Training

Training for a six pack involves increasing strength in your abdominals and losing fat. This will not be achieved over night and will take some time and dedication. In a nutshell you need to lose fat and build muscle.

Losing fat: Your diet plays a large role here and this is discussed in the ‘eating for a six pack‘ page. You can also lose fat by doing cardiovascular exercise also known as ‘cardio’ for short. This involves raising your heart rate and some examples of cardio exercise are running, skipping, swimming or cycling.

You cannot target the fat over your abs specifically so will need to raise your metabolism and lose fat in your whole body in order to lose it over your abdominal muscles. You should be aiming at doing at least a 20 minute cardio workout 3 to 4 times a week. Depending on your comfort zones you should start gently and build up as you become more comfortable.

Lose fat by lifting weights. Lifting weights is a great way to burn fat. Not only are you increasing your metabolism while lifting the weights but, because you are increasing your muscular size, your metabolism will increase (burning more calories), even when you are at rest. It is important to maintain your muscle mass when doing exercises such as running or cycling while you are reducing your calorie intake. If you do not do this, your body can easily break down muscle mass for energy. This would mean you would lose fat but also muscle so you would also lose your six pack.

Maintain a steady metabolism by eating small meals regularly. This will keep metabolism high and help avoid any post meal energy dips which will slow metabolism and may make you lethargic.

There are various exercises to build muscle in the abdominal region. Crunches and sit ups are good exercises to build the core muscles of the abdomen. Start with an amount of repetitions which you can comfortably repeat each day and build up from there. Try adding weight once you become more comfortable or using an incline bench to make the exercise harder. Squats and deadlifts are good exercises too since they train the entire core and leg lifts are a good exercise to hit the abs too. Lie on the floor on your back and lift your legs to an angle of 45 degrees. Hold them together there for a few seconds and then lift to 90 degrees. Slowly lower back to the floor.

Sit ups and crunches can be combined with twists to train the ‘obliques’ which are the smaller muscles to the side of the abdominals. You can also use a stability or gym ball when doing sit ups and this will help target different areas of the abs.

Static holds are also a good way to train the abs such as the ‘plank’ or ‘half plank’. Hold your body in the press up position with your elbows on the floor for 20 seconds or so (the plank), or using just one arm (half plank).

Make sure you give your body plenty of rest between workouts too since this is where the muscles will be recovering and rebuilding. Get plenty of sleep and give yourself enough time off for the muscles to recover before training again. Over training is a common form of burnout and if you pace yourself you can avoid fatigue and achieve results more quickly and efficiently.