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!

Page 1 of 3 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 3 | Next