The purpose of this complete guide to 6 pack abs is to show you a simple approach that you can implement into your daily life without making things too complicated. If you got stubborn belly fat you can make the first steps into the right direction.
What you will learn in this article:
Step 1: Drink more water
As you probably know: Abs are not build in the kitchen but they are uncovered in there. So nutrition and your eating habits are an important part if you want to get visible ABS. This is a must for every complete guide to 6 pack abs. What many people still neglect is what they drink.
If you drink soda instead of water you will ruin the progress you’ve made with nutrition and exercising. These sugar bombs and their empty calories contain up to 100 kcal per glass. And in the liquid form they can be absorbed even better from your body.
And what about juice? Well juice also contains a lot of calories and it lacks the fibers that real fruits have. Fibers are extremely important for proper digestive functions and for slowly releasing the sugar into your body. As a result of the lower amounts of fibers in fruit juice, these types of drinks don’t make you feel as satiated as whole fruits do. In addition they let your insulin levels rise much quicker.
Step 2: Build Muscle
Muscle Mass increases your basal metabolic rate. That means the more muscle mass you have the more energy your body burns during the day, because it has to supply those muscles with energy. In other words: building muscle not only makes your body stronger but you also burns more calories even when you rest.
This is the reason why it makes more sense to train big muscles, like glutes, quads, chest, lats instead of only training the little abs muscles. So don’t only do Cardio sessions or Fat Burning Endurance workouts, but rather implement strength training as well to benefit from this positive effect.
Need help building more muscle? Check our Body Transformation Program. The program comes as a detailed step by step online course that you can follow easily. And now, let´s continue with our complete guide to 6 pack abs!
Step 3: Nutrition
You don’t have to starve yourself to get six pack abs. In the beginning it’s more important to change your eating habits. Not only for a few weeks but forever. Of course it’s not completely forbidden to cheat from time to time. But the main share of your daily food intake should consist of quality foods rather than highly processed calorie bombs without any nutritional value.
You can also experiment with cutting down calories by simply eating less than you are used to, but don’t overdo it. If you are eating too little your body tries to spend less energy and adapts the metabolism to the low amount of calories.
This means you have to cut down more and more calories to lose a few pounds, which leads to a vicious circle. In fact, under-eating on a regular basis can lead to a number of mental, physical and emotional health issues. It also undermines the ability of your body to build muscle.
Step 4: Build your 6 Pack
The exercises we selected in this video are some of the best out there and we chose them based on their EMG activity and simplicity. You almost need no equipment to do them. The first one is great for your rectus abdominis. The second one mainly focuses on your obliques and the third one is a great mix between rectus abdominis and serratus anterior activation.
Plank Walk
While the normal Plank is a great exercise it comes not even close to the long lever plank. The more you walk backwards and the more you increase the lever the more your abs have to work. Remember that you have to keep a proper form. So only walk that far that you are able to keep the posterior pelvic tilt and a neutral or slightly flexed spine. Hold 2 seconds and then walk back to the starting position.
The walk is a great modification to give this exercise a dynamic component and to work on your stability as well. Of course it’s also possible to just hold the long lever plank instead of walking back and forth. If you can’t walk backwards without breaking proper form you should hold the normal plank and switch to the plank walk when you feel ready for it.
Side plank raise
Here you move your hip upwards to engage the downward facing side of the obliques. You can do this movement on your forearm or your hand. The benefit of the variation with the hand on the ground is that you can work with a higher range of motion and avoid some pain on your elbow.
You can also do this exercise on a higher object. The more you change your body to a vertical position, the easier it becomes. If the normal version is too hard for you it’s also possible to decrease the lever by doing it on your knees.
Placing the upper leg behind the lower one makes your hip rotate slightly upwards which places the working side of the external obliques in a stretched position and the internal obliques on that side in a contracted position. Placing the upper foot in front the lower one does the opposite.
Serratus Knee Raise
The last exercise of this complete guide to 6 pack abs is the Serratur Knee Raise. In comparison to the normal knee raise you now also lift your body out of its vertical position. Try to tuck your knees, push your shoulder blades into protraction and round your back as much as possible. You should also try to not change the angle in your hips, but only move your back.
If you do this exercise on your forearms it becomes much easier in terms of supporting strength. If you do it on your hands you need much more strength in your front delts. Don’t worry if you can’t raise your upper body or your knees that high. This exercise still works well if you just work with your current range of motion.
How much and how often you should train
This time what we proposed is not a 10 min abs workout. We suggest between 3-4 sets of each exercise with 2 minutes rest in between. When it comes to the repetitions we suggest anything from 6-15 reps. So adjust the exercise to the right progression that you are able to train in that rep range. Please keep in mind that the side plank is a unilateral movement so you have to do this amount of sets and reps on each of both sides.
You can do this workout between 2-5 days a week but of course this depends on how the rest of your training looks like. If you already follow a Strength Training Program that includes Ab Training it makes more sense to do these exercises with a reduced frequency and volume. The best ab workout is not a 7/7 plan. You don’t have to train your ABS everyday to get results.
If you want to try other good ab workouts, check out our YouTube channel for free routines or our main page for full body training programs!
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