How to get a toned stomach or ‘Six-Pack’

How to get a toned stomach or ‘Six-Pack’

2^nd Post

For my second blog I have decided to write about the ‘Six Pack’ as it is commonly known. The six pack is its self just one muscle (Rectus Abdominis), it covers a large area at the front of our torso and it has walls of tissue that divide the muscle into sections forming what we call the six pack. There are other muscles that surround the rectus abdominis which are all part of sculpting a great stomach, these muscle are the Obliques (internal & external) and the Transverse abdominis, these muscles create the twisting and rotation movements.

In order to achieve a toned stomach or a six pack, there are two main rules that you should follow, Good Diet and exercise.

Good Diet

The food you eat will determine weather or not you are going to achieve a six pack, if your body fat percentage is too high then no matter how many stomach exercise you do, your will not achieve a visible six pack for the simple reason that your fat will be covering up the muscles.

Good nutrition is the key too unlocking your stomach muscles from under the fat.

• 55 - 60% Carbohydrates, 25 – 30% Fats, 15% Protein.

• Eat little and often, 4–6 times a day.

• Eat every 2-3 hours (small portions).

• Drink plenty of water.

• Don’t rush your food.

• Don’t skip meals, especially Breakfast!

• Cut any visible fat from foods.

• Avoid fatty food such as sausage and bacon.

• Try to avoid butter and margarine.

• Cut down on sugary foods.

• Don’t drink alcohol.

• Eat wholemeal and wholegrain food

• 5 A day – 2 fruit, 3 vegetables.

Exercise

Doing stomach exercises will help create a firm stomach. Although it is good to do stomach exercises, it will not burn the fat directly from your stomach, as spot fat reduction is not possible, your body will burn fat from where ever it wants too, generally the first place fat gets stored is the stomach and the last place fat is taken from is the stomach. Getting a six pack takes time and dedication. Obviously the less fat your have the easier it will be to achieve a six pack.

Cardiovascular exercise is important in order to start burning fat; my personal favourite type of cardio to do in order to burn fat is sprint interval training:

20 seconds sprinting, then straight into a medium paced jog for 40 seconds. This is 1 interval. Do 3 intervals per session to start off, add an interval on every 1-2 weeks, there is no rest In this work out. I will talk about this type of training more in another post.

Good stomach exercises too start of with are the plank, sit-ups, bicycles, crunches and twisting crunches/sit-ups. Perform stomach exercise every day if possible, resting maybe on Sundays.

Try to do cardio at least 3 times a week. Try to keep active as much as possible every day.

Weight training is import, the more muscle you have the more calories your body will burn while exercising and resting. Cardiovascular exercises will burn muscle as well as fat so it is important to do some kind of weight training weather or not its, full body workouts or a split routine. Aim for 3 weight training workouts a week.

Try this basic stomach workout:

Sit-ups – 15 – 30 reps

Crunch – 20 – 30 reps                   = 1 Circuit

Bicycles – 30 reps

Complete each exercise straight after each other (NO REST), after you have completed all 3 exercises without rest  repeat them again two more times with out rest. So that’s 3 exercise’s no rest, x 3 circuits. Try to do this workout every day, resting on Sundays.

I will post a more advanced stomach workout at a later date.

Ciao!!!!!