Most guys say that they want to lose their belly fat and would like to get a flat stomach. While this is an understandable aim however, it is also a rather unambitious one. Because surely what most guys would really like is to have a ripped set of six pack abs!
A six pack is one of the best indicators of overall health and fitness. It’s a look that the opposite sex finds highly attractive and that is most often sported by Hollywood actors, cover models and top actors
It also happens to be functionally very useful and able to improve your performance in just about every movement and sport.
So how do you go about getting the look?
Diet
The first thing of course is to diet. That means you need to try to maintain a rough caloric deficit, as well as concentrating on precisely how and when you are eating your food in order to try and ensure that you don’t encourage your body to store any more fat than necessary.
Doing this will allow you to lower your body fat percentage and this is important because it is what will allow you to get your abs to show through your stomach.
Often you will hear that you will have visible abs as long as your body fat is sub 10%.
This is true, as at this low level of fat, even underdeveloped abs will protrude and be visible. However, if you combine exercise as well (see the next section), then you won’t need to get your percentage that low.
Someone like Chris Evans (Captain America) is a great example of how good your abs can look at around 12-15%.
Exercise
With that in mind then, you also need to focus on training your abs to increase their strength and make them thicker and thus more visible. To see how this can look, try contracting your abs right now.
You’ll find they instantly become more visible, which shows just what a difference the size of these muscles makes.
Your abs are actually made up from multiple muscle groups, but the part that creates the six-pack look is called the rectus abdominis. This is the sheet of muscle on the front of the stomach that is used in order to prevent the body from bending backwards and to help us lean forward.
To train this area then, you need to perform exercise that involve bending forward such as sit ups and crunches. What’s important is to make sure you feel the rectus abdominis doing the work and that you are folding at the stomach.
In other words, do not allow yourself to bend at the hips, in which case you won’t really be working the abs at all.
Another tip is to train the transverse abdominis too. This is the band of muscle that wraps around the core and that holds the stomach in while supporting the back.
This is what will help to keep your stomach flat, while the rectus abdominis gives it the detail.
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