Abdominals - 6 Pack

Its essential to remember 3 key important facts about aiming for that ripped six-pack look.

Diet and Nutrition - we all have, and many of us can feel the muscles lying underneath a layer of adipose fat tissue. Performing 200+ abdominal exercises a day will not give you that look that you want, yes your abdominal muscles will become stronger, but that layer of fatty tissue will still remain over the top preventing you from showing off your assets.

As with all muscle growth, your body needs fuel and essential nutrients to enable the muscles to contract (work) and proteins (amino acids) to repair and rebuild the muscles stronger. With that said, its true to say that your six-pack is going to be built in the kitchen - not the gym.

Unfortunately for most people (especially men), the human body will store excess body fat around your middle, as this is a comfortable area to carry excess weight. Reduce your body fat percentage with a correct nutritional intake, see notes on nutrition and aerobic exercise below.

Aerobic Exercise - so what is the best form of exercise for you? The answer to that is simple, look at the exercise you hate most. For most people, the exercise that they hate doing is the one that will actually give them the best and quickest benefits, this tends to be running. The exercises you hate tend to be hard, make you sweat, get you out of breathe or simply boring. The exercises that you like, you like because you're too often stuck in your comfort zone, you know that your working out; but are you really working?

If you happy doing your breast stroke swimming 2 - 4 times a week for 20 - 30 minutes then stay with it, but accept that you need to be happy with your shape, as its going to take a long time to change, if at all in a positive way.

How Hard - there are too many experts in the field of fitness that use outdated formula's to calculate what your heart rate should be in order to utilize body fat as an energy source. Likewise there are plenty of online calculators that work on the 220 - your age formula; this is a disaster, as these formulas can be 30 - 40 beats per minute out. That is to say you could have a target heart rate zone for using fat of 120 - 140, when you should actually be at 150 - 170, or even worse than be non-effective, your correct zone may be 90 - 110, and you're been advised to push yourself too hard.

Aerobic exercise means, working whilst using oxygen, you do not need to have a heart rate monitor to tell you if you're working too hard or to easy. The best tool you can get is a training partner, they will keep you more motivated than any heart rate monitor. Speaking to them briefly throughout your exercise will tell you if you're working too hard or too easy. If you can hold a conversation without worrying about your breathing than you're working too easy, if you can't say 6 - 10 words, than your working too hard.

How Often - the more the better, but never over do it, if your body feels tired, then rest; never train sore or tired muscles as this will lead to injury or becoming run down and ill. Using simple math's, if you can train 3 times a week, rather than just twice, your doing 50% more, and as such will see results a lot quicker (seeing and feeling results keeps you motivated).

Schedule enough time for your workouts throughout the week, 3 x 30 minutes fast walks - jogs - run dependent upon your fitness level only takes 1 1/2 hours out of 168 hour week. Aerobic exercise needs to be a minimum of 30 minutes to be really effective, if you go down the gym, it doesn't mean you have to spend 30 minutes getting bored on the exercise bike, find 3 or 4 pieces of equipment and do 10 minutes on each.

You are what you are! - genetics plays a very important part in your body make-up, and one that you can do very little to change. Everyone knows somebody who has those perfect abs, but they can eat what they like, hardly ever go to the gym, simply put there annoying.

These people simple put, they have been blessed with good genetics, that simply will keep their body fat percentage low, especially around their midsection. For example Asians often have a very low body fat, due to generations from that culture being exposed to high temperatures, (body fat will help insulate your body) and a lifestyle that is very physically demanding,

As we get older, our body muscle percentage lowers, whereas our body fat increase (middle age spread), this can be associated with genetic influences. Genes may affect the type of Basal Metabolic Rate we have. A lower-than-average BMR will lead to a tendency to gain weight, especially Intra-abdominal fat (fat around abdomen).

Looking at your parents and grandparents will give you a rough idea of your own body make-up, the lifestyles they lived will be passed onto you.

With genetics in mind, you may have a hard battle to try and obtain the muscle definition that you want, it may take longer and require that extra work, but you and further generations that you bring into this world will benefit from all the exercise that you do.

Stay motivated with exercises that you feel the benefits from - if it doesn't work why do it?

Going to the gym for a week is not going to redeem Year's of poor diet and exercise!

Guaranteed results WILL be achieved if YOU stay positive - focused - determined!