Let's Get A Six Pack

Let's Get a Six Pack

I enjoy fitness and working out, and since losing a ton of weight over the past year, have gotten into this on somewhat of a serious level. In this brief fitness guide I will be sharing some of my best tips and methods for honing your abs. So without further adieu, how to get abs. ​

I.Diet

There is no way to avoid this topic, people seem to think that just working out and doing sit-ups and crunches will somehow magically make your abs appear, it will not. Though working out is vital to the process the truth behind Abs is that they are achieved in the kitchen more so then in the gym. The good news here is that in order to just get a basic set of abs, you do not need to go nuts and only eat certain foods on a strict schedule. The idea behind your diet should be simply to eat healthier then before. That's my motto when getting my abs in better shape (I do it in cycles, I may explain that later). So here is an example, if you are eating fast food three times a week, simply cut it down to two times a week, or even once. Replace certain snacks with a healthier alternative. There is not a problem with having a cheat day though.

General Rules To Follow
1.Limit Soda (ABSOLUTELY NO REGULAR)
2.No Fried Foods, anything deep fried will stunt any progress
3.Do not cut yourself off from food as a whole, meat is highly important when building muscle along with protein, which is found in meat, so do not go on some strict fruit and vegetables diet.
4.Avoid any foods that are excessively greasy.

Tips and Tricks: Throughout my fitness career I have found some of the greatest alternative to chips and other greasy snacks which set people back. Here are some of my favorite snacks:

1.Granny Smith Apples- A healthy snack which can be enjoyed at any time during the day, these will really fill you up as well.
2.Instead of Lays chips, try bringing a bad of baby carrots or carrot sticks with some healthy dip, it sounds foolish but I bet you will take a serious liking to these if you find a dip you enjoy.
3.Wheat Bread- Wheat Bread is simply better for you then white and potato in most regards I believe, Rye works here too, the bottom line is if you are eating white or potato bread, try to make the jump to a different type of bread, I did it a while back and am addicted to wheat bread.
4.Drink Water- Drinking water is important for general health and well-being, I have to admit I probably do it excessively to the point where people think I am trying to detox for a weekly drug test or something, but it really does help by keeping you hydrated.​

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IMPORTANT: DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF, MUSCLE ONLY BUILDS WHEN THE NECESSARY NURTIENTS AND PROTEINS ARE PRESENT, YOU WILL ONLY LOSE MUSCLE MASS ALONG WITH FAT.

II.Discipline and Motivation

Truthfully this section will be brief and I just want to make one thing very clear to all of you reading this guide. The bottom line is that you have to want it. I hate to sound so cliche but in order to get this done, unless you are a naturally blessed person, you have to be disciplined about the regimen. Success that is quick and easy is usually short-lived, remember that.

Discipline stems directly from motivation, so find something to motivate you, whatever it may be. Most people have their personal reasons for it and it's important to find those in order to keep reminding yourself why you are working so hard. Motivation has saved me a bunch of times when thinking of skipping out on a workout. It's vital.

III.The Workouts

Finally the portion of the guide which most people looking on here have been waiting for, or so I assume. The following workouts are all based on honing your core and can be done in any sort of set you like. Personally I would recommend googling a workout or designing your own personalized workout. Here we go:

1. The Plank is a workout which is done in order to simply build muscle mass in the ab region. It is done by getting into the push-up position and then instead of remaining on your hands, you drop to your forearms. The plank is great because it is one of those exercises in which you will feel the muscles tensing up and know that you are getting a great workout. It should look something like this.
Be sure to maintain good posture, remember it's better to perform poorly on an exercise but do it correctly then to alter it slightly to improve times. The timetable is usually as follows:
0:30- Poor
1:00- Average
1:30- Above Average
2:00- Superior
2:30- Fantastic


2. The Side Plank is a variation of the plank that is done to target the side of the abs, this will provide definition for the sides of the abs. The side plank is done by going vertically on one arm and keeping your entire body straight, it is tough to describe in text, so check out this picture below. (The previously mentioned times do not apply here)


3. Bicycle Crunches are a great toner for the abs. Toning is greatly important and while building the mass is done with the previous exercise, this one will perfect the overall look of the abs. It is done by doing a crunch towards one leg, with the opposite shoulder and vise versa. It should look like this.


4. Pushups are a fairly self explanatory workout and are great because they can help with many different forms of muscle toning. The little known fact is that they are GREAT for abs along with getting ripped arms, you can get two workouts within one! They look like this.


5. Leg Raises can be done on the floor or on a workout bench, personally I recommend the workout bench. These are great for targeting the lower abs, which are usually harder to reach then the top four abs. They look like this.


6. Crunches/Sit Ups are the two most notorious exercises for the ab routine. Personally I find them to be pretty useful so I decided to include them in this guide. They are the general ab toning workhorse. They are done in a pretty basic way, simply by laying on your back and bending your knees, then going up with your chin to your knee caps. They look like this.


7. Extended Arm Sit ups With Weight are done by extending your arms over your head (with the option of having weight in your hands as well) and then just doing a regular sit up as previously mentioned. Except now you must bring your legs up as well. They pretty much are just a version of sit ups that will make the feeling in the abs a little bit greater, thus creating a better workout. They look like this.


IV.Cardio
1. Cardio is something which can be done in many ways and doesn't just have to be running, although that is what is recommended. Some things I have been planning as of late is to incorporate a jump roping regimen into my ab workout. Cardio is how the abs will really come into view even without flexing, so it's obviously pretty important to the process. I recommend at least twenty minutes of Cardio at least once a day. Really it's all about finding what works for you, some people can just diet and then do their abs and they will become very defined.

I wish you all good luck on your quest to get defined abs and I hope I have helped you even a little bit. This is just a general idea of how to workout for the abs and how to hopefully improve your core strength. Feel free to critique and even suggest some new exercises that I can use, I'd really appreciate that. Enjoy it.​

Images are copyrighted to their respective creators. I used them purely for educational purposes and will not gain anything monetarily for creating this guide.

 

Decent and unique guide for Sythe. I'll admit I laughed when I saw the title. Tell me more about "The Plank"... do you just stay in that position? First time I've seen that type of excercise. I do bicycle crunches often and have to agree that diet is the most important (though I tend to still drink the occasional soft drink and not eat totally healthy >_>). Cardio is often overlooked when trying to get abs. so kudos for including it in the guide. Hopefully the majority of this was from the head and not copied from another source.

Edit: Oh, and congrats on the weight loss, my man. I'm the opposite... still trying to gain a little muscle and get a little toned, pretty good progress so far.

 

This guide was all created be me, I'll take that as a compliment I guess haha and the plank is the basis for getting Abs. If you really want to know more about how to build muscle and shit man hit me up on msn I could help you out a lot.

 

Cool. And yeah, it was intended as a compliment, lol.

About "The Plank" though, do you just hold it in the position illustrated in the picture?

 

Yeah, be sure to maintain good posture, remember it's better to perform poorly on an exercise but do it correctly then to alter it slightly to improve times. The timetable is usually as follows:
0:30- Poor
1:00- Average
1:30- Above Average
2:00- Superior
2:30- Fantastic

Current Record on Planks: 2:44 (Personal)

This is all in minutes by the way

 

Ah, thanks. You should edit that into your guide. ^_^ How many times do you do that per day/week?

 

I very well might lol and I workout pretty much every day of the week if we count cardio, I do planks probably 4 out of every seven days

 

Nice. I don't work out as intensely or with as much frequency as I was last month. Though I'll probably get back to it and see how well that excercise treats me. Since then, I've gained a bit of muscle and grown a bit. Kinda crazy.

 

It's amazing what can happen with some dedication to working out and getting healthier in general, good luck with it and don't hesitate to hit me up

 

I like your guide alot, especially the diet part.

I feel you should add more detail to the cardio part.

for example burpees, mountain climbers, etc as an alternative to running etc.

edit : i think you should add in maybe a schedule too.

for example monday let's do cardio and some sit ups...
tuesday lets do leg raises etc.

People tend to follow schedules better, imo.

 

Good guide, detailed in the diet section, also i am starting to workout and buying some good gym equipment for muscles and abs

 

Hey mrfreakingpeanut, this is quite a good guide. If it's OK with you I'll be critiquing your guide. My critique will be split into two sections.

Information: I'll be honest, when I first saw the guide title I was expecting it to be one of the many guides I've seen before, short with a couple of images. You picked a hard guide to pull off not because of it's difficulty in explaining the information, but because guides like this are very common on the site, giving you a fair amount of competition. However you did very well considering this obstacle.
The first thing I like is how the guide has been split into three sections, the most important being Diet and Workout. This shows you've put effort into the guide. Only giving one of these sections (like a few guides I've seen before) is essentially only giving half a guide as you cannot get a "6-Pack" by just eating the right food.
Next, the amount of information you've put in and it's quality. The first thing I noticed was you have used a small font and the guide goes for a while. After reading it, I noticed that the majority of the information was accurate and helpful. I also like how you've added in a large amount of exercises that can be used to work your abdominal area instead of just 2 or 3, again showing the effort you've put into the guide.

Formatting: Text-wise, you've done OK. It's easy to read the information and it flows well. The only criticism I could give is using the default font and sizing is a little plain and unappealing. While the text and it's quality is the most important part of the guide, members who are just browsing will generally stay for an attractive guide.
With pictures, you've done well with the workouts subsection because the images correctly display what you're explaining in the text and help the reader to see what they need to do. While images with the diet are less important for displaying the information, it would be much more appealing to see some pictures there as well. E.g A soda can with a red cross on it.

EDIT: Also just thought I'd throw in, it's nice to see you threw in some Copyright information regarding the images. Always shows a sign of respect, good job

It's certainly a well-constructed guide. I hope to see more.

 

Useless, thanks for the reply and I will be editing the cardio section, truth is I got a bit lazy on that one haha but the schedule part I feel as though people should definitely develop their own. That's pretty important in order to maintain it.

Thanks Royal and if you need any fitness help feel free to hit me up on msn, I'd be more then happy to help you with anything.

Brendan, Thanks for the comment and I will gladly take this into consideration when I Write my next fitness guide, which is most likely going to be started today. I appreciate a UE coming through here as well haha. On the real though I have noted those points and will surely be putting them to use.

 

What do you do if your a vegetarian?

 

First of all if you are actually a vegan I would love to talk to you if possible, I have been trying to find some solid vegetarian dishes and cannot. The problem with being a vegetarian is that the only way for you to get protein is through artificial means, which isn't a bad thing it just means supplements. I personally am impartial to supplements. But seriously please message me on msn so I can talk to you, I really need some help with the whole vegetarian thing.

 

very good for couch potatos that play rs all day

 

Question: Do elbows need to be straight together when doing Planks or can they be slightly seperated? I've noticed with elbows close together it puts more stress on shoulders and with elbows slightly spread it focuses on abs more.

Sidenote: I did 2:21

Another sidenote: Include that you guys need to do pushups and situps until YOU FAIL. Training till your failure point is key. Doing just 10 reps and calling it a day helps sure but going until you can't get yourself off the ground or can't get up is the best way to do it. It pushes your muscles to their limit and forces them to increase in stature and strength and mass. Do as many as you possibly can and then rest and do as many until you fail again. It gets you sore and tires you out but thats how its done. A message from the big boys.

 

Cold, it's good to see a fellow fitness guy on here haha and the elbows should be in the position at which you feel the most on your abs. In terms of the pushups, if they are reading a guide it's probably wise for them to start with a set number as to not get deterred from the workout. I do agree completely though that once you are strong enough and in good shape, go until you cannot.

 

having abs really dont make u fit tho its about full body fitness not just the top half.

 

I don't get it to the guy above, please elaborate