Workout Tips For A Six Pack
So you want to have some tips for a six pack? Here is Tatianna’s ab workout approach and it’s quite different from EC’s, who thinks that crunches are fantastic. You be the judge!
Who Doesn’t Want A Six Pack?
I don’t think I know a person that doesn’t want to have beautiful and defined six-pack abs. I personally think people who say that they don’t want or like a six-pack are the ones who were never able to achieve it.
First let me tell that it does not depend on your genetics as all. In my family I am the only person with muscle and a six-pack, and my body looks the way it does only because I work at it – you can do it as well, but it will take some effort. Don’t worry, I am not talking about adding more exercise or cutting down your food intake; it’s all about the quality and the choice of exercise as well as the right nutrition. Obviously everyone already knows that abs are made in the kitchen, so I will spare you that song. In this article I am going to share some exercise tips that will help you to define your abs.
Skip On Regular Crunches
Unless you are a complete beginner and never did any exercise in your life, you should skip on regular crunches all together. Contrary to EC, I think it’s a completely useless exercise, especially when it comes to getting the best results in the shortest amount of time. When you are doing a regular crunch on the floor you are not able to extend your abs for a better range of motion and on top of that you are constantly curling your back, which can cause problems later on.
Instead use a balance ball and do a myostatic crunch. When you are on a balance ball you will use your core to balance and you will have the ideal range of motion for a perfect ab contraction. Make sure you perform all of your reps in a controlled tempo.
Less Is More
If you think you need to work your abs 6-7 days a week to get a six-pack, then I am sorry to break the news, but you will never ever have abs. Never. When it comes to training, more is not better, it’s worse, the only thing it will bring you is overtraining. I know it might not make a lot of sense at the beginning, but if you understand the way our body works, it will make perfect sense.
Anyone can have a six pack, but you need to work for it.
You should never work any one muscle group more than 2 days a week. With abs you can probably push it to three, but you need the knowledge to do it the right way. Why? Because in order to build muscle, you need to recover. If your muscles don’t get time to recover, they will break down.
The key simply is intensity. On the day when you do your ab workout, you have to give it your all, and you always should switch your exercises for best results. Doing the same workout over and over again will bring nothing, so switch up the style.
Always Include Isometrics
There should always be an isometric exercise in your ab workout. A good example for that are planks. Isometrics tighten all of your muscles at once and it’s a great addition to the beginning and the end of each workout session.
Another great isometric exercise you can do is with the Ab Wheel. It’s a very good piece of equipment and you can get it for around 10 dollars
. Adding three 1 minute sets of planks variations before and after your ab routine will make you entire session more effective. The same thing with the Ab Wheel: you can do three rounds of 1 minute each, before and after each workout.
Hanging Leg Raises With A 10 Count Hold
I think this is the king of all ab exercises: hanging leg raises with a 10 sec hold. It’s the favorite ab exercise of all acrobats, trust me! I’ve seen them in training rooms and they do a lot of hanging straight leg raises and I believe that’s why all of them have such amazing abs.
To do them, hang on a pull-up bar (if you don’t have a pull-up bar, check this article) and raise your legs straight up, trying to touch your toes to the bar, with your hips slightly going up as well. Pause at the top for one second, then slowly lower down, all this while keeping your legs as straight as you can. On the 10th rep hold your legs half way down to the count of 10. When it gets easier, you can do every rep with a 10 count hold. Beginners can start with hanging knee raises, then slowly progress to straightening their legs.
You Too Can Have Six Pack Abs!
If you follow all of these tips with a good nutrition plan and aren’t overweight, you should start seeing the outlines of pretty sharp-looking abs within a month. If you are not, then you have to check your diet, because just as I said in the beginning: abs are made in the kitchen!
Pictures courtesy of “Melanie M” and © lovingfit.com.
18 Comments
I love this article and admire you Tati:). I’ve always aspired to have a 6 pack but nothing seems to work hopefully I will soon-
Ohh sweetie pie :), are you getting enough rest for your abs? Cause I know you love to workout a bit more than you should 😉
I doubted you at first, but since putting your words into practise my core strength is better with just doing planks before and after my workouts. For the past 4 weeks I’ve only done two routines with a complete focus on Abs. If proper form is used, the Abs is involed in every exercise.
Yep that’s what I always tell people, abs are used in all of the exercises. When I tell people that I only do 2 abs workouts a week, and sometimes only one, they don’t believe me. But if you consider planks and using the core in every exercise that’s a workout on it’s own.
Great article, I do 5 Minute plank hold everyday. Do you think that is too much??
Wow 5 minutes straight? I wish I could do that, that’s pretty amazing!
Yep,I do that everyday after my WO. Even on my rest days. Now I’m adding variations instead of just hold plank.
OK, you have to reduce the time of the plank to 1 minute but always change your variation. Do 3 planks total before and after your workout. Cause if you are holding only one way of plank then your body is already use to it and you are just wasting time. Always change up, that’s the key 🙂
Your article is full of false-oversimplified statements like:
“I don’t think I know a person that doesn’t want to have beautiful and defined six-pack abs. I personally think people who say that they don’t want or like a six-pack are the ones who were never able to achieve it.”
“When it comes to training, more is not better, it’s worse, the only thing it will bring you is overtraining”
“You should never work any one muscle group more than 2 days a week.” (What about the acrobats?)
“Doing the same workout over and over again will bring nothing”
Such statements are often used in similar fitness articles to make an easy impression and cover the lack of knowledge and commitment to honesty and precision (in what is being discussed) by the author.
Moreover, these statements cause several self-contradictions in the article, like the one with the acrobats.
Just my opinion.
My husband is a professional acrobat at Cirque Du Soleil. So I know exactly how acrobats train. I was a professional figure skater for 9 years. What were you saying again?
I would also like to add that, despite its weaknesses, your article did have some interesting advice. Plus, that I really liked this article on your website http://www.lovingfit.com/life/my-diary/learning-to-see-the-good/
Regarding your reply, that I saw after my second post, I was saying that you can train a bodypart frequently and still get results. You can also train once a week and get results too. The statements :“When it comes to training, more is not better, it’s worse”, “You should never work any one muscle group more than 2 days a week.” are at least unprecise and should be avoided or written more carefully, as someone not familiar with fitness may get the wrong impression.
Regarding acrobats I was guessing (falsely probably from what you are saying) that the training of an acrobat would require him/her to engage his abs and core several times a week.
Aris, I think this article on volume vs. intensity could clarify what Tatianna was getting at:
https://evilcyber.com/fitness/bodybuilding-intensity-volume/
Thank you for sharing your opinion 🙂
Aris,
Training frequently is only ok if you are doing it for certain period to lets’ say gain strength or if you are training for a competition. If you training frequently all the time overtime you will get overtrained. Every time we train a muscle we create micro tears, they don’t heal or build unless we rest. Over the years I experimented with different train approaches, and 2 times a week per muscle group got the best results without overtraining but with bigger gains.
Yes acrobats involve their muscles every day in what they do, but they have been doing that for many years and their bodies are use to these daily moves, as far as regular workouts they only train 2 a week and sometimes once a week per certain muscle groups.
You simply have to be dedicated enough to exercise regularly and keep your diet as healthy as possible.
Iv had a 6 pack since i was 14. Now im 17 n i wonder how some people hav 8 pack and iv been trying to get 1 for a very long tym now
It’s mostly genetic, Jay. In some people the muscles are attached in way that makes them visible, in others the lower portion of the muscle sits too deep.