Open just about any magazine even slightly related to
health and fitness and you'll find some variant or another
of 'six weeks to a six-pack' or 'awesome abs' or 'core
training secrets of the stars' or the like.
It's amazing!
It's as if the whole world is fixated with the abdominal
region and will happily sit through pages and pages of
'samey' information just to get to the one or two 'secrets'
that'll miraculously turn us from fat and flabby to fit and
fabby over night.
Well, as much as you'll hate hearing it, the truth is that
most 'celebrity sixpacks' have very little to do with the
special core routine of their favourite personal trainer
with their multitudes of crunch variations or 'secret'
exercises.
Likewise any well conditioned track athlete, martial artist
or gymnast.
You'll rarely, if ever catch one of these well proportioned
and highly defined athletes even entertaining the idea of
crunches, let alone doing one, yet they all get to sport
year-round leanness and definition that most people would
kill for.
Why is that?
Why when some of us are spending HOURS every week hitting
our waists from every angle are we still looking soft
around the middle when these abdominal training atheists
are able to achieve such great results?
I can tell you up front, you're not going to like the
answer I have for you!
First though, some basic anatomy.
That muscle you think of as 'the six pack', the one that
runs from your groin all the way up to your ribs is called
the Rectus abdominis and is just one of several very
important muscle groups that create your waist or 'core' as
is now popular.
Every single movement you make, from standing to sitting,
walking to running, bending twisting, pushing and pulling
all originate here and so, far from requiring even more
training, your core muscles are already there and already
looking like that sixpack you've got your heart so set on.
Right there, buried under all of that fat you've worked
hard all winter (maybe longer) to lay down is a sixpack
that any bodybuilder or gymnast would die for. The only
reason you can't see yours is because it's buried!
(I told you it'd be basic)
The only thing stopping you from 'un-burying' your six-pack
is the lack of discipline required to control what goes
into your mouth on a daily basis along with the dispelling
of a few myths that are conspiring to keep you soft around
the middle.
Myth Number 1 - You CAN'T Spot reduce
It's a weird one this, as most of us seem to know this
already, on a surface level at least, yet still it's common
to find six-pack seekers grinding out rep after tedious rep
of myriad variations of curls and crunches.
Listen up. The body just doesn't work that way!
If it did, the people who did the most crunches would have
the most visible abs and this is clearly not the case. In
fact, it's probably the other way around!
Once and for all let's get this straight. When the body
burns fat it takes it molecule by molecule, gram by gram
from the whole body, not just from the area you're
exercising. What's more, by performing such small, isolated
exercises you're not burning many calories or much body fat
anyway!
The answer is to get off of your back and carry out more of
your exercises from a standing position and using many more
of your muscles each time you train. That way, without even
directly targeting the abdominals you'll be burning many,
many more calories AND conditioning your core at the same
time.
You're far more likely to see your sixpack this way.
Myth Number Two - Cardio is king if you want to get lean
Not so. Especially if you do it the way most people do.
Just look around the gym next time you're there. How many
of the cardio junkies that are glued to the treadmills,
rowers and crosstrainers are sporting the look you're after?
Not many I'll bet!
And the reason is, they're doing so much cardio that the
hormones that keep them going for those extended periods
are actually commanding their bodies to give up muscle more
rapidly than fat. The net effect is that they end up
slowing their metabolism way down and creating bodies that
are potentially fatter than before.
Not what most exercisers are after but nevertheless, what
YOU'LL get if you insist upon training the way that most
gym goers do.
No, to get lean you need to work harder for shorter
duration. Short circuits, intervals, relays that get you
breathing hard then rest. 5 mins at a time are all you'll
need if you train this way.
Better yet, skip those boring machines anyway and use
strength exercises with bodyweight or free-weights in to
send your metabolism into warp drive.
I call this type of training my 'six hundred rule'.
In short, you've six-hundred or so muscles in your body.
Incorporate exercises and movements that challenge as many
as possible at once. Exercises like pushups, pull-ups,
squats, lunges, jumps forward bends, deadlifts. Y'know,
those honest to goodness 'old fashioned' exercises that
people used to use before gyms got hi-tech.
Myth Number 3 - you've got to cut calories to get lean
Well, I've got to admit, this is partly true, especially if
you overeat often, but much more important than cutting
calories is to cut the rubbish foods out of your diet
altogether.
You see, your body fat is used as a 'toxic dump', a
waste-ground when your system is overburdened by foods it
can't handle. When too many toxic foods find their way into
your body, regardless of the calories you eat, your body
will dump these toxins into wherever you hold your fat.
Your waist among other places.
So if you truly want to get lean, you've gotta get clean!
That means removing many of the foods that your body
considers toxic like:
Alcohol, Caffeine, Processed foods,Sugar (or substitute),
anything with a number or unpronounceable word in it and
most wheat products.
These foods are KNOWN to create either allergies or
intolerances in increasingly larger numbers of people and
should be avoided for good health as well as for the
aesthetic goal of seeing your abs.
Replace these foods with wholesome, nourishing foods that
offer support to your body and you'll almost immediately
see fat beginning to strip off. Foods like:
Fresh meat, fish and poultry (especially organic), Fresh
fruit and veg (organic where possible), Nuts and seeds,
Olives and Fresh, filtered water.
These are basic fundamentals of any healthy diet yet few
people come anywhere near these basics within their own
eating and lifestyle plans opting instead for quick-fix,
processed, toxic foods.
You can cut calories all you want but if you're still
eating foods from the top list and not enough from the
bottom then you'll ALWAYS end up back where you started.
See, I told you that you wouldn't like what I had to say!
But will you listen?
No, more. Will you actually follow this advice and make
some of these changes to your diet and lifestyle for the
next 30 days?
If you do, I GUARANTEE you that you'll lose more fat, gain
more firm, lean, shapely muscles where you want them and
look and feel better than you have in ages. What's more,
you'll have put into place a habit that will serve you long
after those 30 days are over.
And when you walk onto the beach this summer you'll look
down to where your new-found waistline is on proud display
for all to see and know that you finally did it. You
achieved what only a tiny percentage of people ever do.
----------------------------------------------------
Dax Moy is a performance enhancement specialist and master
personal trainer with studios in and around London. Voted
one of the UK's leading fitness experts, Dax is a regular
guest on TV, radio and print publications on the subject of
health, fitness and the performance mindset. To download a
free copy of Dax's Elimination Diet which has been
downloaded by over 24,000 people, visit
http://www.daxmoy-pts.co.uk/elimination.asp
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