The Easier Ways To Get Perfect Abs

We are all searching for those perfect abs, and getting the much coveted physique of a six pack or a smooth stomach. The truth is that you already have the perfect abs, and training them is all about getting rid of the fat that covers them, increasing their definition, and strengthening them. This is all done through the proper diet, an abdominal training programme, cardio exercise and weight training. Sounds like a lot, but it's not really that difficult. It will take dedication, patience and some willpower on your part. But what else are you going to do? The confidence gained, not just through the right physique but also seeing that you can do it, is worth more than sitting around watching people on TV (who probably have the body you're looking for!)

A Balanced Diet that Burns Fat

You can do as much exercise as you want, but if you're not eating right you will never get to see the perfect abs that you're looking for, because your body needs a low level of fat. Typically, men need to have about 10% body fat (or lower) and women 13% (or lower) body fat before you see your abs. A healthy body fat ratio, with a great physique, for guys usually sits around 6-7% and for women usually around 11-12%.

A balanced diet needs to consist of carbs (40%), proteins (40%) and good fats (20%.) It's advised to have a good chat to a dietician or your doctor about where to find the right foods. It's not actually that difficult, and most of the foods are ordinary foods that we eat anyway. It's really just about having the right quantities at the right time.

Cardio Training

Cardio training is a very important part of abdominal training, and brings with it many healthy advantages as well. When you start the fat burning process, focusing on cardio will get you there much more quicker and allow you to see results. You will also feel a lot better. Cardio training should consist of about 20-30 minutes, three times a week.

A Weight Training Routine

Ideally you should be spending about 45-60 minutes, four times a week, in the gym. There are a number of exercises you can do at the gym, with the help of weights and the rope-pulley machines. Most people actually underestimate the kind of weight they can lift, and weights are also useful if you are doing crunches and a number of other exercises. Being at the gym is also helpful for building the rest of your physique, so that your body complements your abs.

An Abdominal Training Program

By learning how your abdominals work, and keeping in mind that they are there to perform a function (not to be built up like the rest of the body) you can find effective ways of training your abs. Exercises outside of the gym help a lot, as well as interval training. You not only want to get rid of the fat surrounding your abs, but also strengthening the abs so that they can be firm and hard. This will indeed help to create the chiseled, perfect abs that you are looking for.

Mark Bennet is a fitness enthusiast always looking for the easier and quicker ways to get fit and look your best. Mark has some of the best strategies for real people to get and keep great abs at http://www.RealEasyAbs.com

How To Get Flat Abs

How can you get flat abs? Actually, it's not that hard. Let's think about it for a minute - the reason your abs are not flat is because of two things. Firstly, you may have high levels of body fat. Although in men and women body fat tends to deposit on different parts of the body, the stomach and abs is a common location for both genders. A little beer gut or a little extra paunch around the waist makes your stomach rounded, which isn't good when you want to get flat abs.

What can you do? Well, let's go through a few simple changes to your lifestyle that'll show you hot to get flat abs in no time. The most important thing is to reduce your body fat levels, and that requires a two pronged attack.

The first prong is cutting down on your calorie intake during the day, so that means eating less sugary sweets, foods and drinks, avoiding fatty foods like triple cheeze pizzas or pork pies, and choosing low-calorie, diet, light or fat free alternatives wherever they're available.

On their own, each of these little changes might not seem like much, but when you combine them all you can drastically reduce your bad calorie intake during the day, and that's how to get flat abs. Without so many calories each day, your body will turn to its long term storage for energy - your body fat, and that means you'll lose weight naturally.

The second prong of this attack to get flat abs is to encourage your body to reach for those long term stores through regular exercise. Jog for 20-30 minutes a day, or do 60 minutes of brisk walking, or even swap the car journey to work for a bike ride twice a day. Regular exercise will burn off calories, reduce your body fat levels and flatten your abs.

The second reason why you may not have flat abs is your muscles may not be well toned, so while they're relaxed your internal organs may be pushing out your stomach. Firm muscles with good strength will naturally be tighter on your body and won't sag. By strengthening your ab muscles you'll find it easier to hold your stomach in all the time, and that's the second tip for how to get flat abs.

To toughen up your ab muscles, along with your 30 minutes of exercise do 20-30 minutes of ab exercises such as situps, crunches, leg raises and torso twists. You can find information about ab exercises online, in your local library or bookshop, or even by asking a personal trainer at your local gym for a short routine you can do at home without any equipment.

If you want to get flat abs, you need to firm and tone up the muscles. Once your abs are stronger, you can hold them in all day without even noticing. Making these small lifestyle changes doesn't have to be a big deal. A few little alterations to your daily routine and that's how you get flat abs!

It's all very well getting your diet right, eating healthily and losing plenty of bodyfat so your abs are on show, but if you don't workout properly you'll never get flat abs that look as good as the guys in the bodybuilding magazines. David Spencer is a fitness nutcase, and has spent years learning about weight loss and bodybuilding, and he recommends The Truth About Six Pack Abs training program - http://TheTruthAbout6PackAbs.com

Abs, Diet, Food and Nutrition

Most people think that doing thousands of sit ups and crunches will give them a perfect midsection. Unfortunately for most people, this won't work. To get a nice set of abs you have to work hard in the gym as well as in your own kitchen. You don't have to start working out on your kitchen counter but you do need to eat the right foods.

The reason that the midsection is such a big problem for so many is because this is where the majority of people store fat. To get your abs to show you need to get rid of this fat through diet and exercise. The simplest way to put it: you need to consume less calories than you burn so that your body uses your fat stores for energy.

One common misconception is that eating fat makes you fat. The truth is that eating too much of anything (fat, carbohydrates or protein) will make you fat. Fat is no different. You shouldn't totally avoid fats but you should reduce your intake of saturated and trans (bad) fats.

Sugar is a big concern if you're trying to eat for your abs. Sugar is digested very quickly and if you don't use all of those calories right away, (which you likely won't) all the extra calories will be converted and stored as fat.

Stay away from foods that are high in sugar such as candy, soda, sugary snacks and other junk foods. If you really want to eat these, do so in moderation. Don't eat the whole bag of cookies in one sitting.

In addition to sugar, you should also stay away from refined carbs. These include white bread, white rice and white pasta (or anything with white flour). Like sugar, these are digested quickly, and if not burned immediately, are stored as fat.

You shouldn't cut all carbs out of your diet. Whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta and brown rice are all digested slowly. These will release energy steadily throughout the day and give you more flexibility on when to burn the calories. Eat foods that are high in fiber, low in calories (fruits, vegetables, salads, whole wheat flour) to make you full for longer and keep your total calories down.

To get results in the shortest amount of time you need to put yourself on a good exercise regimen that will burn calories and build abdominal muscles. Diet alone won't give you the perfect set of abs.

Guide to Getting Nice Abs and Six Packs

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Beach Body Abs

With the return of warm weather in the spring, thoughts can never be too far behind of the approaching summer and the many wonderful outdoor activities that we’ll often associate with it and among our top favorite summertime activities will always be the trip to the beach. Warm blue skies, refreshing ocean breezes, hot sand, cool waves and the many attempts at constructing the perfect sand castle; you can swear you’re almost there just thinking of it. But that mental image just wouldn’t be complete without also including images of hard, bronze bodies in attractive swimsuits soaking up the sun. Let’s face it, attractive physiques will always be a top draw at the beach and the abs, or midsection, is the first thing that everyone notices.

But showing off beach body caliber abs certainly don’t come easy. Successful ab training is a combination of a healthy, lean diet, consistent cardio work, and a comprehensive abdominal training plan. While all of that may sound daunting, it is certainly within your ability to attain a chiseled midsection that other beach goers will positively ogle at, and you certainly still have enough time to do so. This article will provide you with the steps you’ll need to take to help you look your beach-body best.

Diet

The first thing you’re going to have to change will be your diet. It goes without saying that even if you had the best abs in the world, it will still look pretty ordinary if a layer of bodyfat covers it. Diet plays a crucial role in defining your midsection so some modifications will be required in order for your body to look it’s best. To begin with, get into the habit of using a diet log to keep track of your meals. Everyone is less likely to cheat when they know they have to write down everything they’ve eaten each day. An elaborate journal isn’t necessary either; a simple notepad can work just fine. Also, begin switching to six small meals a day now instead of three larger ones to help rev up your metabolism as well as prevent the stretching of the stomach and the abdominal walls which occurs when one gorges themselves in food.

Next, you’ll want to start creating a slight caloric deficit each day to help burn away the bodyfat. It is recommended that you work on losing only a pound or two, a week, of bodyfat. The weekly loss of any more weight than this, for the typical person, probably includes substantial amounts of water weight and muscle tissue and can wreck havoc on your metabolism. Remember, it’s the bodyfat that’s covering your abs that you’ll want to lose so a good rule of thumb is to cut back your daily energy requirements by only around 500 calories a day.

Now if you’re not sure what your daily energy requirements are for your current bodyweight (or the amount of calories you will have to consume each day to stay at your current weight), you can use this easy-to-remember formula as a guide. To estimate your daily total caloric needs, multiply 24 times 1.0 (if you’re a man) or 0.9 (if you’re a woman) by each kilogram of bodyweight you weigh. Then multiply that result by 1.7 (for a moderately active man) or 1.6 (for a moderately active woman).

(Men) 1.7 x 24 x 1.0 x bodyweight (in kg)

(Women) 1.6 x 24 x 0.9 x bodyweight (in kg)

To determine how many kilograms you weigh, divide your bodyweight in pounds by 2.2. Remember though that this formula is only a guide. It is highly recommended that you use the formula as a starting point, and then pay close attention to your body in order to fine-tune your calories according to how your body responds to your efforts. Look at your body in a mirror, if it doesn’t appear (or feel) as if your body is losing any weight after a week or two, then reduce the amount of calories you ingest even more.

Cardio

You’ll next want to start including cardio (aerobic exercises) into your weekly routine. There are few short-term options that can burn calories and strip away the bodyfat better than sessions of aerobic activities. It is no coincidence that even top-level bodybuilders will steadily increase their cardio workouts as a contest approaches to help really bring out their muscle definition. Begin by working out 3-4 times per week for 20 to 30 minutes at a time on a treadmill or a stationary exercise bike. Then work your way up to more intense sessions of at least moderate intensity for 45 minutes or longer by weeks 3 and 4. The last few weeks before you hit the beach, you’ll want to include interval training into your routine to really help blast away the last few pounds of bodyfat.

Exercise

Spot-reducing your way to abdominal definition is a myth. It is impossible to localize fat loss over any one specific area of your body and is the reason why it is important for you to also watch your diet and include aerobic training if you truly wish to showcase some beach-body abs. But the inclusion of some solid abdominal training is still important for great abs. Strengthening the abdominal wall will tone and help reduce, if not prevent, any unnecessary sagging of the belly. Also, abdominal workouts will certainly develop the muscles of the ab (particularly the rectus abdominus and the external obliques) and enable them to easily become more visible, sharper and tight.

While there are literally hundreds of abdominal exercises to choose from, it is important that several considerations are first kept in mind before performing any of them. First, it is strongly recommended that you learn how to focus on feeling the contraction of your abs when exercising and really squeeze the muscle at the top of any rep. There are many individuals out there who lay claim to performing several hundred sit-ups per day, but it is the quality that counts here and not necessarily the quantity. Become more efficient when performing your abdominal exercises and allow the muscle do the work and do not use the mechanical involvement of other bodyparts or even momentum to help swing the body in order to complete any reps. Additionally, make sure that you maintain continuous tension while performing your reps and never allow your body to rest at the bottom of a movement. Finally, be sure to breathe in during the relaxation phase of your movements and exhale during the contraction phase of the reps.

Having now prepared yourself, choose three exercises to perform for your abs and complete 2 sets, of 15 – 20 reps on each exercise, three times a week. Once again, focus on squeezing the muscle at the top of the movement and go in a slow, deliberate manner during each repetition. Recommended abdominal exercises for beginners during their first week would be crunches (with legs supported on a bench), seated twists, and knee-ups or lying leg raises. As the next few weeks progresses and your conditioning improves, you will need to increase the intensity factor for the abs to really shine. Begin by increasing the number of sets of each exercise from two to three and then add additional, more advanced, movements to allow for up to five exercises for your abs. Recommended abdominal exercises during this stage could include reverse crunches, crunches on an incline board, vertical leg raises, medicine-ball twists and decline-bench twisting crunches. You literally have from hundreds of movements to choose from. During the last two weeks before you hit the beach, begin cutting back on the rest time between your sets and also start to include supersets of your exercises in which you complete one set of each exercise without stop.

While there are still other factors that could be included for consideration of your ab training, consistently eating a lean diet, performing cardio work and exercising your abs with sufficient intensity will always remain at its core. Put in the work on those three tenets of abdominal development and you’ll be sure to possess a beach-body that will look great in a bathing suit and absolutely turn heads this summer!

Nathan Boyd is author of the highly rated ebook, "The Fitness Lifestyle" and the current Director of Pro Fitness of Texas. Nathan encourages everyone in their pursuit of becoming physically fit and maintaining it for a lifetime. All questions and comments are always welcomed!

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Learn the Truth About Weight Loss and Getting Great Abs

Debunking The Ab Myth

Ab training has been done to death but it's time to take another look. Why? Because people are still training their abs wrong so all that ab training information must not be doing the job.

1 - No Spot Reducing - Endless crunches will not melt away the fat from your midsection. It just doesn't work that way. And despite the "burn" of high rep ab exercises, you barely burn any calories while doing those endless crunches.

Your fat burning time is best spent elsewhere on more effective training. You also don't work the ab muscle intensely enough to develop it.

So endless high rep crunches fail on both counts - poor muscle building and poor fat burning. Two thumbs down as the cliche goes.

2 - The Abs are a Muscle and should be trained as such. You don't need high reps and lots of sets to work your abs. This just leads to overtraining.

Now, abs are a more endurance oriented muscle so slightly higher reps may be more effective. However, you should keep the reps at 20 or lower and work on increasing the resistance.

Yes, you should be increasing the weights on ab exercises, just like your other exercises. The stronger your abs, the better they will look when the fat is stripped away.

Ever see a really thin guy with a flat stomach but no abs? The abs haven't been trained and aren't developed enough to stand out even when the fat is stripped away.

3 - Don't train the abs - What the heck do I mean by this? Well, your abs get a lot of indirect work from other exercises so you really won't need more than a couple of hard sets of weighted crunches to work your abs.

Your abs are a factor in exercises such as squats, deadlifts, seated or standing presses, dumbbell pullovers, pulldowns, etc. Don't believe me?

Next time you work out, do a few hard sets of standing stiff armed pulldowns on the lat machine and tell me your abs aren't sore the next day. I did them yesterday and my abs are more sore than my back today.

If you want to develop a flat stomach with your abs visible, you need to treat your abs like a muscle and train that way. And you need to strip away the fat with a proper training and nutrition program designed around total fat loss, not trying to spot reduce through endless crunches.

Is there anything out there in the fitness world suffering from more misinformation that how to get abs?

The number of ab machines constantly coming to market is mind boggling. Especially considering that they aren't needed and won't give you the results that you want.

Let's set the record straight on ab training right now and give you the real information you need so you can say no to the next infomercial ab machine and yes to actual abs.

1 - Training your abs consistently will eventually give you the flat stomach or six-pack that you want.

No. It's not gonna happen if your abs are covered by a layer of body fat and doing endless sets of ab exercises is not the way to rid yourself of that excess body fat.

2 - Train your abs everyday for best results.

Again, no. Your abs are a muscle, just like your chest, lats, arms and so on. You should train your abs just like these other muscles, with progressive resistance and high intensity - then allow them to rest and recover. Never train your abs more than 3 days a week.

3 - You need to do hundreds or reps and feel the burn to get great abs.

Yep, again the answer is no. The abs a muscle just like I mentioned above. To get six pack abs you need to strip off the fat, but you also need to build the abs to get them to really pop out.

If the muscle isn't developed, you'll just have a flat stomach but no abs. The name of the game is progressive resistance for sets of 8 - 20 reps, just like your other muscles.

4 - Train the abs with lots of sets and high reps to burn off stomach fat.

You guessed it. This is also false. Spot reduction just isn't going to happen as much as we'd all like it to. You can't burn fat on your stomach by doing endless crunches.

You need to put together a proper weight lifting program, nutrition plan, and cardio in order to rid your stomach of that stubborn layer of fat and bring yout your abs.

Gregg Gillies

Gregg Gillies is a speaker, consultant, fat loss expert, trainer and author. He teaches fitness via his articles, books and courses at his web site http://www.buildleanmuscle.com . He is the author of two books: Complete information on his books, along with lots of free articles are available at his site. And while there, don't forget to sign up for his free newsletter, "Fit Physique".