Looking for a Great Six Pack Abs Program?
A great six-pack abs program is one that combines proper nutrition and exercise, maintained over time.
All of those elements are important, so if any one is neglected or missing from your training program, most likely you will not get the six-pack abs you are looking for.
This article is going to help you find, or create, the perfect six-pack abs program.
Nutrition and Diet Lets start with nutrition, or diet.
Getting six-pack abs is a great end goal.
However, it should only be one part of the total picture.
That is, to achieve that, you need to be in a state of overall health and fitness adequate to manifest firm, sculpted six-pack abs.
What you eat, or don't eat, plays a major role in your overall health and well-being, and it's a huge factor in how much body fat you gain or lose.
Besides just eating natural, healthy foods, you have to drill down a bit deeper than that.
Your goal should be to eat less of what are called "high GI" or high glucose index foods.
Those foods are essentially high in sugars and carbohydrates, which are easily transformed into fat on the body when eaten in excess and without adequate exercise to burn the calories off.
Examples of high GI foods would be white bread, corn chips, doughnuts, or rice crispies (to name a few.
) Of course, replacing these with more low GI foods is also important.
Sprouted wheat bread, yogurt, sweet potatoes, and many fruits and vegetables like apples, pears, and zucchini are all examples of low GI foods that are healthy and nutritious.
Exercise Your six-pack abs program really does need to include a well-defined exercise routine.
But the question is, what kind of exercise should it include? Some might assume that doing 1000 crunches (or other ab exercises) on a daily basis is part of the secret.
And actually, that isn't true at all.
In fact, you can think of ab training as "optional", at least in the beginning.
"How could that be?" I hear you pondering.
The fact is, if you have excess body fat, and you do a 1000 crunches a day, very likely you will begin to develop strong, powerful ab muscles.
Sadly, they will be completely invisible under layers of excess belly fat that you never lost, even while strengthening those ab muscles.
Is this starting to come into focus for you? The whole idea is, in order to get six-pack abs, you don't just need sculpted ab muscles, you need to lose enough belly fat for those abs to be revealed.
And, perhaps more importantly, the key to losing belly fat is doing whole body workouts.
That's the only way you will burn enough calories, and ultimately fat, to lose significant amounts of belly fat.
So what does that look like? A whole body work out is one that works all the largest muscle groups, which of course includes your legs.
Often, people tend to ignore the legs and focus only on the upper body and mid section.
Big mistake.
A whole body routine will include legs, upper body, and core.
Dead lifts and squats are a great place to start, with shoulders, chest, arms and triceps rotated into your weekly or bi-weekly routine.
Time Remember at the beginning I mentioned that part about maintaining your six pack abs program over time? I was referring to the concept of being consistent, week in and week out.
More to the point, I am talking about stick-to-it-ive-ness; simply not giving up.
When you focus on your "process", such as eating right and doing your training each day or week, and not being obsessed with getting "results", you will fare much better.
Every thing takes time.
A little effort on a regular basis will gain you much more than a big effort every so often.
Think about the classic "tortoise and the hare" analogy.
Slow (or fast) and steady wins the race, and this mind-set should be the cornerstone of your six pack abs program.
All of those elements are important, so if any one is neglected or missing from your training program, most likely you will not get the six-pack abs you are looking for.
This article is going to help you find, or create, the perfect six-pack abs program.
Nutrition and Diet Lets start with nutrition, or diet.
Getting six-pack abs is a great end goal.
However, it should only be one part of the total picture.
That is, to achieve that, you need to be in a state of overall health and fitness adequate to manifest firm, sculpted six-pack abs.
What you eat, or don't eat, plays a major role in your overall health and well-being, and it's a huge factor in how much body fat you gain or lose.
Besides just eating natural, healthy foods, you have to drill down a bit deeper than that.
Your goal should be to eat less of what are called "high GI" or high glucose index foods.
Those foods are essentially high in sugars and carbohydrates, which are easily transformed into fat on the body when eaten in excess and without adequate exercise to burn the calories off.
Examples of high GI foods would be white bread, corn chips, doughnuts, or rice crispies (to name a few.
) Of course, replacing these with more low GI foods is also important.
Sprouted wheat bread, yogurt, sweet potatoes, and many fruits and vegetables like apples, pears, and zucchini are all examples of low GI foods that are healthy and nutritious.
Exercise Your six-pack abs program really does need to include a well-defined exercise routine.
But the question is, what kind of exercise should it include? Some might assume that doing 1000 crunches (or other ab exercises) on a daily basis is part of the secret.
And actually, that isn't true at all.
In fact, you can think of ab training as "optional", at least in the beginning.
"How could that be?" I hear you pondering.
The fact is, if you have excess body fat, and you do a 1000 crunches a day, very likely you will begin to develop strong, powerful ab muscles.
Sadly, they will be completely invisible under layers of excess belly fat that you never lost, even while strengthening those ab muscles.
Is this starting to come into focus for you? The whole idea is, in order to get six-pack abs, you don't just need sculpted ab muscles, you need to lose enough belly fat for those abs to be revealed.
And, perhaps more importantly, the key to losing belly fat is doing whole body workouts.
That's the only way you will burn enough calories, and ultimately fat, to lose significant amounts of belly fat.
So what does that look like? A whole body work out is one that works all the largest muscle groups, which of course includes your legs.
Often, people tend to ignore the legs and focus only on the upper body and mid section.
Big mistake.
A whole body routine will include legs, upper body, and core.
Dead lifts and squats are a great place to start, with shoulders, chest, arms and triceps rotated into your weekly or bi-weekly routine.
Time Remember at the beginning I mentioned that part about maintaining your six pack abs program over time? I was referring to the concept of being consistent, week in and week out.
More to the point, I am talking about stick-to-it-ive-ness; simply not giving up.
When you focus on your "process", such as eating right and doing your training each day or week, and not being obsessed with getting "results", you will fare much better.
Every thing takes time.
A little effort on a regular basis will gain you much more than a big effort every so often.
Think about the classic "tortoise and the hare" analogy.
Slow (or fast) and steady wins the race, and this mind-set should be the cornerstone of your six pack abs program.
