After 25 years in the fitness business, “How to get six pack abs” is still by far the most frequently asked question I receive out of the thousands of emails that come into my office every month. No doubt, it’s because abs are the one body part that most people are the most frustrated with. Although their questions are often phrased differently and each person’s situation seems unique, my answer to “what’s the real secret to getting six pack abs” is almost always the same… and you’re about to hear it…
“1,000 Sit-Ups And Crunches A Day and Still No Abs?
One question I received recently really got my attention because a young guy told me he was doing 1,000 crunches and sit ups a day and said he still couldn’t see his abs. He wrote:
“Tom: I’ve been training for about a year now and I can’t get my lower abs into any type of shape. I’m starting to see my upper abs a little bit, which is great, but despite doing 900 various crunches, ab roller, and 100 sit-ups four days a week, along with my regular workout on the weights, I still have a tire around my waist. What else can I do?”
The answer I gave him explained his mistake and revealed the only true “Secret” to great abs…
It takes training to increase strength, build endurance and DEVELOP the abdominals, but to SEE the definition in your abdominals – or any other muscle group for that matter – it’s almost entirely the result of low body fat levels.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but if you can’t see your abs, it’s not an issue of “ab muscle development” at all. You already have a six-pack of abs. Everyone has abominal muscles, and though their development can vary depending on how much or little you exercise them, if you can’t see your abs, you probably have too much body fat covering them up
The lower abdominal area also happens to be the one place that most people – especially men – store the body fat first.
There’s a Reason Why Your Lower Ab Flab Is The Last Place To Go
Most people don’t have their fat distributed evenly throughout their bodies. Each of us inherits a genetically determined and hormonally-influenced pattern of fat storage just as we inherit our eye or hair color. In other words, the fat seems to “stick” to certain areas more than others
There’s a scientific reason for this. Your fat cells are not just inert “storage tanks” for excess fuel. They are actually endocrine glands which send and receive signals from the rest of the body. You could say that your fat cells “talk to your body” and your body “talks to your fat cells.” This occurs through a hormone and receptor system.
For body fat loss to occur, you must first get the fat cell (adipocyte) to release the fat into the bloodstream. THEN, the free fatty acids must be delivered to the working muscles where they are burned for energy.
For fat to be released, the hormone adrenaline (epinephrine) must be secreted and send a signal to your fat cells. Your fat cells receive this hormonal signal via adrenaline receptors called adrenoreceptors.
Fat cells have Beta 1 (B1) and Alpha 2 (A2) receptors. B1 receptors are the good guys. They activate hormone sensitive lipase, the enzyme that breaks down the fat and allows it to be released into the bloodstream to be burned. A2 receptors are the bad guys. They block the fat-releasing enzymes in the fat cell and encourage body fat formation.
How Body Fat Storage Patterns Affect You And Keep Your Abs From Showing
What’s the point of all the physiology? Well, it turns out that in men, the lower abdominal region has a higher concentration of A2 receptors, so this gives us one possible explanation of why the lower abdominal region is often the last place it comes off when you’re losing it. (Incidentally, the fat in women’s hips and thighs is also higher in A2 receptors)
Think of abdominal fat like the deep end of the swimming pool. No matter how much you protest, there is no way you can drain the deep end before the shallow end. However, don’t let this discourage you. Lower ab fat WILL come off, it may simply be the last place to come off.
First place On – Last place Off (remember, F.O.L.O.!)
This helps to explain why ab exercises have little impact on body fat loss. It’s a huge mistake to do hundreds or thousands of reps of ab exercises thinking that will remove lower abdominal fat, except to the degree that it burns calories and contributes to the calorie deficit.
What removes the fat – all over your body – is a calorie deficit and that comes from decreasing food intake (nutrition), increasing activity, or a combination of both.
What I suggested to this young man was cutting back the ab training, spending the time he was wasting on excessive ab exercises for more intense, calorie-burning cardio and weight training for the rest of the body. I also suggested he do an accounting of his food intake, get his nutrition in order and decrease his calories slightly if necessary.
As it turned out, his diet was a mess, and as nutrition experts like to say, “You can’t out-train a lousy diet.”
It’s a monumental error to think that 1,000 reps of ab work a day will make your abs finally “pop” when your diet is a disaster and that’s leading to fat storage. It’s not that ab exercises aren’t important. But all the ab exercises in the world won’t help as long as you still have body fat covering the muscles. You can’t “spot reduce” with abdominal exercise and YOU CAN’T SEE YOUR ABS THROUGH A LAYER OF BODY FAT!
My Short and Simple Championship-Winning Ab Workout Routine
Just to give you some perspective, Even when I was actively competing in bodybuilding competitions, I only did about 15 minutes of ab work two times per week, with anywhere from two to four exercises for about 10-25 reps per exercise. That schedule has rarely changed – it’s all I need to maintain my abs today.
Forget about thousands of reps of sit ups – it’s a waste of time. The reason my abs looked the way they did onstage (ripped) and I can still maintain some visible abs all year round, is not from endless repetitions, but because I get my body fat down low enough by using a highly specialized fat-burning diet program.
Here’s a classic ab routine that I’ve used for years and still do (for bodybuilding/ ab-development purposes). I do this routine only twice a week and I change some of the exercises approximately every month so my body doesn’t adapt. I prefer slightly higher rep range than other muscle groups, but as you can see, it’s a far cry from doing a thousand reps a day.
A1 Hanging leg raises
3 sets, 15-20 reps
Superset to:
A2 Hanging knee ups (bent-knee leg raises)
3 sets, 15-20 reps
(no rest between supersetted exercises A1 & A2, 60 sec between supersets)
B1 Weighted swiss ball crunches (or weighted cable crunches)
3 sets, 15-20 reps
Superset to:
B2 Incline Bench Reverse crunches
3 sets, 15-20 reps
(no rest between supersetted exercises B1 & B2, 60 sec between supersets)
How often should you train abs? I performed this routine just 2 times per week.
How To Use Cardio For MAXIMUM Fat-Burning (to uncover your abs)
Times have changed since the aerobics revolution of the 1970’s and 1980’s. For years, aerobics was the darling of the fitness world. Then scientists began to acknowledge the benefits of weight training – for everyone, not just for bodybuilders.
Recently, the pendulum has swung the other direction and we’ve actually started hearing fitness “experts” suggesting that cardio should be kept to a minimum or even avoided completely. That’s the way things tend to go in the fitness world – they swing back and forth in trends, from one extreme to another. Lots of cardio or no cardio.
I suggest you avoid trend-hopping and pay close attention to what actually works, by people who know what they are talking about (such as bodybuilders, who are the leanest muscular athletes in the world). Doing nothing but cardio is a mistake. But cutting out cardio completely is also a mistake. The truth lies in the middle. Maximum fat burning occurs when you combine cardio training and weight training together.
Those who are genetically gifted with above average metabolisms will find that a slight drop in food intake and just a few days a week of cardio will usually do the trick. However, most people who are struggling with fat loss (sometimes referred to as “endomorph” body type) are simply not burning enough calories to get the results they want. The answer for them is more activity to burn more calories.
For health and weight maintenance, I would suggest 3 short cardio workouts per week, about 20-30 minutes per session. But for Maximum fat loss, I recommend 4-7 days per week of cardio or other vigorous physical activity for 30-45 minutes (based on results), at a moderate pace. You can mix up the type of cardio you do, or choose the type you enjoy the most – stationary cycling, stairclimbing, elliptical machines, aerobic classes and other continuous activities are all excellent fat burners (it doesn’t have to be indoors or on a cardio machine).
If time efficiency is a concern for you, you could do 2-3 of those cardio workouts as high intensity interval training and you’ll achieve very good results even with briefer workouts. Even as little as 20-25 minutes per session can get great results IF your intensity level is high enough.
Remember, seeing your abs is about low body fat. Low body fat is about burning calories, proper nutrition and creating a calorie deficit. The calorie deficit is created by increasing the number of calories you burn and or decreasing the amount of calories you take in from food. Increasing intensity is one way to burn more calories in less time.
NOTE: To reach the “ripped” body fat levels as I did for bodybuilding competitions, I would do cardio 7 days a week for 40-45 minutes per session, in addition to my 4 – 5 weight training workouts per week.
5 Simple Nutrition Tips For Great Abs
That leads us to nutrition. Many people say that “abdominals are made in the kitchen, not in the gym,” and there’s a lot of truth to that. You can do thousands of reps of ab work every week, but if your nutrition is not in order, you can forget about getting a great set of 6-pack abs.
1. Eat about 20% below your calorie maintenance level. If you use a more aggressive calorie deficit of 25-30%, then do not keep calories too low for too long; increase calories to maintenance or maintenance +10-15% 1-2 days per week. Make sure you get your calories right first (top priority)
2. Eat a source of complete, high quality lean protein with each meal (egg whites, lean meat, fish, protein powder, etc), preferably spread out into multiple meals daily. Make sure you hit your total daily protein intake next (second priority)
3. Choose natural, complex carbs such as vegetables, oatmeal, yams, potatoes, beans, brown rice and whole grains. Start with aprox. 50% of your calories from natural carbs and reduce starchy carbs slightly if you are not losing fat (keeping fibrous carb intake high).
4. Limit or avoid refined, simple carbs that contain white flour or white sugar
5. Keep total fats low and saturated fats low. Aim for 20% of your total calories from fat (and no more than 30%). A little bit of “good fat” like flax oil, fish fat, avocado, nuts, seeds and so on is better than a no fat diet.
These are the basics. Competition-level dieting (or dieting to get ripped) can be more sophisticated and little details begin to matter a lot more, but if you haven’t covered the fundamentals first, worrying about the details is worrying about minutia.
You Condition and Strengthen Your Abs With Specific Ab Exercises… But The Secret To Seeing Your Abs Is Reducing Your Body Fat!
1000+ reps of daily ab work is an amazing feat of endurance, but that’s not how you get visible, 6-pack abs! If you were to do 1,000 reps of ab exercises every day, you would have outstanding development in your abdominal muscles and you would definitely have great muscular endurance. Unfortunately, if your abs are covered up with a layer of fat, you will never see them even if you do 10,000 reps a day
I once saw a photo of a man who broke one of the Guinness World Record for sit ups. It was the most paradoxical thing, but this man did not have any abdominal muscle definition. He was not obese or overweight at all, mind you, but he had a small enough layer of body fat that the muscular definition did not show through. I’ve never seen a better real life example which demonstrates the basic principle discussed in this article:
You get great abs from reducing your body fat, and you reduce your body fat by creating a caloric deficit through fat burning nutrition and metabolism-stimulating and calorie-burning exercis
I’ve spent my entire career – through more than 25 years and 28 bodybuilding competitions – studying the science of how to lower your body fat. I speak from experience.
If you’d like to learn for yourself, what I’ve learned about fat burning nutrition and getting your body fat level low enough so that you can finally see a “6 pack rack” of abs, then be sure to take a look at the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program. Thousands of men and women call this their “fat loss bible.”
A best-selling ebook for over a decade, the new hardcover edition of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is now available in bookstores everywhere and the brand new AUDIOBOOK edition of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is a top seller on Audible and itunes.
You can also now get the new Burn the Fat Body Transformation program online with access to our members only Burn the Fat Inner circle community. For all the details, click here: www.BurnTheFat.com
Train hard and expect success,
Tom Venuto,
Founder & CEO, Burn the Fat Inner Circle
Author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle
Author of The BFFM Guide to Flexible Meal Planning For Fat Loss
About Tom Venuto
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert. He is also a recipe creator specializing in fat-burning, muscle-building cooking. Tom is a former competitive bodybuilder and today works as a full-time fitness coach, writer, blogger, and author. In his spare time, he is an avid outdoor enthusiast and backpacker. His book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle is an international bestseller, first as an ebook and now as a hardcover and audiobook. The Body Fat Solution, Tom’s book about emotional eating and long-term weight maintenance, was an Oprah Magazine and Men’s Fitness Magazine pick. Tom is also the founder of Burn The Fat Inner Circle – a fitness support community with over 52,000 members worldwide since 2006. Click here for membership details
Another fantastic blog!!! I have dropped 4 more pounds since this summers BTF TC challenge by following these exact principals your write about.
I have set up my first figure NPC competition in SLC March 2015.
Once again I want to say THANK YOU. I have a whole lot of gratitude for the information your provided that helped me break some barriers in my life.
Kindest regards,
Cori
<3 It all makes perfect sense to me now <3 XOXOXOXO :)
Tom, I’m curious about how your body feels (especially your legs) while performing “7 days a week” cardio. It makes sense to me if you cut out weight training for legs during this time (like squats). But if you’re also training your legs…then how do you ever “recover” from this non-stop cardio?
hi Paul. When my goal was intently focused on getting ripped, I have always used cardio without any fear of it interfering with my recovery or leg training. I always feel better, not worse when i do cardio, and responded well with as much as 6-7 days a week of cardio on top of 5 lifting workouts per week and the added cardio got me lean much much faster compared to diet alone.
That said, I never considered it mandatory to do daily cardio for me or anyone else. when muscle and strength retention becomes an issue, you can make a good argument for using the minimal effective dose of cardio – maybe just 3 days a week for example, at first, then add more days or duration later only if you need it, or if you want to speed things up. Its not a bad idea to have extra cardio saved as an “ace in the hole”
certainly you can get lean with diet alone, but with cardio it very simply gets me leaner faster and helped me dial it in during the final peaking stage to get all the way ripped.
My body recovered fine from it and i felt it never interfered with my leg training. I typically train legs once every 5-6 days and hit them really hard. I separated the cardio and weights usually am and pm. If i did cardio in same session – always after weights. No running as i felt that did tap into recovery and leg size, but bicycle for example i felt only helped my legs look better. Ive used a lot of stairmaster and stepmill too, a bit of incline treadmill walking.
my cardio for fat loss is usually moderate so its just not that taxing on the body and nervous system. If I do intense cardio, i keep that less frequent to help avoid overtraining (no HIIT every day etc).
There is a point where cardio volume (and or intensity) gets so high that it interferes with strength and muscle size, for sure, but I personally think i rarely if ever experienced that and if i did it was partly due to overly restrictive dieting too.
When im going after muscle gains, it’s a different goal, so while i keep doing cardio for health and conditioning, I keep it to about 3 days a week 20-30 min or so, moderate to high intensity. That wont interfere with strength and muscle. less cardio during muscle gain programs, more cardio during cutting programs – simple.
Everyone is different, but I think a lot of people have irrational fear of cardio. The body can handle a lot of work – more than we give it credit for and its easy to adjust the volume up or down based on how you respond.
Thanks for the response Tom! Really appreciate you sharing your context and the intricacies. My mind is sadly closed to cardio that’s not high intensity and minimum 50 minutes. It’s worked for me to the sum of 50 lb’s lost recently. But as you’ve noted before, the leaner you get…the more you have to up the intensity. So in my context, 7 days without a day off after “leg day” sounded like pure torture lol!