Six Pack Abs - Don't Go Through Life Without Them!

Why Are Six Pack Abs So Rare?

A washboard stomach is a rare thing these days. Although you see a lot of people in magazines and movies with great abs, you rarely see a regular guy or girl walking around with a six pack. Most people eventually give up on their quest to get a defined midsection. They believe that it is only something for movie stars or super models. I'm telling you to quit thinking that way!

Lifting a Large Amount of Weight is Not As Impressive as Toned Abs

There are many, many more guys who can bench 315 pounds, than there are guys with a tight midsection. Many women can jog over 6 miles, but not many women have 6 pack abs. If you want to be exceptional, than having a defined midsection is the way to go. If you are spending any time in the gym at all and you don't have a 6 pack, then you are spending your time doing the wrong things. You will need to shift your focus if you want great muscle tone in this area of your body.

When Your Abs Are Defined, Your Whole Body Will Look Great

The fat around your stomach area is usually the last to go. If you get to the point where your abs are showing, then I guarantee you that the rest of your body looks amazing as well. I believe that this is the reason that people find toned abdominals so sexy...they know that the rest of the body must look toned as well! So if you focus on a 6 pack, everything else will fall into place.

Getting a Washboard Stomach is Mainly About Diet and Cardio

I swear that you could drop all those crunching and sit up movements and get amazing abs. How do I know this? Well, I haven't done a crunch in over 5 years and my abs are more defined then ever. Have you ever seen the TV show "Survivor". By the end of the show almost every person has really defined six pack abs and I know that none of them got there by ab exercises. You don't want to go to that extreme, but it does show you what low body fat will do.

Ab Exercises Probably Account for Only 10% of the Results

I don't think you need to directly target the abs to get a great mid section, but if you want pick one and hit it for 4-5 sets. The majority of your time should be spent on a bit of lifting for the rest of your body and intense cardio. As far as choices of cardio go, running on a treadmill or running outside is the way to go. Your abs work harder with running, because there is a certain amount of balancing involves between your legs and upper body. If you are on an exercise bike, your abs don't have to work at all. Your body is being stabilized by the seat.

Summary: You probably just need to increase the cardio and decrease the calories if you don't have six pack abs. I know it sounds almost too simple, but believe me it will work for you.

About The Author: Rusty Moore is the author of the controversial fitness blog...The Fitness Black Book. Learn advanced aerobic exercise and lifting routines that give you a sexy lean body instead of a bulky one! Too much muscle is "cheesy"...find out how to look attractive! Visit his site today... Fitness Black Book

Burn Fat in the Stomach Area for Better Abs

People are anxious to know how to burn fat in the stomach area. This question makes a lot of sense. The sooner you get a set of great looking abs, the better you will feel about the effort you are putting into your fat loss program. Unfortunately this question targets the somewhat controversial topic of spot reduction.

For years television and infomercials have conditioned us to believe that spot reduction is possible. Fitness professionals and physiologists know that you lose fat from all of your body gradually and there is no way to isolate a single area for fat loss. But spot reduction has seemingly achieved the status of urban myth and the public doesn't want to hear the truth.

To stir things up a bit more an Australian fat loss researcher has recently released a study which seems to suggest that it is possible to selectively burn fat in the stomach area with certain types of training. These results are extremely preliminary and by no means conclusive. The proven route to seeing great abs is to lose body fat. You may already possess washboard abs. They are just hidden under a layer of fat! A substantially muscled man will see his abs at around 15% body fat. Women will see their upper abs at about 16% body fat.

Ultimately aerobic exercise is the key to burning fat. Your body will not start burning fat until the glycogen stores are depleted, so your aerobic workout should last from 30 to 60 minutes. Don't forget your eating plan in your haste to exercise. No matter how hard you exercise if your calorie intake is greater than your calorie expenditure you will not burn fat in the stomach area or anywhere else.

It is important to train regularly. As your body adapts to the new regimen it becomes more efficient at providing oxygen to burn fat. Regular exercise will improve your circulation making it easier to transport fatty acids for fuel. Over time your cells will produce more mitochondria. These produce energy for your body. More mitochondria working means more available energy.

Resistance or weight training combined with cardio and a sensible eating plan will create the calorie deficit you need to burn fat and show off your great abs. Abdominal exercises will be a part of your resistance training, but focusing on these will not burn fat in the stomach area.

Get Your FREE 12-part mini course, BIG FAT LIES! You will also get a FREE subscription to Tom Venuto's world-famous, no hype fat burning tips ezine, plus a 40 page FREE report, Skyrocket Your Fat Loss Success!

Visit http://www.mytopdiet.com. and look for the Big Fat Lies link in the sidebar.

How To Get Tight Abs Looking Great

The way to get tight abs is often a source of confusion for people. Most people simply decide they want tight abs and start working them in the hope of getting what they want. Lets look at exactly what we want so we can better understand how to get it.

Everybody wants nice tight abs. The reason why is because everybody recognizes, that the abs are the most visually appealing part of the body. There is a technical reason for this. It has to do with the science of Aesthetics. It is actually an optical illusion.

A flat area, or featureless area always looks larger to the eye, because the eye travels to the outer edges of the area because there is nothing to look on the inside of that area. When our mid section is featureless, when the skin is thick because it is full of engorged fat cells. The eye travels instantly to the outer edges of the mid section and takes a reading and makes a decision about whether that area is large or small. The eye takes a few things into account. Especially, it considers the proportion of the shoulders and the waist. This differential is used by the brain to decide whether this torso is thin or thick. Whether this person is fat or slim.

So the familiar 6 pack bumps and ridges we long for actually have a real reason for existing in terms of looking good. The six pack attracts the eye to the center, forcing the eye to ignore the outer edges of the torso. This typically makes the torso look smaller.

When you have a layer of fat covering your abs, what happens is you have a featureless area on your torso so the eye focuses on the outline. When you work your abs, which is what we have established is what most people want to do when they decide they want a nice six pack, we enlarge the muscle group. Now what is happening here is we are actually working towards the opposite of what we want. The eye travels to the torso, to look at the six pack on any muscular body, not because it is large, but because it is SMALL in comparison to the upper body. The shoulders chest and arms.

The key to a great looking set of abs is to make the skin covering them as thin and as supple as possible. That is the essential task of a great looking six pack. Cardio and limited calorie intake will do wonders for you.

If you would like to get a six pack in 23 days or less, buy The "Abs In 23 Days" training program. You can learn more about this award winning, abdominal pumping, fat stripping product by clicking HERE

Discover the Secrets of Using An Abdominal Exercise Machine for Sexy, Scuplted Abs

When it comes to fitness and exercise equipment, there are a lot of different options to choose from. This is especially true when talking about an abdominal exercise machine.

After all, the abs are the one thing everyone wants to improve upon. For guys, it's the six-pack, and for women, it's a flat, toned and tight tummy. And most people feel that if they can get a flat stomach, all the other areas of their body will follow.

So we're bombarded with infomercials that focus on the be all end all wonderous inovation of their latest and greatest abdominal exercise machine. If you just get that one machine, then you're all set!

Six pack abs, here we come! Yes, there was a little bit of sarcasm in that last part. After all, if it were that easy, if we just needed the latest, greatest abdominal exercise machine for great abs, we'd all have them by now. Instead, we seem to keep getting fatter. It doesn't really make any sense, does it?

Let me make a few points about ab exercise and getting a flat, lean, six-pack stomach.

Diet, weight training, and cardio play the biggest role in getting a flat stomach, not ab exercises or any one abdominal exercise machine.

Most ab exercise equipment is pure junk.

Most people go about training their abdominal muscles in the wrong way.

With that being said, let's look at what you can do to train your abs the right way, and what type of abdominal exercise machine can help you do it better, faster, and in more comfort.

Let's address point one above. Many ab machine advertisers, especially on infomercials, will lead you to believe that working on their adbominal exercise equipment will lead to weight loss and fat reduction, especially in the region of the abs, ie, getting rid of the bulging belly. This is incorrect on multiple points.

First, working your abs, especially on those '6 minutes to great abs' routines, burns very few calories. Second, you can't spot reduce, which is the outdated idea that you will lose fat directly from the area that you exercise.

In fact, your fat goes on based on your genetics, and this is also the way it comes off, and usually in the reverse order. And the abs is usually the last place fat loss occurs. You'll see it on your hands, face, neck, etc. first, before your stomach.

A quality abdominal exercise machine will strengthen your abdominal muscles, which will lead to a leaner, more toned stomach. But understand this - you won't see that leaner toned stomach, until you remove the fat that is covering up your abs!

Have you seen a relatively flat stomach on someone but it's not firm or toned? This is most likely because they don't work their ab muscles, so their abs aren't developed enough to give a tigher, leaner look to the stomach.

So it's very important to work your abs. But keep in mind the points being made here, that you need an overall fat loss, exercise, and nutrition program to lose the fat covering your abs so people can see the tight sexy stomach you've developed on your abdominal exercise machine.

A great thing about a good ab machine is that it will keep you working your abs. Let's face it, ab training is boring and doing conventional ab exercises like floor crunches, sit ups, leg raises and reverse lying crunches can be very uncomfortable, if not downright painful, and a lot of people develop neck problems. An abdominal exercise machine plays an important role in avoiding these issues.

If you keep this in mind, you'll know what to expect from ab exercise and abdominal machines. This way, you'll keep using it as part of an overall muscle building, fat loss program, instead of letting the machine gather dust because you didn't lose your stomach fat from working your abs six minutes a day.

Gregg Gillies is the founder of http://www.buildleanmuscle.com. His articles have appeared in Ironman Magazine. He has written two books and is a regular contributor to Body Talk Magazine. He publishes a free fitness newsletter available at his site that includes lots of weight training tips, fat loss, nutrition and exercise program information to help you build your best body as quickly as possible. check it out at Build Muscle and Lose Fat and see how you can get a customized nutrition plan at http://www.mynutritionjournal.com