Abs, baby

Chad won’t stop talking about his stupid abs. I’m talking about for months now. Every time he coughs, sneezes, flinches, while he’s brushing his teeth, every time he walks past a mirror, and at least 8 times throughout the day for no apparent reason he grabs his torso and flexes his abs. He’s obsessed, and I mean like OBSESSED. Of course he is; he’s a young, single beta-male (one notch below alpha), and other than politicians sexting college students and mass producing demi Austrian-barbarian children with their staffers, I can’t think of a single thing more American than a set of abs.

I don’t have a single female client that doesn’t at least kind of want a flatter, firmer stomach. Then there’s my male clients… holy cow, they ponder over the virtues of having a “six pack” so much that I’ve developed some kind of an annoying Pavlovian response, which causes me to have a dry heaving episode every time I go near the beer cooler at my friendly neighborhood liquor store. People everywhere are dieting, crunching, leg raising, and cardio-ing all in an effort to find their set of dream abs. So, enough is enough. I’m going to spell it out for everybody, no bologna, in an effort to help my readers obtain their ultimate quest.

First, I want to make one point clear. Men and women should do their ab training differently. There will be certain similarities, but for men to get the coveted six pack, there must be an emphasis on developing size. Most women are looking for a tight, flat stomach, and so focusing on adding size is not as important; although, that does not mean it is completely unimportant either. Also, while this article is mostly about getting “the look”, making sure that your core is functioning optimally to protect your spine and transfer force (the go behind the show) is something that is near and dear to my heart. If you don’t care, start caring right now because if your core isn’t functioning properly, I guarantee it is holding back your results. With that said, if you’re one of 8 people in the country who doesn’t care about how their stomach looks, keep reading anyway. A sexy tummy and a well-functioning core are like peas and carrots.

Often, I hear the word “core” being used to describe stomach musculature, and I want to set the record straight. The term “core” has different meanings depending on who you ask. Some experts have a list of 30+ muscles that they consider core muscles. Some refer to the core as the muscles involved in pelvic and lumbar spine stabilization and movement. Others just call it all of the muscles that attach to the lumbar spine and pelvis. However you look at it, the “core” is a lot more than just your abs. It includes your glutes, spinal erectors, and a whole bunch of other muscles which are not the topic of this piece, so I won’t go into it. Not that it’s not super important, but we’re getting abs for the summer, baby, so that is where the focus will lie!

Anatomy of the Stomach Muscles

If you are unfamiliar with the muscles of the stomach, now’s the time to learn. You don’t have to remember all of the names of the muscles, but you should understand that there are several muscles involved in getting “the look”, and they all serve different functions, so they should be trained differently. In other words, and I’m sure if you’ve tried this in the past you can atest to this fact, crunches alone will not get you the chizeled, ripped midsection you want because crunches really only train your rectus abdominis and in only one direction- forward and back. Your stomach muscles are responsible for a whole lot more than moving your torso forward and back, as you’ll see below. Therefore, we want to make sure that our approach includes movements that challenge the abdominal muscles in every way possible, i.e. in all three planes of motions (front to back, side to side, and rotationally).

Rectus Abdominus- spinal flexion- Spinal flexion is when you bend your torso forward, like in a sit up. I’m not a huge fan of sit ups, however, because repetitive spinal flexion has been shown to cause low back pain and injury. This is the six pack muscle because it sits on top of the rest of the muscles in your stomach.

Transverse Abdominis- pulls abdominal wall inward, i.e. tucks in your gut- Important in keeping your stomach from hanging all over the place. Also, the transverse abdominis is important in protecting the spine by keeping intra-abdominal pressure, which prevents your lumbar spine from being compressed during lifting. When you think “flat stomach” you're thinking about the transverse abdominis.

Obliques- spinal flexion, lateral flexion (bending your torso sideways), and rotation or twisting- Guys, the coveted “v” comes from a combination of developed lower abs and obliques. Ladies, the concave portion of the hourglass figure is where your obliques sit- enough said.

 

Serratus Anterior- scapular abduction, elevation, and upward rotation- I threw this one in there mostly for the guys because when you see a super ripped set of abs, you almost always see those extra lines up where the ribs are. Often, people even think they are rib, but they’re not- they're muscles.

Now, Let’s Get Real

Getting your abs to look great is a combination of two things: low body fat levels and developed stomach musculature. We will get to the workout in a bit, but first let’s talk body fat levels. For men, getting a six pack means getting fat levels down to about 10% of your total body mass. For women, somewhere right around 15% should do it. Those numbers can vary depending on a few factors like where you store fat, and how “thick” your abs are, but at least it gives you an idea. Women, because of their physiology, can keep a little more body fat than men, but don’t get too hung up on the numbers. As a general rule, if you can’t see your abs, you need to lose some fat, gain some muscle, or both.

Finding your abs is probably 60 percent diet, 40 percent training. Most people in the health and fitness field would put diet as a higher priority, and it is. The reason I put so much emphasis (40 percent being higher than most of my contemporaries) on training is because I have seen numerous people slaving away at fat loss without getting the definition that they want because of underdeveloped musculature. Or, I’ve seen people who finally get the abs they want, but because they had weak, small muscles and a slow metabolism, they had to eat nearly nothing which, in the long haul, was unsustainable. The moment they had a couple of beers at the Fourth of July barbeque, abs gone and momentum lost. To get your abs into bodybuilding or figure contest-ready shape, diet is EVERYTHING. To get a flatter stomach or to see some lines, I tend to emphasis the importance of resistance training and effective cardio.

Regardless of your training, your diet is going to be important, and I would be lying if I even implied that you can out-train a bad diet. You cannot, but this article is primarily focused on what to do in the gym for your resistance and cardio training. There are a thousand good diets, and almost all of them work for somebody. The one that will work for you is the one that you’ll stick to. A great place to start is with the Paleo Diet, or the South Beach diet. I’ll cover nutrition more extensively in future articles, but for now let’s get on to the workouts.

Men’s Workout

If you're one of the guys reading this thinking, “Increase the size of my abs? Yeah, but I don’t want my abs getting too big.” Or, “I do tons of abs, like thousands of reps. Trust me, bro, my abs are well developed,” I want you to quickly punch yourself in the neck and ask yourself, “If I know how to get a six pack, why am I reading this article?” The fact of the matter is, most guys look at the tiny, dieted waist lines of bodybuilders, and somehow think that they should be able to walk around with the exact same thing. So I'm going to lay the “don’t get your abs too big because it makes your waist look fat” conversation to rest.

I heard someone once say, “You don’t want your abs to get too big? That would be like having too much money. You should be so lucky.” Truer words were never spoken. Now, I'm not the kind of guy who likes to put limitations on people, but if I didn’t give my clients a healthy dose of reality, I wouldn’t be doing my job. Maintaining the kind of body fat that you see in those pictures all year for most people is simply not realistic. I'm not talking about those one off genetic freaks who keep body fat levels low without trying, and I'm assuming that if you're reading this, you're not one of them. I'm talking about the average guy who hasn’t seen definition in his stomach before, and wants to. A little secret- even most of the guys in the pictures don’t walk around with abs like that. Check out what professional bodybuilders look like in their offseason compared to their in season:

 

                                                    

Pretty different physiques, huh? Now, understand that bodybuilders intentionally keep their abdominal muscle growth at bay so that when they are dieted down to 5% body fat, their waists look smaller compared to their shoulder girdle and legs. If they didn’t, they'd have thicker waists, but you'd be able to see their abs pretty much all year. 300 pound bodybuilders need to worry about getting their abs too big because they're trying to create a certain look for a very short period of time, and all of the supplements (read, “steroids”) pumping through their systems causes everything to grow like crazy. Because of the sport they're involved in, they have to be careful not to let their waists get too big, but for the average guy wanting to sport a six pack, growth should be priority number one. Now, let’s look at some of the best abs in Hollywood, which most of time is the visual that people have in their heads when they say, “I want a six pack”:

                                          

In relation to the rest of the muscles on their bodies, these guys abs are huge. The fact of the matter is, fat around your waist makes your waist look fat, and that is all. A quick side note, men should virtually never take pictures of themselves in their underwear. I’m giving Mr. Perrella a pass because he’s found a way to make a living being photographed in his underoos, but as a general rule I’m recommending that you keep the skivvy-shots reserved for our more attractive female counterparts.

So, we know that adding size is important, but how do you get your ab to grow? The same way you get any other muscle to grow, Pinky: overload. "Overload" means that we're going to place our muscles under tension that is greater than what they're used to or have experienced in the past. "Tension" comes in many forms and it doesn't always take moving big weights to create maximal tension.

Just as much as muscles can produce force, they also resist force. In other words, muscles don’t just move weights (concentric contraction); they can also slow and lower weights (eccentric contraction) or even stop them and hold them in place (isometric contraction). Your stomach muscles, because of their location and function, respond extremely well to resisting and stabilizing force. Why, you ask? Because, that’s what they do all day long. Think about it, what’s holding your torso upright when you walk or sit up straight? The answer is your core musculature a part of which includes your abs. As you pick up your coffee cup or thrust your leg into the air to sidekick Chad into the fourth dimension for being late to work again, your torso remains basically still.

You virtually never curl your torso forward like in a crunch unless you're doing crunches. The whole rest of the time, you're ab muscles are holding you in place through isometric and eccentric contractions with the occasional concentric contraction like when Chad gets up off of the ground after the temporary paralysis wears off. Therefore, our approach should not emphasis the concentric contraction or spinal flexion. Instead, the exercises should challenge us to keep our spine in a neutral position in response to external forces. In other words, we’re looking to keep our torso/lumbar spine as still as possible. Try not to let your body cave in on itself.

Now, let the six pack building begin. None of these exercises emphasize spinal flexion, but in the case of a couple, you might get a little especially if you have some inflexibility. If you're noticing that your low back is rounding a bunch on these exercises, you need to stretch your hamstrings and possibly your glutes. Similarly, be very careful not to allow your lumbar spine to extend either; don’t let your low back arch too much (if it does, stretch your psoas or “hip flexors”). We’re looking for a neutral spinal position.

Start with a stabilization circuit to get the neural pathways firing. These exercises should burn a little but not a lot, and are not designed to be ultra-fatiguing. Perform the circuit 3 times

Dying cockroach for 20 reps

               Physioball plank for 20-30 seconds

Side plank with rotation for 10 reps each side

Next, on to the muscle building exercises. These exercises are to be done with 30 seconds rest in between each set, and all sets of each exercise are done before moving on to the next exercise. “Superset” means performing 2 exercises back to back before taking a rest break. I give several different options for which exercise to do so that you can work with whatever equipment you have in your gym. I put the exercises in order of preference, i.e. I would prefer the first exercise to the second, and the second exercise to the third, but you may find that you just plain like certain exercises and you feel them, so I give you permission to go with whichever exercise you like best. If you have the equipment available, at least try to do the exercises I suggest.

Ring fallouts or ab wheel or physioball rollouts superset with V ups 3 x 8-15 of each depending on your capabilities (if V ups are performed weighted, hold the weight in your hands, do not put it in between your feet. Low abs are up next, and you don’t want to burn them out too early.)

Hanging abs or ring pikes or physioball pikes superset with floor wipers 3 x 8-15 of each depending on your capabilities

Bus-drivers 3 x 8-15 each direction, depending on the weight used (progress the weights with each set), and your capabilities

Finally, rotate through these “finishers” each time you do your ab routine. Here, we’ll keep the weights moderate and go until your abs are absolutely finished. In other words, either go until your pain threshold has been exceeded, or until your technique breaks down. Perform two sets until failure with one minute of rest between the sets.

Renegade rows

Weighted plank

Move the stack plank

The video got a little out of order. Ignore the order in the video, just follow the workout as it is written.

Because of the intensity of this ab workout, you need at least 48 hours between workouts, and if you’ve never done weighted ab work, you will probably need more. This routine takes about 40 minutes, and with the cardio I recommend at the end it takes about an hour. This is not something you do in addition to your normal workout. This is a very taxing workout, and you’ll need to recover from it, so keep that in mind when you're incorporating it into your routine. We are using this as our “abs and cardio day”, but that doesn’t mean that it is just some dummy day that barely counts. You're very possibly going to be so sore it makes you nauseas after your first day of this, but don’t worry, that will stop once your body starts adapting. The point I’m making is that we’re thinking about our abs a priority now, and if you're used to just throwing in some ab work at the end of your workouts, this is going to be new way of thinking. The workout above is super hard, longer than you're used to, and going to make you a six pack that has you scheduling trips to the water park all summer long.

None of these particular exercises emphasis the serratus anterior, which you’ll remember are the little muscles up by the rib cage. In my opinion, a six pack without serratus anterior lines is a brand new sports car with stock rims. It’s still cool, but it’s missing that little extra. Getting the serratus to grow, however, has really nothing to do with your abs. Your serratus stabilizes your shoulder blades, and so they are most active, or at least they should be most active, during pressing movements. Because of this, we’ll train them after our chest and shoulder days with a quick little circuit of three exercises.

Stability ball serratus push 2x15

Incline bench DB serratus push 2x15

Standing Cable serratus push 2x15

Women’s Workout

As I said before, women are going to be required to make sure that their body fat levels get low and stay low. Because we’re not focused on adding size to the stomach musculature, women get zero wiggle room in their body fat levels. “15% or bust” needs to be your motto if you plan on getting a flat stomach, but even the women I see who aren’t overweight often have trouble getting the flatness to their stomach that they're looking for. So I want to shed a little light on what the problem might be.

First of all, just because you're not overweight doesn’t mean you're not fat. Ever heard the term “skinny fat”? It is used in the industry to describe the woman who comes in, gets her body fat measurement taken, and is told that she’s at 30%. Next, I’m told that there must be something wrong with my equipment, something wrong with me, it’s that time of the month, “OMG, I totally forgot that it’s a harvest moon tonight, and I’m always SUPER bloated during harvest moons”, blah, blah, blah.

Fact of the matter is, if you don’t have even a little muscle mass on your body, it’s very possible that your body fat percentage, which is a measurement of the amount of mass on your body that is fat in proportion to your total mass, is too high. It’s a percentage, which means that even if you don’t have a lot of fat total, a significant portion of your mass could come from fat. For example, if you weigh 110 pounds and your body fat percentage is 30%, you have 33 pounds of fat (110 x .3 or 30% of 110). Now if you weigh 140 pounds, and you're 25% body fat, you have 35 pounds of fat. 35 is more than 33 obviously, but since the 140 pound person has lower body fat levels, they’re proportionally leaner. The good news if you're skinny fat is that since you don’t have that much total fat to lose, you can move your percentage pretty dang fast. We’ll get into fat burning here in a bit, but first let’s go over potential problem number 2.

So, you're leaner. In fact, you've gotten all the way down to 17% body fat, and you're expecting to start to see a nice lean tummy. The problem is that even though you’re stomach shrunk and you're starting to see some definition, it’s just not getting flat. You can even see little dimples when you flex, so why the heck isn’t your waist line looking smaller? Maybe, you’ve even dropped a pant size or two, good job. We’re in the perfect place to use a little direct transverse abdominis work to help take your tummy to the next level. First, I want to explain why this little annoyance is taking place. If you go back to the anatomy portion of the article, you’ll remember that there are two muscles with the word “abdominis” in their name. The first is the rectus abdominis, which is in charge of curling the torso forward. The second is the transverse abdominis, which pulls the abdominal wall toward the spine.

If the rectus abdominis is overactive due to weeks, months, or years of abdominal training that included mostly crunching, then you’ll very possibly have definition in your stomach but it still won’t be flat because the muscle that pulls in your tummy isn’t performing. We’re not trying to build abs that pop out like the guys. No, we’re trying to build abs that pull in like a bikini model, so our approach needs to be different. Not that I advocate endless crunches and sit ups for the guys either. As I told the fellas, I don’t like repetitive spinal flexion as a way to do abdominal training. Beside the fact that it could cause back pain and injury, it’s just not the most effective way to train. Instead, we need something that trains all of the core musculature and does it in a way that makes our body healthy and trains our muscles to keep our tummy tucked in and flat. 

           

Enter isometric training. “Isometric” refers to keeping tension in muscle fibers without moving, in other words, “holding it”. Isometrics work in abdominal training because whether you knew it or not, you're abs are constantly under isometric tension. If they weren’t you'd need the support of a chair, or wall, or your pet chihuahua, Slayer, to keep you from falling over backward.

 

Obviously, you don’t fall over backward without support, and that’s because your abdominal muscles are isometrically engaged almost always, or at least they should be.

With that said, it’s very possible that only some of your abdominal muscles are engaging properly. Most people I see have underactive transverse abdominis muscles, and the result is a stomach that sticks out even if it is muscular. Therefore, by addressing that weakness, your stomach will look much flatter, even if you don’t lose any additional weight, because it is being drawn in. There’s the method to the madness, now on to the workout.

There are a couple of things that you should keep in mind when you're doing this workout. First, if we’re trying to get our stomach to look flat, it’s important that you keep your spine in a position that actually flattens your stomach. I frequently see women with excessive arches in their lower backs (anterior pelvic tilt), and it makes their stomach look like it’s pushing forward. Look at Ms. Spears, for example.

The position that she has herself in is super sexy, right? Well, it’s somewhat less that great for her low back, and it’s making her glutes and abs weak. In fact, if she were actually wearing a shirt and facing forward, it would make her stomach look like it was cresting out. This is a pretty extreme case, but virtually any woman that wears heels has the same excessive low back arch. I'm not going to tell you to stop wearing heels, but I am going to tell you that if you that if you have a pelvic orientation that resembles Britney’s, you're going to have a hard time training your abs, and you're going to look like you have a gut. No worries, just stretch your psoas (hip flexors), and practice activating your glutes when you do your routine.

 The second thing to keep in mind during your workout is to actively draw your stomach in while performing the exercises. Be careful not to think that holding your breath in your chest is the same thing as drawing your stomach back- it’s not. Practice pulling your belly button all the way back to your spine and breathing at the same time. The muscle we’re activating is the transverse abdominis, and by training it to draw in, you’ll train your stomach to stay in flat when you're standing up.

Finally, let’s talk about what I mean when I say “standing up”. For some reason, almost every woman that I have trained has her shoulders rounded forward. I cannot tell you the impact that this has on the way that your stomach looks. Combine shoulders slouched forward with a little extra fat around the midsection and stomach muscles that don’t draw your stomach back, and it’ no wonder you're unhappy with the way your tummy looks.

Stand up straight with your shoulders back and your chest up. The whole world knows that you have boobs whether you slouch forward or not, so quit it. Think of that celebrity who has the body you want, or even just picture yourself with your ideal body. I assure you, you're not visualizing that celebrity or yourself with your shoulders all hunkered over. If you want proof, look at the models above and look at their posture. Shoulders back, chest up, tummy drawn in. even if you didn’t lose any additional weight or do any ab sculpting work at all, you'd look leaner and your stomach would look flatter just by improving your posture and activating the muscles that draw your stomach in. Enough talking, on to the workout:

We’re going to do the same warm-up as the guys, which, in case you didn’t read that section, is as follows:

Dying cockroach for 20 reps

 Physioball plank for 20-30 seconds

Side plank with rotation for 10 reps each side

After the warm-up, we’re going to go on to some muscular conditioning. Start in a plank position and draw your belly button back to your spine. Don’t hold your breath, just use your stomach muscles to pull your stomach in just like if you're trying to button a pair of pants that are too small. Now, without leaving the plank position, perform the following 3 movements:

Birddogs x 10 each side (If you can’t do a birddog, just raise your arm)

Side hops x 10 each side

Rotations x 10 each side

Now, hold the plank for 20 seconds, and really focus on drawing your abs in toward your spine. Rest 30 seconds, and repeat 2 more times.

Finally, to really get those stomach muscles going, rotate through these “finishers” every time you do your ab workout. Perform these exercises until you’ve either surpassed your pain tolerance, or your form has broken down. I give several different options for which exercise to do so that you can work with whatever equipment you have in your gym. I put the exercises in order of preference, i.e. I would prefer the first exercise to the second, and the second exercise to the third, but you may find that you just plain like certain exercises and you feel them, so I give you permission to go with whichever exercise you like best. If you have the equipment available, at least try to do the exercises I suggest.

V ups (If V ups are performed weighted, hold the weight in your hands, do not put it in between your feet. We want to target the upper abs here. Low abs are next workout.)

Ring Fallouts or ab wheel or physioball roll outs (unfortunately, we'remissing this portion in the video, check out the guy's video for the proper technique and demonstration. Sorry about that.)

               Weighted bench knee raises

Unlike the guys, this routine could be performed 3-5 times per week depending on your ability to recover. This shouldn’t take much longer than about 15-20 minutes. If it does, it’s either because you need to cut the volume back a little until you get stronger, or because you're talking instead of training.

Men and Women’s Cardio Training

So, the ab training piece is out of the way, which leads to us to one last crucial piece: fat loss. This portion of the article is a little shorter, but that’s not because it’s any less important. Losing fat is over half the battle in the abs game, and your cardio is going to play a major role. For fat loss, I can’t think of any single thing that’s more effective to do in the gym than interval training. Interval training, as you may have read in one of my other articles, is a type of cardio in which you increase the intensity of the exercise for short bursts to spike your heart rate. There are a million different types of interval training out there, but I like to make my cardio simple so I can focus on the workout. So, without further ado, here it is. Get on your favorite piece of cardio equipment and start moving at a pace that you'd say is a 5 out of 10 on the effort scale. Now, every time you see a number divisible by 3 (3, 6, 9, and 12), increase your intensity to a 9 out of 10 for one minute. If you're on the treadmill, crank the incline way up or go from a jog to a sprint. If you're on the elliptical, either increase the resistance or speed up or both. You can use any piece of cardio equipment that you want, and I don’t care how you do it, but get your intensity up to what you’d consider a 9 out of 10.

After 60 seconds at the higher intensity, take your settings back to where you were at a 5 out of 10. It’s really important not to overdo this part of the workout. We’re looking for intensity during those minutes of 9 out of 10, and if you blow yourself out during your “recovery” time, you won’t have anything left in the tank when it’s time to turn it on. Because of this, I wouldn’t worry too much if you need to cut yourself some slack if you’re not recovering enough in the time between peaks. In other words, either lower the intensity or give yourself a longer rest if you're too wiped to perform. As time goes on, these intervals naturally progress themselves because they're done using an subjective effort level scale. As you get in better shape, you’ll have to move the settings to accommodate, and you may even find that on some days you feel good and your resistance or speed is a little higher or faster. We’re not worried about the numbers on the machine, we’re worried about hitting that 9 out of 10. You know you got there if you’re thinking about quitting after 45 seconds, and you have to make yourself push through to the end.  Go for between 15-30 minutes, but if you're really working as hard as you should be, 15 minutes is plenty to start.

Why do I love interval training? Because after about 15 minutes of it, you should be wiped out. Instead  of hanging on a piece of equipment for the afternoon, you can get in and get out. By pushing your body closer to its max, you're getting more work done and burning more calories in less time. Beside the fact that it’s more time efficient, interval training is also more effective at burning fat. When you spend time working at those higher levels of intensity, it starts a process called EPOC (excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption), which is more or less a fat burning chain reaction that lasts for hours after you’re done. Also, you're teaching your body to work harder and at a higher intensity. That creates a healthier metabolism, and a healthy metabolism burns fat all day long.

You want to perform your cardio after your workout, or at a separate time altogether. Whatever you do, don’t perform interval training before your resistance session! I’m not saying you shouldn't do a warm-up. I think warm-ups are super important in getting you ready for a good lift; I’m talking about interval training. Interval training is too taxing to finish and then go to resistance training. Lifting when you're already tired is not only ineffective, it’s arguably unsafe. So, please perform all of your cardio after you’ve done your resistance.

Conclusion

If you're like Chad (I mean obsessed over your abs, not always late to work), but you feel stumped on what you should do to get the abs you’ve always wanted, worry no more. It’s time to start making ab training a priority; no more just throwing in a couple sets of ineffective crunches at the end of your workout.  Getting that lean tummy requires some hard work and training that actually stimulates your muscles the way they're supposed to be exercised. Partner that with a cardio program that gets your metabolism moving, and you couldn’t ask for a more perfect storm. Now, be prepared to work your butt off, and get ready to have fun staring at your stomach in the mirror and actually liking what you see.

The information and discussions on this webstie/blog are intended for general information only.  You should not rely on any of the statements made without consulting a medical professional of your choosing.