Get Six Pack Abs

Charles A. Inniss, Jr. DPT asked:


Sit ups and crunches are not the best way to get a flat stomach. Actually, walking and running are the best stomach flattening exercises.  So many people make the mistake of slaving away on the floor doing thousands of crunches everyday in the hopes that it will give them a flat stomach.  However, stomach exercises only play a small role in actually giving you a flat stomach.

The #1 myth in fitness is that you can spot reduce fat by exercising the muscles in the area that you want to lose fat from.  This is known as the spot reduction myth.  Our bodies naturally store more fat is some areas based on gender and genetics.  Women tend to store excess fat on the thighs, hips, and stomach, and men tend to store excess fat on the abdomen.

The reason we store more fat in certain areas is that there is a higher number of fat cells in that area.  There are not many fat cells in the hands, so you rarely see someone with fat hands unless they are really obese.  So despite what the marketers try to convince you, you cannot spot reduce fat by doing targeted exercises for any area of your body, including your stomach.

Here’s just a quick distinction between spot reduction and toning muscles or building muscles.  You can definitely tone muscles or build lean muscles with targeted exercises.  Let’s say that your arms are not well developed and a little flabby.  If you started doing arm exercises you would definitely tone and build your arm muscles.  The problem that many gym-goers face is that they have built their muscles through weight training exercises, but they still have a layer of fat covering up those muscles.

In order to get a flat stomach you need to take a comprehensive approach to fitness and perform weight training, aerobic exercise, stomach exercises, and eat a healthy diet.  After eating a healthy diet, aerobic exercise might be the most important thing to focus on if you want to get a flat stomach because aerobic exercise burns tons of calories.

Walking and running both burn tons of calories and this helps you to lose stomach fat.  I have never met someone who runs on a regular basis that was significantly overweight.  And if you think about athletes, running is the secret to how they keep and get flat stomachs.  Every track and field athlete (with the exception of throwers like shot putters and discus throwers) has a flat stomach because they run all the time for exercise.  Basketball players, soccer players, and tennis players run all the time and generally speaking they all have flat stomachs.

Running burns tons of calories and it is the best stomach flattening exercise.  Running is way better than sit ups for burning calories.  If you run at a 6 minute per mile pace, you can burn about 500 in 30 minutes.  If you wanted to burn 500 calories doing sit ups, you have to do more than 2500 sit ups.  Assuming that you could do 50 sit ups every minute, it would take you 50 minutes to do 2500 sit ups-and that’s straight with no rest.  I don’t know of any athletes that can do 2500 sit ups in a row or even in a day, but I do know quite a few people that can burn 500 calories in 30 minutes running.

Now, if you have bad knees or can’t run fast, don’t fret.  Walking is also a great exercise for people who want to get a flat stomach.  Getting a flat stomach is all about burning calories and losing body fat.  Walking 5 miles a day will burn about 500 calories. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather walk 5 miles a day than do 2500 sit ups.

Okay, let’s recap.  You can’t magically burn off stomach fat and get a flat stomach simply by doing stomach exercises.  If you want to get a flat stomach, you have to lose body fat and lose weight.  In my opinion walking and running are some of the best stomach flattening exercises, so aim for 20-60 minutes a day of aerobic exercises 3-5 days a week.

Daniel Millions asked:


If you are reading this, you are probably one of many people who is not satisfied with how they look. Most of us would love to have a trimmer waist, and if not, have a more muscular physique. How can one go about burning away unwanted fat while building a trim muscular figure?

There are a number of theories, but some are superior than others because some adhere to a few simple principals that will be outlined below.

The body is a machine. It is built for adaptation, procreation, and survival. This is what has kept us alive as a race for the millennia. The problem is that only recently has our sedentary lifestyle demanded that we lose extra energy that we store as fat around our waist, thighs, and other places. When we used to hunt for food, we not only ate more nutritious food, but we worked very hard, burning many calories acquiring every meal.

None of us has any trouble ordering a fast meal at a local diner, and this has led to the accumulation of fat in the body that has unsightly and unhealthy consequences. So how will you go about losing this fat? Well, fat is essentially stored energy. In order to get rid of it all, you need to do is burn more of it than you replace through eating. Sounds simple? Well, ask anyone who has ever dieted and you will soon find it isn’t anywhere near as simple as it seems.

Why? Because many people focus on long bouts of cardio which do burn energy, but do not increase metabolism. The key to truly losing weight and building muscle is increasing metabolism, or your body’s rate of burning fat; while also increasing the rate at which your body builds muscle. Here are some tips that will help you.

The first aspect is diet. I am sure many of you have tried dieting without much success. Well, your body is an adaptive machine. If you would like it to burn fat while you are sitting watching television of reading the paper, it will. Believe it or not, all your body needs is the proper queue to increase its basal metabolic rate, or the rate it burns energy while resting.

You can actually make your body burn more fat than it normally does, but you wont achieve this by running for miles on end. No, a more sound approach would be to do intense BURSTS of anaerobic activity, namely sprinting for about 20 seconds, then jogging for about 20 seconds, then repeating this 5 times twice. If you do this, your body will believe it has become necessary to sprint for survival. Sprinting requires a large amount of energy, and your body while preparing itself to always be ready for a life or death sprint will keep a lot of energy ready for the burning, and in the meantime will burn much more calories than it usually does.

Don’t believe it? Check out any sprinters physique and get back to me. So take home point-do not worry about what you put in as much as what you put out. The second major influence is your training habits. You need to focus on performing some intense work at least three times per week. I am sure this sounds low to many of you. Well, instead of jogging for an hour each day, do sprints every other day for a total of 10 minutes and you will reap benefits that will astonish you.

If you want to build muscle, the sprinting actually increases the amount of growth hormone your body produces, so yes, sprinting coupled with sound resistance training is your ticket to burning fat while feeding the muscle. Do not take it from me, get out there and train!

Jesse Miller asked:


Getting your abs sculpted and fat-free takes more than just discipline with your food intake. Aside from cutting down on desserts, carbohydrate-rich food, soda and alcohol, you need to be overly hardworking in doing your abs routines.

Yes, by overly hardworking, it means doubling your efforts and increasing the intensity of specific exercises that targets the muscles in your abdomen.

To deliver you the maximum results you aspire for, you can try executing these steps.

1. Standard Ab Crunch. You can vary your execution of this routine. Your choices are hanging leg raise, incline bench leg lift and lying floor leg raise.

This is the very standard crunch most men and women can easily do on the floor covered with an exercise mat. After lying flat on the floor, bend your legs with your feet’s soles steady on the floor.

Place your arms across your chest touching each other. Slowly bend your waist and lift your shoulders up so that you can sense the crunching sensation in your abdomen.

Once you have raised your upper body, you can lower it back down. Repeating this routine for 5 sets of 16 counts is more effective than just doing one set. If possible, target 200 counts per session to get quicker results.

2. Twisting Crunch. To contract more muscles in your abdomen, you can do this crunch. Lie on the floor with your knees and hips inclined. Place both hands beneath your head and squeeze your waist upward approaching your knees.

Your right or left elbow must at least touch the knees before bring your upper body down. Repeat the exercise but with twists alternately with your left and right elbow.

You can also bring your upper body toward the side as you lift it. In lieu of the floor crunch, you can also do side crunches or make use of abdominal twist equipment or weighted twist ups.

Choose which is most convenient to you. For beginners, you can do 16 repetitions but for a more intense burning effect, you can do 5 sets of 16.

3. Supine Leg Lift Crunch. This doesn’t just target the abs but legs and hips as well. Lie down flatly on a bench and stretch your legs and grab the edge above your head for assistance as you lift your legs up.

Lifting must not allow the legs to swing but trigger contraction in your abdomen. After lifting, you can bring your legs down and do repetitions of 16 if you are a neophyte. If you want a more intense one, you can do 5 sets of 16 with 30-second rest in between sets.

Crunches are effective when you do them appropriately at higher repetitions. Tolerate the contraction as you go along so that you can get the perfect abs you desire.