulders by crossing your arms and pushing your fists into the bar against your shoulders while keeping your elbows out in front of the body.
This takes a little practice at first, so you will want to seek a professional trainer at your gym to help you with the form.
Front squats require extreme stabilization strength from the abs due to the barbell weight being shifted to the front of the body instead of the back.
Even though this is mostly a leg exercise, you’ll feel this one in the abs big time!
Any time I do front squats after not having done them for a while, I get a really deep soreness in my abs the next day.
Mountain climbers are done by starting in a pushup position and then shuffling your feet in and out so that your knees are moving in under your chest and then back out to starting position.
It sort of resembles climbing a mountain but flat on the floor. If you want an advanced version, you can also shuffle your hands 8-10 inches forward and backward in addition to the leg movements.
This really makes it a full body exercise and MUCH more difficult than standard mountain climbers.
After finishing each exercise, try to move to the next exercise with very minimal rest (no more than 15-20 seconds).
Rest about 1-2 minutes after completing each “tri-set” before repeating the sequence.
This will give you one of the best ab workouts you’ve ever had without even doing any direct ab exercises…. and with a LOT more fat-burning metabolic effect compared to standard ab exercises…
You’ll see what I mean after you try it!
This can be used as a stand-alone workout (as it can be very intense if you use challenging weights), or you can incorporate it as a portion of your full body workout.
Abs Training – 3 Advanced Tips to Build Abs Faster
If you ask me how to build abs fast, I honestly don’t think you can achieve it in just one step.
If that was the case, then you wouldn’t even be spending this much time looking for the best combination of strategies to get six pack abs.
There are several exercises that have been specially developed in order to work our stomach muscles. Each particular exercise is beneficial in some ways. Yet, many people get the wrong idea that this is all they have to do to get six pack abs, which is a big mistake.
Abs Training Workouts
An abs-focusing workout is one of the many different principles in getting abs fast. Your principal goal should be to do these particular exercises properly and consistently.
These kinds of exercises focus on a certain area in your abdominals. Doing it the proper way will give your muscles the workout they demand. The right consistency should be on a weekly basis; around 3 to 4 times a week. When doing reps, try to keep your abs firm. Do this and you will work abs quick.
Before Abs Training Remove Excessive Fat…
Before you can reap the benefits of abs focusing workout to build your muscles, the first thing you have to do is to remove the excess layers of fat stored in your abdominal area. It is like making a house renovation — before getting around to that, you need to put away the trash. And that is why following a healthy dietary plan is significant.
Have you asked yourself lately, if you are indeed living a healthy diet? Are you conscious enough to know what food you consume daily and, more importantly, does it help you achieve your goal?
Stay Away from sugar and Carbohydrates
Avoiding unhealthy fats is only one thing you can do to improve your diet. You should also stay away from too much sugar and carbohydrates to be able to get good results in your fitness program. A balanced diet plus water therapy can surely change your fat belly into ripped, well-defined abs.
You can always refer to health topics online about diet and balanced meals that best suit your body. There are also a lot of books on the subject that you can check out.
Cardiovascular Exercise & Abs Training
Cardiovascular exercise, also known as aerobics, is another good strategy to work abs quick. Their advantages not only lie in muscle toning and fat burning, but also in making your entire body physically fit, healthy, and strong.
Some of the easiest cardio exercises you can do are jogging and cycling.
Motivation, determination, and discipline, applied with these three strategies, will make your dream of six pack abs a reality. Who knows, you might find yourself a role model when it comes to quickly build abs.
Here’s the truth about abs: no obstacle can prevent you from achieving your sexy abs dream when you have the right stuff to use in your program. Plus, you can learn lots of new things about strip off nasty belly fat when you take a look at the Turbulence Training review.
Abs Training: 3 Ways On How To Get Killer Abs For Anyone
Health and fitness should always be your top priority, regardless of gender, background, or even age. How to get killer abs even when your biological clock is ticking? It’s not an impossible endeavor, trust me.
You will surely experience various changes in your body as you age. When you used to run faster than most, lift heavy things without even making a face, and eat practically anything without gaining a lot of weight, that could all easily change as the years pile on. Don’t worry, we all go through the aging process. It’s vital, however, that you don’t allow your age to control your life, especially your state of fitness.
There are instances where older people are actually stronger and fit than younger folk. Engaging in healthier activities can improve anyone’s state of health and that’s how to get killer abs at 20, 30, or even 60.
It’s never too late to build six pack abs. Below are some vital techniques on how to get killer abs at any age:
Understand your body’s strengths and weaknesses
To build your six pack effectively, you should know what your strengths are. Bone mass tends to decrease while joints and muscles weaken as we age. Our bodies essentially undergo hormonal changes and normal wear-and-tear of tissues. When you’re going through the motions, make sure you protect your body, especially the parts that are more prone to injuries.
Push yourself but do not abuse your body
Veteran runners are no stranger to bursitis, tendonitis, and similar conditions. If you’re one of those, try to avoid putting any unnecessary stress on your hips, knees, and feet by opting for other low-impact but equally effective cardio exercises like swimming and cycling. Observe how joints and bones seem to be more poor when someone reaches the age of 50 and above. How to get killer abs effectively? Perform these low-impact exercises on a regular basis in combination with other necessary forms of exercise such as resistance training, core-specific exercises, weight training, and interval training.
Be extra careful of the way you eat and your general way of life
As the digits go up, you need to be more vigilant about your food and lifestyle choices. Cigarettes, alcohol, performance enhancing drugs, junk or processed food, insufficient hours of sleep, and other prospective health hazards should be avoided.
This is exactly how to get killer abs. Take these 3 main principles to heart and you can enjoy a healthier, more fit body all your life.
While you’re at it, you should go over other helpful resources such as this Fat Burning Furnace review. There you’ll get a better understanding of how the body works and what you can do to develop muscle effectively. Continuously working on your fitness plan is definitely a good way to get 6 pack abs.
The Low Body Fat Secret Of Bodybuilders And Fitness Models
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS – BurnTheFat.com
The secret to getting super lean – I’m talking about being ripped, not just “average body fat” – is all about mastering the art of “peaking.”
Most people do not have a clue about what it takes to reach the type of low body fat levels that reveal ripped six-pack abs, muscle striations, vascularity and extreme muscular definition, so they go about it completely the wrong way.
Here’s a case in point. One of my newsletter subscribers recently sent me this question:
Tom, on your BurnTheFat.com website, you wrote:
‘Who better to model than bodybuilders and fitness competitors? No athletes in the world get as lean as quickly as bodybuilders and fitness competitors. The transformations they undergo in 12 weeks prior to competition would boggle your mind! Only ultra-endurance athletes come close in terms of low body fat levels, but endurance athletes like triathaletes and marathoners often get lean at the expense of chewing up all their muscle. Some of them are nothing but skin and bone.’
“There seems to be a contradiction unless I’m missing something. Why do bodybuilders and fitness competitors have to go through a 12 week ‘transformation’ prior to every event instead of staying ‘lean and mean’ all the time? If they practice the secrets exposed in your book, they should be staying in shape all the time instead of having to work at losing fat prior to every competitive event, correct?”
Cyclical Abs Training & Dieting
There is a logical explanation for why bodybuilders and other physique athletes (fitness and figure competitors), don’t remain in shape all year round, and it’s the very reason they are able to get so ripped on the day of a contest…
You can’t hold a peak forever or it’s not a “peak”, right? What is the definition of a peak? It’s a high point surrounded by two lower points isn’t it?
Therefore, any shape you can stay in all year round is NOT your “peak” condition.
The intelligent approach to nutrition and training (which almost all bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors use), is to train and diet in a seasonal or cyclical fashion and build up to a peak, then ease off to a maintenance or growth phase.
I am NOT talking about bulking up and getting fat and out of shape every year, then dieting it all off every year. What I’m talking about is going from good shape to great (peak) shape, then easing back off to good shape…. but never getting “out of shape.” Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Abs Training Example
I have no intentions whatsoever of walking around 365 days a year at 4% body fat like I appear in the photo on my website. Off-season, when I’m not competing, my body fat is usually between 8 – 10%. Mind you, that’s very lean and still single digit body fat.
I don’t stray too far from competition shape, but I don’t maintain contest shape all the time. It takes me 12-14 weeks or so to gradually drop from 9.5% to 3.5%-4.0% body fat to “peak” for competition with NO loss of lean body mass…using the same techniques I reveal in my e-book.
It would be almost impossible to maintain 4% body fat, and even if I could, why would I want to? For the few weeks prior to competition, I’m so depleted, ripped, and even “drawn” in the face, that complete strangers walk up and offer to feed me.
Not a Desirable Condition?
Okay, so I’m just kidding about that, but let’s just say being “being ripped to shreds” isn’t a desirable condition to maintain because it takes such a monumental effort to stay there. It’s probably not even healthy to try forcing yourself to hold extreme low body fat. Unless you’re a natural “ectomorph” (skinny, fast metabolism body type), your body will fight you.
Not only that, anabolic hormones may drop and sometimes your immune system is affected as well. It’s just not “normal” to walk around all the time with literally no subcutaneous body fat.
Instead of attempting to hold the peak, I cycle back into a less demanding off-season program and avoid creeping beyond 9.9% body fat. Some years I’ve stayed leaner – like 6-7%, (which takes effort), especially when I knew I would be photographed, but I don’t let my body fat go over 10%.
This practice isn’t just restricted to bodybuilders. Athletes in all sports use periodization to build themselves up to their best shape for competition. Is a pro football player in the same condition in March-April as he is in August-September? Not a chance. Many show up fat and out of shape (relatively speaking) for training camp, others just need fine-tuning, but none are in peak form… that’s why they have training camp!!!
Don’t Be a “Chronic” Dieter!
There’s another reason you wouldn’t want to maintain a “ripped to shreds” physique all year round – you’d have to be dieting (calorie restricted) all the time. And this is one of the reasons that 95% of people can’t lose weight and keep it off –they are chronic dieters… always on some type of diet. Know anyone like that?
You can’t stay on restricted low calories indefinitely. Sooner or later your metabolism slows down and you plateau as your body adapts to the chronically lowered food intake. But if you diet for fat loss and push incredibly hard for 3 months, then ease off for a while and eat a little more (healthy food, not “pigging out”), your metabolic rate is re-stimulated.
In a few weeks or months, you can return to another fat loss phase and reach an even lower body fat level. You will finally reach the point that’s your happy maintenance level for life – a level that is healthy and realistic – as well as visually appealing.
An Effective Abs Training & Dieting Methodology
Bodybuilders have discovered a methodology for losing fat that’s so effective, it puts them in complete control of their body composition. They’ve mastered this area of their lives and will never have to worry about it again. If they ever “slip” and fall off the wagon like all humans do at times … no problem! They know how to get back into shape fast.
Bodybuilders have the tools and knowledge to hold a low body fat all year round (such as 9% for men, or about 15% for women), and then at a whim, to reach a temporary “peak” of extremely low body fat for the purpose of competition. Maybe most important of all, they have the power and control to slowly ease back from peak shape into maintenance, and not balloon up and yo-yo like most conventional dieters!
Be in Control with the Right Abs Training
What if you had the power to stay lean all year round, and then get super lean when summer rolled around…
Or when you took your vacation to the Caribbean, or when your wedding date was coming up? Wouldn’t you like to be in control of your body like that? Isn’t that the same thing that bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors do, only on a more practical, real-world level?
So even if you have no competitive aspirations whatsoever, don’t you agree that there’s something of value everyone could learn from physique athletes?
Don’t model yourself after the huge crowd of losers who gobble diet pills, buy exercise gimmicks and suffer through starvation diets like automatons, only to gain back everything they lost! Instead, learn from the leanest athletes on Earth – natural bodybuilders and fitness competitors…
The Seasonal “Peaking” Approach
These physique athletes get as ripped as they want to be, exactly when they want to. They simply by manipulate their diets in a cyclical fashion between pre-contest “cutting” programs and off-season “maintenance” or “muscle growth” programs.
Even if you have no desire to ever compete, try this seasonal “peaking” approach yourself and you’ll see that it can work as well for you as it does for elite bodybuilders.
If you’re interested in learning even more secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models, visit the Burn The Fat website at BurnTheFat.com