These Common Ab Myths Are Standing Between You and a Six-Pack
The following is an excerpt from the new Men's Health training guide 90-Day Transformation Challenge: Abs. In one volume, you'll get all the tools you need—information, a nutrition guide, and workouts—to build your abs in just 3 months.
Before we go any further, there are a handful of notions about your core training that you need to ditch immediately. If any of these sound familiar to you, don’t sweat it. You’ve likely heard about thousands of ab-building techniques, and it’s no easy feat to sift through all that information in search of the truth. What’s important is understanding what ab results are possible through consistent training. This will save you during those moments five weeks into this program when you’re questioning if you should keep going. You’ll remember what the process is, why it works, and why you really do have to log that day’s sets.
I can’t stress this enough: the abs should be treated no differently than other muscles in the body. A muscle is a muscle, and that means three things: muscles don’t work independently, muscles adapt to resistance training, and muscles need appropriate recovery to develop.
Unfortunately, when you have a topic like abs, which are arguably the most Googled and sought-after body part, you will get a large mix of opinions on how to approach training. The approach I want you to take with me as your coach is the science-based one. We aren’t going to live in the anecdotal world of “my one friend did this and got great results.” When it comes to exercise, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, but there are some tried-and-true facts we have learned over the years with science and research. These are the key principles I share with my clients when it comes to breaking down the misinformation about abs.
Myth 1: More Is Better
I am not sure when this myth started, but for some reason people are under the impression that abs are uniquely different from other muscles in that you can train them every day. That is absolutely not true.
Overuse of any muscle actually leads to atrophy (deterioration) of the muscle, which is the exact opposite of what you want when you are trying to build your abs. When it comes to core training and core conditioning, it’s more effective to have a mix of higher and lower intensity days, as you’ll see later in the program.
Going all out is an outdated approach to training. You simply can’t go full throttle every day and expect to stay on the ball throughout the program. There are a handful of people in the world who can do just that, and that’s amazing. But we can’t create a workout plan based on outliers. It needs to be based on general outcomes. So, in order to give yourself appropriate recovery time, challenge your muscles in different ways, and ensure continued success, it’s best to navigate between different intensity days.
Myth 2: Working Your Abs Burns Belly Fat
There is no such thing as spot reduction.
Direct abdominal work isn’t going to burn off that layer of fat laying on top of your abs the way you might hope. Burning fat is much better attacked through nutrition, strength training, and cardiovascular exercise. The best approach is a holistic one, like I’ve designed for you in this plan.
The way you develop your core in this program will change the way you look at training moving forward. By mixing up exercises and taking a step-by-step approach to building up a strong core, you’ll see changes in everything from the way you look to the way you feel to the way you move through your day! These 90 days will build you up from the inside out into the strongest version of yourself.
Myth 3: Aesthetic & Functional Training Are Mutually Exclusive
Believe it or not, they can be the same. That is the basis of this program—to blend ability with visibility.
You shouldn’t feel doomed to endless days of crunches wondering why the results just aren’t coming to you. Variety and emphasis will be large determining factors of your training. With the right mix, you will be able to get the look you want with the function you need.
Myth 4: Everyone Has a Six-Pack Under Their Belly Fat
Have you ever noticed two people with differently shaped abs? Maybe one person’s abs are deeper, more symmetrical, and more defined than his buddy’s. I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger is famous for having four visible abs no matter how shredded he got. Why is that?
Well, that is something you are born with. Thick cords of fibrous tissue stretch across the abdominal wall. The main connective tissue that runs down the center of the abdomen is called the linea alba. That line can be straight or slightly angled, depending on your genetics, and determines how symmetrical your abs appear to be. How many of the crossing tendinous fibers you have (which can be three or more) determines what kind of pack you can get, be it a six-pack, eight-pack, or even a 10-pack.
You Might Also Like
