Sitting on your ass all day is six pack abs killer
So now, when we covered little bit about habits, another huge step toward your own six pack abs is – not sitting on your ass all day! I am sorry for presenting it in such a straight forward way, but it is very important. And unfortunately, sitting on our asses all day is a lifestyle many of us lead.
Do you have a sedentary work? If you do, you need to use every opportunity to move after work and in little brakes your sedentary work offers. I will cover the work workout later in this program. Anyway, life is moving, moving is life. We, human beings were mend to move, and to move a lot. Sitting on one spot for prolonged periods of time is very unnatural for us and it is killing our mojo, health and six pack abs at the same time.
So now, when you know that moving is crucial not only for your clearly visible six pack abs, but also for your overall health, lets me explain the most effective way to move toward six pack abs.
Introduce strength training
Now, you identified your bad habits and you started to eliminate them slowly one at the time. You also started slowly introducing good six pack abs supportive habits. You are on your way to your own six pack abs! Now it’s time to introduce strength/weight training.
Strength training is crucially important on your mission to six pack abs. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated and time consuming. No, no and no. Actually the most effective six pack abs strength training is very simple. All you need for it is few heavy enough dumbbells, floor mat, pull up bar and some tough rubber bands.
If you have a membership in a gym, great, if you don’t that’s great too. Gym memberships are not necessary for you to get supper fit, even to the point you have six pack abs. I know. I hang around lots of gyms where I train my clients. Majority of people with expensive gym memberships are completely out of shape. Even if they show up regularly. Why is this? Well, health clubs usually have hot tubs, and believe me, this is the most used tool in health clubs. Will hot tub make you fit? Hot tubs don’t promote any Heath benefits at all. None! They are just comfortable, feel good places to hang out and talk to people.
Second reason for people not getting fit in health clubs is that, they have their own comfortable work out routine they stick for long time and keep repeating it over and over. Plus health clubs usually have the latest machines available to get fit. Yes, of course they work for few very motivated, driven members that really push themselves to the limits on them.
But for the most part, fitness equipment manufacturers are producing the machines that are more and more comfortable to use. That’s what sells these days. People are looking to get in shape comfortably. And they seek comfort. Problem is that these people never get in shape. All they get is warm, fuzzy feeling that they are members of a health club, doing something for their health and sleeping well.
If you are a member of a gym or Heath club, that’s great. Of course you can get in shape over there. That’s what health clubs are for after all. But if you are not, it’s not a problem. You can certainly achieve six pack abs without a health club membership. The question really is: Do you really want to? Are you willing to follow these steps?
Strength training = six pack abs training
Strength training more so than cardiovascular training increases your metabolism. People usually have this backward. Overweight people tend to hang out most of their gym time on one of the cardiovascular machines. They think and they read it in fitness magazines too, that that’s the best way to loose weight. So why are they not successful? They’ve been working the treadmill for years now and they haven’t loosed a pound.
Cardiovascular exercise has its place in overall fitness, health and six pack abs world. And we will talk about it little later. Yes, of course you will be doing some of the cardiovascular exercise. But it won’t be a mindless spinning for hours on cardiovascular exercise machine.
Strength training and six pack abs benefits
With strength training, you build muscle and muscle needs energy to be maintained. Now let me get this important fact out of the way. Especially women and also some men are worrying about not to get bulky and big. It won’t happen! You are in your late thirties and forties after all. There is not enough growth hormone floating in your blood anymore. And even if it was, you can’t get big without an incredible time commitment to weight training and special, often sketchy nutrition you can buy. I am certain you know what I mean. So unless you are willing to explore the world of steroids and commit 4 hours per day to weight training, you will not get big. Period!
And quite contrary to your own thinking, every single pound of muscle you can put on your body will be increadibly beneficial to you. You and me after all are already in our late thirties and fourtyies. And that means, we are loosing muscle mass. Yes we loose about 10% of muscle every decade after we reach age of 30 and our bodies are replacing it with? You gusssed it right – fat! That’s why in spite of not loosing any weight and maybe not gaining any, we get flabbier and flabbier. And our six pack abs get buried further and further under the layer of fat.
So, to prevent this, you need to start building and preserving that muscle mass. With enough effort and discipline, you will be able to preserve it and maybe build few extra pounds of it. Hey, if you build 5 pounds of muscle and loose 15 pound of fat, thanks to that muscle, you are already 10 pounds lighter and smaller. So don’t worry about getting too big. Worry about building extra muscle. It’s harder than you might think.
You won’t get big, period!
I am in my late thirties and I am obsessed with building extra muscle. Unfortunately however hard I try, I already hit my plateau. At the hight of 6 feet and 3 inches with a fat percentage of about 7%, I was able to pack 185 pounds of mass on my body. Big part of it is muscle. You see me in the gym regularly and religiously lifting some serious heavy weights. But first think people notice about me and tell me is: Milan, you are too skinny, did you loose weight?
Yes I would like to be little more bulky and I would love to pack another at least 5 pounds of muscle on my body. But it’s becoming impossible for me to do that. However hard I try. And i devote quite a lot of time to strength training. So now, I hope you believe me that you won’t get big and bulky from intensive strength training and building few extra pounds of muscle is actually great think to do for your six pack abs to become visible. And of course your health too. You are convinced. That’s great. So lets move to a specific way to build muscle and increase your metabolism with the right strength training.
Concentrated six pack exercises
I won’t lie to you. To graduate to these exercises, you need to be already in somehow good shape. If you are not, don’t despair. I will show you how to get there little later. But let just for now look at these simple essential exercises that are at the base of my six pack abs program.
Abs exercises are not six pack abs exercises
First, I want to get this wrong assumption out of the way. Majority or people who are trying to improve their fitness, shape and health and not only those who are trying to achieve six pack abs focus too much on doing abs exercise. It is quite understandable. You want to have a smaller leaner waist, do crunches or other exercises concentrated on your abdominal muscles. Right? Wrong!
And let me explain this. You can’t spot reduce fat. I cannot either. No human being can. And that’s why concentrating on abdominal exercises is wrong think to do. Your time is limited if you are in your late thirties and forties. You have things to do. Kids to drive to the daycare, responsibilities, demanding jobs. So wasting time is not an option for you. And concentrating on your abs is wasting time. Yes, abdominal exercises have their own spot in six pack abs routine. And we will be doing them. But we will not concentrate on them.
Your workout needs to be concentrated on exercises that employ large muscles. And on top of it, they employ more than one of large muscle groups at the same time. These are also called multi joint, or core exercise. While working them out intensively on regular basis, your body’s metabolism and ability to consume calories skyrocket and you will become a fat burning machine. So which exercises are these?
Pull ups and its variations
The number one six pack abs exercise and in my opinion the best exercise in the world are pull ups. I know, they are not easy. Yes, they are hard. Very hard! And many people didn’t reach the kind of fitness level to be able to do a pull up. And maybe you are one of them. Don’t despair. I will show you how to get over time to the point where you will be able to do 10 pull ups and more.
It’s really not that hard. It takes discipline. But once you master pull ups, the effects are life transforming. You become a different human being. Incredibly fit. Your confidence will soar, energy levels will increase. It is makes you powerful, strong and healthy. And on top of it all your body, the muscles that are responsible for doing pull ups will satisfy their huge energy needs by taking it, you guessed it right: from your waistline.
Another fantastic benefit of pull ups is their ability to do them anywhere. As long as you have a bar or a tree branch in your environment somewhere close to you, you can do sets while doing other things. This is very time efficient. And we talked about it little bit before.
You can and should have pull up bar in your office, your workshop, in your backyard and finish up to 11 sets of pull ups per day without even needing any extra time. You finish them while working. They give you great workout, your blood flow increases, your concentration and performance increases, you feel great, full of energy and you are burning fat. And on top of it all, you don’t have to go to the gym anymore in the evening. Your main six pack abs workout is done for the day.
Of course, we will add few more exercises to your pull ups, but I wanted to show you an example of a perfect six pack abs exercise that can be done anywhere. And all six pack abs exercises in this program are like that. Plus, you can’t even replace them with the fanciest and newest machines in a gym. To really achieve six pack abs, you need to get back to the basics. And pull ups are as basic as it gets.
Push ups
We talked about pull ups. Pull ups employ more muscles at the same time very intensivelly. Those muscles are back muscles – mainly lattisimus dorsi, but all back muscles are employed at certain level, than biceps muscles on your arms, forearms muscles and also abdominal muscles that are responsible for keeping your body stable.
Now in this six pack abs program to make it really effective, we need to work all the muscles in the body. And we are going to do that again in the most efficient way. Doing push ups. The simplest, not the easiest of all exercising. The number 1 exercise in Hollywood are push ups. So why are they so popular? With pull ups, push ups add another group of large muscles worked out in your workout session – pectorals muscles, triceps, they also work your abs and legs.
Push ups are another calorie killer, waist remover, six pack abs builder exercise in your six pack abs work out routine. And you can do them too anywhere you want to. That makes them twice as great.
If you are at the stage that you are not able to perform 1 push-up, don’t despair. You are not alone. And with some discipline and effort you can master them and soon be doing 30 and more. I will show you how to do that later. In the mean time, remember, that push ups together with pull ups are at the core of your six pack abs exercise.
Squat jumps and other squat exercises
Leg muscle – quadriceps femoris, the one big muscle that is on the front of your thigh, is the biggest muscle in human body. An we love the biggest muscles in six pack abs weight training. The biggest muscle means, that if worked out intensively, it will become a big energy burner. It will be literally eating the fat from your stomach, uncovering that beautiful six pack abs, you already have there. But it is still buried below the fat layer.
So now that you know that your quadriceps is the biggest engine in your body and burning the most energy and increasing substantially your metabolism, how do you work it out the most effectively? The answer is: doing plyo metrics. That means jumps.
Now, many people think, that jumps are damaging their knees. This is not truth. Jumps, if done right will not only increase your metabolism hugely by working those quad muscles very intensively, they will also protect your knees. The key to reach that level is to slowly build yourself up to about 5×35 squat jumps 2 times per week. There are other jumps you can do and I will talk about them later. But lets focus for now on the simplest ones: Squat jumps.
So how do you safely build yourself up to this jumping level? The answer is: you will start with squats, slowly add few jumps and in few months you will be doing the desired amount of squat jumps 2 times per week. I will give you exact blue print how you do this little bit later.
Squat jumps and other jumps, as a group are called plyo metrics and can be performed anywhere. You don’t need fancy gyms. Doing them anywhere is fine – at home, at work, in grocery store, outside. Anywhere! And I actually prefer you to do it at work or at home, since this is the program for busy people and I bet you are pretty busy in your life. Being busy is not an obstacle to beautifully chiseled six pack abs. So do your squat jumps too, same way as pull ups and push ups preferably at work or home while keeping up with the chores. I already mentioned it many times before, that this is really possible.
Squat dumbbell shoulder presses
This exercise I really love and recommend, because it really employs lots of muscle at the same time. It’s added to six pack abs workout plan because we want to work all the major muscle groups in the body intensively. And what we are missing so far are shoulders.
Grab 2 dumbbells, I will talk how heavy should the dumbbells be soon. Stand straight in front of the chair with your legs slightly wider than your hips apart. Bring dumbbells over your shoulders and keep them almost resting on your shoulders. Now squat as far as you can touch chair with your butt and get up. Don’t sit, just touch the chair with your butt. While raising start pushing the dumbbells up lifting them over your head. Repeat 15 to 20 times.
Squat dumbbell shoulder presses can be done anywhere: at work, at home, in your garden or in your garage. You need a pair of heavy enough dumbbells for it. So keep them somewhere under your desk, bed or just lying on the floor where you will be performing this exercise. Just watch out so you don’t trip over them. And do 3-5 sets of 15-20 repetitions any time you have little window in your schedule. 2-3 minutes windows are plenty.
How heavy should the weight be?
So far we have only one exercise that’s using free weights – squat dumbbell shoulder presses. But I will add couple more soon, just to make your plan little bit more interesting with variety. I am purposefully trying to keep this six pack abs strength training plan easy and simple. You are a busy person after all and you want your six pack abs in spite of that. Great! It is very possible. And it is very possible with very simple weekly plan. So I will stay away from complicated.
If you never lifted weight before, get 2, 8 pound dumbbells if you are a man and 2, 5 pounds dumbbells if you are a woman. And start with these loads for now. Over time, you will be increasing the weight of your dumbbells. They will often happily exchange them for you in your local sport shop, because of course there is nothing that can go wrong with dumbbells.
If you are somehow experienced weight lifter, you most likely know the weight of the dumbbells you need for certain exercise. Just be careful, don’t over do it in the beginning. Start slowly and increase the weight gradually.
You need to get to the point eventually, that you are very consistent and you can really lift to the point that you won’t be able to finish those 20 repetitions with the weight you are using. Or just barely able to finish. And that’s going to be the right load for you that will keep you on fast track to your own six pack abs. Again, be careful. You need to lift intensively and heavily to reap the benefits, but you don’t want to get hurt.
I am known of saying that you have to actually deserve to lift heavy weights. The heavy, you get the most benefits out of. You really need to deserve it. Otherwise you will get hurt. So, how do you deserve it? With your consistency and slow safe progress. That means, that you won’t miss your workouts and you slowly move from 5 pound dumbbells after two weeks to 7 pound dumbbells and to 10 pound dumbbell after another 2 weeks of diligent consistent, scheduled lifting. And so on. This is very important. So remember to stay consistent to deserve to exercise with the right load that will bring you to your desired six pack abs goal.
Additional exercises
To make it more interesting, I am throwing in some additional exercise you could spice up your workout routine with. The important is to finish the core exercises first, than add one or two additional exercises. Here they are:
Hamstring curl
Hamstrings are a large muscle group. Those are the muscles on the back of your legs. And keeping them strong and working them up regularly increases your overall metabolism and health of your joints. This additional exercise can be done at your gym 2 times per week, or also at your work site. You will need a big ball or rubber band to do them.
Squat tough band rows
Squat bend rows are another great additional exercise to include in your plan. You can do them at your work, at home, in the gym as long as you have tough band with possibly some handles on it.
Squat dumbbell biceps curl
This is another great additional multi joint exercise. You will need only heavy enough dumbbells for it. And it is very easy to do it at your work, home or anywhere you have access to your dumbbells.
Ab exercises
You might be wandering about why am I mentioning abs exercises last in this six pack abs program. It should be concentrated on abs, shouldn’t it? It really shouldn’t! Abdominal exercise are part of this six pack abs program, but they are the least important exercises in it. Just please continue reading and don’t quit. Trust me on this. This is where people get confused the most.
Yes, you will be still doing few abs exercises per week regularly, but they are not as important as your core exercises. I am fine with you missing abs exercises in your weekly work out routine occasionally. But I am not fine with you missing the core exercises described before. Those are the most important to achieve six pack abs.
Here is where a lot of people have it wrong. They really think they should concentrate on abdominal muscles. They don’t. And I already wrote about it in the beginning of this article.
However, even if abdominal exercises are not the most important in this six pack abs program, you will still try to do few of them in your weekly strength six pack abs routine. Abs are muscles too, even though they are small muscle groups, we don’t want to leave any muscle group left unattended. Every little muscle group will get its workout in your weekly routine. Abs of course will be included.
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