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Open just about any magazine even slightly related to health and fitness and you'll find some variant or another of 'six weeks to a six-pack' or 'awesome abs' or 'core training secrets of the stars' or the like.
It's amazing!
It's as if the whole world is fixated with the abdominal region and will happily sit through pages and pages of 'samey' information just to get to the one or two 'secrets' that'll miraculously turn us from fat and flabby to fit and fabby over night.
Well, as much as you'll hate hearing it, the truth is that most 'celebrity sixpacks' have very little to do with the special core routine of their favourite personal trainer with their multitudes of crunch variations or 'secret' exercises.
Likewise any well conditioned track athlete, martial artist or gymnast.
You'll rarely, if ever catch one of these well proportioned and highly defined athletes even entertaining the idea of crunches, let alone doing one, yet they all get to sport year-round leanness and definition that most people would kill for.
Why is that?
Why when some of us are spending HOURS every week hitting our waists from every angle are we still looking soft around the middle when these abdominal training atheists are able to achieve such great results?
I can tell you up front, you're not going to like the answer I have for you!
First though, some basic anatomy.
That muscle you think of as 'the six pack', the one that runs from your groin all the way up to your ribs is called the Rectus abdominis and is just one of several very important muscle groups that create your waist or 'core' as is now popular.
Every single movement you make, from standing to sitting, walking to running, bending twisting, pushing and pulling all originate here and so, far from requiring even more training, your core muscles are already there and already looking like that sixpack you've got your heart so set on.
Right there, buried under all of that fat you've worked hard all winter (maybe longer) to lay down is a sixpack that any bodybuilder or gymnast would die for. The only reason you can't see yours is because it's buried!
(I told you it'd be basic)
The only thing stopping you from 'un-burying' your six-pack is the lack of discipline required to control what goes into your mouth on a daily basis along with the dispelling of a few myths that are conspiring to keep you soft around the middle.
Myth Number 1 - You CAN'T Spot reduce
It's a weird one this, as most of us seem to know this already, on a surface level at least, yet still it's common to find six-pack seekers grinding out rep after tedious rep of myriad variations of curls and crunches.
Listen up. The body just doesn't work that way!
If it did, the people who did the most crunches would have the most visible abs and this is clearly not the case. In fact, it's probably the other way around!
Once and for all let's get this straight. When the body burns fat it takes it molecule by molecule, gram by gram from the whole body, not just from the area you're exercising. What's more, by performing such small, isolated exercises you're not burning many calories or much body fat anyway!
The answer is to get off of your back and carry out more of your exercises from a standing position and using many more of your muscles each time you train. That way, without even directly targeting the abdominals you'll be burning many, many more calories AND conditioning your core at the same time.
You're far more likely to see your sixpack this way.
Myth Number Two - Cardio is king if you want to get lean
Not so. Especially if you do it the way most people do.
Just look around the gym next time you're there. How many of the cardio junkies that are glued to the treadmills, rowers and crosstrainers are sporting the look you're after?
Not many I'll bet!
And the reason is, they're doing so much cardio that the hormones that keep them going for those extended periods are actually commanding their bodies to give up muscle more rapidly than fat. The net effect is that they end up slowing their metabolism way down and creating bodies that are potentially fatter than before.
Not what most exercisers are after but nevertheless, what YOU'LL get if you insist upon training the way that most gym goers do.
No, to get lean you need to work harder for shorter duration. Short circuits, intervals, relays that get you breathing hard then rest. 5 mins at a time are all you'll need if you train this way.
Better yet, skip those boring machines anyway and use strength exercises with bodyweight or free-weights in to send your metabolism into warp drive.
I call this type of training my 'six hundred rule'.
In short, you've six-hundred or so muscles in your body. Incorporate exercises and movements that challenge as many as possible at once. Exercises like pushups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, jumps forward bends, deadlifts. Y'know, those honest to goodness 'old fashioned' exercises that people used to use before gyms got hi-tech.
Myth Number 3 - you've got to cut calories to get lean
Well, I've got to admit, this is partly true, especially if you overeat often, but much more important than cutting calories is to cut the rubbish foods out of your diet altogether.
You see, your body fat is used as a 'toxic dump', a waste-ground when your system is overburdened by foods it can't handle. When too many toxic foods find their way into your body, regardless of the calories you eat, your body will dump these toxins into wherever you hold your fat. Your waist among other places.
So if you truly want to get lean, you've gotta get clean!
That means removing many of the foods that your body considers toxic like:
Alcohol, Caffeine, Processed foods,Sugar (or substitute), anything with a number or unpronounceable word in it and most wheat products.
These foods are KNOWN to create either allergies or intolerances in increasingly larger numbers of people and should be avoided for good health as well as for the aesthetic goal of seeing your abs.
Replace these foods with wholesome, nourishing foods that offer support to your body and you'll almost immediately see fat beginning to strip off. Foods like:
Fresh meat, fish and poultry (especially organic), Fresh fruit and veg (organic where possible), Nuts and seeds, Olives and Fresh, filtered water.
These are basic fundamentals of any healthy diet yet few people come anywhere near these basics within their own eating and lifestyle plans opting instead for quick-fix, processed, toxic foods.
You can cut calories all you want but if you're still eating foods from the top list and not enough from the bottom then you'll ALWAYS end up back where you started.
See, I told you that you wouldn't like what I had to say!
But will you listen?
No, more. Will you actually follow this advice and make some of these changes to your diet and lifestyle for the next 30 days?
If you do, I GUARANTEE you that you'll lose more fat, gain more firm, lean, shapely muscles where you want them and look and feel better than you have in ages. What's more, you'll have put into place a habit that will serve you long after those 30 days are over.
And when you walk onto the beach this summer you'll look down to where your new-found waistline is on proud display for all to see and know that you finally did it. You achieved what only a tiny percentage of people ever do.
