Six-Pack Abs – 6 Valuable Ways to Get 6 Packs

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Your Guide to 6-Pack Abs

Preface

An ideal beach body is incomplete without those chiseled abs, we know.

Six packs signal the peak of one’s fitness and enhance one’s attractiveness and desirability. That’s because six packs are linked with low body fat, which is important for the optimum health of the heart & mind and high metabolism and stamina.

The most sought-after feature of the ideal man physique is the visual bulk and strength of the core muscles, which are abs, short for abdominal muscles. And this has always been the case throughout human history and across all cultures.

This is the reason why all popular male actors have a nice set of six packs, which they are seen showing off in every movie.

Everyone wants those 6-pack abs, but many people come across very tough workout plans on online discussion boards.

The result is as expected: most people find it very hard to begin, and even if somebody makes a start, eventually gives up because such workout plans can’t be followed in the long term.

For an average working person, only those plans work that can easily be adjusted in regular life without compromising performance on work and family relationships.

And you are one of those millions of people who are looking for simple yet effective ways to get that magnificent look of the trunk you can take pride in.

Fortunately, science, as usual, is there to guide you on this desire of yours.

How Important Are Six-Pack Abs

The first principle that you need to understand is that everybody is naturally blessed with six-pack muscles. Yes, you read it right. All those exercise plans and gym accessories aim at giving you those abs are baseless.

Abs are one of the most important muscles of the body. These muscles are part of the core muscles, which give balance and stability to the body. Abs allow basic movements like bending, sitting, lifting, and walking, and keep our spine safe.

Science of Getting Six-Pack Abs

You can strengthen your abdominal muscles, just like any other muscle, through resistance training, but these exercises alone can’t help you with those dream abdominal lines.

As your overall body fat increases, so does the amount of fat between your muscles and skin. The thick fat acts like a dense layer of fog making the underneath muscles invisible.

Less body fat directly means less fat everywhere in the body, including your belly.

As fat diminishes, the under-lying muscles get more definition, and ultimately, the contours of the tummy muscles are revealed as a set of 3 rows of two muscular packs, which is the natural shape of the abdominal muscles.

Note that some people naturally have 2 rows, and some 4 rows, hence the terms 4-pack and 8-pack respectively are used to refer to such variations.

The minimum value you need to drop your body fat percentage to for a toned tummy is 15% for males and 20% for females.

Science says that the only possible natural way of achieving a lower body fat percentage is to lose and minimize overall body fat, as you can’t lose fat from any region of your body by simply training the muscles of that region.

Therefore, you should never aim at reducing belly fat directly. Rather focus on losing overall fat in your body. Those dazzling packs will appear as a by-product of that process.

I’ll guide you in this journey that requires determination, discipline, hard work, and consistency. I assure you if you follow my pieces of advice, which are well-researched and according to science, you will never go astray.

Six Effective Ways to Get Six-Pack Abs

These are 6 guaranteed tips by me for a tight tummy.

Don’t lose weight, lose fat

‘Weight’ and ‘fat’ are often used interchangeably. Weight includes not just fat but muscle as well.

In fact, muscle is denser than fat. One cubic cm of fat weighs about 0.9 g, but muscle weighs about 1.1 g for the same volume.

When people lose weight through diet and exercise, generally, some muscle mass is also lost along-with fat. In common weight-loss plans, a little bit of hard-earned muscle has to be sacrificed to achieve intended fat loss.

Muscle loss is destructive for your beach body, especially for that natural look of strong abs.

And rebuilding muscle is very difficult, as you have to spend hours doing heavy exercises at the gym and consume high-quality protein, which is a huge burden both on your body and your pocket.

You may ask whether muscle loss is inevitable with fat loss. The answer is no.

You can preserve all that quality muscle during weight loss if you get a little bit creative, i.e., avoid those popular weight-loss plans, and try understanding why muscle loss co-occurs with fat loss.

The main source of energy for our body is carbohydrate. The body stores glucose, obtained from carbohydrates in food, as glycogen. This glycogen is utilized to produce energy for the body’s needs.

During weight loss, you consume fewer calories and fewer carbohydrates. Consequently, the body’s glycogen reserve shrinks, and the body moves on to fat, which were originally calories stored by the body during the calorie surplus, to keep your internal systems functional.

But some organs, like the brain, can’t metabolize fat into energy, so the body has to look for other energy reserves, and after glycogen and fat, there are no more energy reserves except muscle.

We know muscle’s primary ingredient is protein, and the body can metabolize this protein to provide energy to these organs which can’t work with fat. As protein disappears, you lose both the size and strength of your muscles. That’s why, heavy lifting is very difficult, if not impossible, during weight loss.

To conclude, consume more protein during your fat-loss phase. In this way, your body has enough protein in the system, so it doesn’t bother your protein-rich muscles.

Eat more protein

You must consume fewer calories to lose weight, but if you want to only lose fat, a big chunk of these fewer calories, about 40%, should come from protein.

How many calories one need per day depends on some factors, like age, sex, and activity level.

Suppose your calorie need per day is 2500, and you create a deficit of 500 calories. Hence, you will be consuming 2000 calories a day to lose weight. To preserve muscle more effectively, 800 of these calories should be from protein.

A gram of protein produces 4 calories.

A large egg contains 6 g of protein, which equals 24 calories. The remaining calories come from fat in the egg’s yolk. In total, the same egg gives 78 calories.

A cup of diced chicken breast has 43-gram protein, which provides 172 calories. It has some fat as well (about 5 g), which produces remaining calories.

A cup of full-fat milk includes 8g protein, that is 32 calories. The remaining calories come from fat and carbohydrate present in the milk.

Choose exercises wisely

Exercise is a great way to lose weight. As your calorie need is higher if you exercise more, you can achieve more rapid drop in those extra pounds. But you must make sure that all this weight loss comes from fat loss, not muscle loss in any case.

Avoid heavy exercises during fat loss, especially heavy cardio, like running and mountaineering. These exercises need very huge amount of energy for a very short duration of time, which can cause panic in the body, leading to a chaotic situation in which the body blindly burns anything available, including muscle.

And powerlifting workouts, i.e., bench press, squat, and deadlift, with heavy weights must be avoided during weight loss.

First, even the basic moves will become impossible with heavily loaded barbells without enough glycogen in your body.

Second, even if you try to attempt, you are at a very high risk of severe injuries and harming others at the gym.

The best anaerobic exercise for optimum fat loss while preserving muscle mass is an exercise with more reps but light weights.

Perform all major exercises that work multiple muscle groups including the core muscles, like bench, squat, and pulldown, but with light weights and more reps. Stick to 50% or less of your 1 rep max.

Please note that your 1 rep max changes (decreases) as your bodyweight declines.

You don’t even need weights. All major muscles can be worked in bodyweight exercises (also called calisthenics), like pushup, bodyweight squat, pullup, and plank. All these exercises also work your abs as secondary muscles.

People also perform bodyweight exercises that primarily target the abdominal muscles, like sit-up and crunch.

Crunches are considered more effective than sit-ups because the shorter range of motion in crunches reduces the function of hip flexors, thus isolating the ab muscles.

Although these exercises, i.e., sit-up and crunch, are very popular among beginners and weight-loss enthusiasts, fitness experts now don’t recommend these exercises because of lower back injury which is a very common risk associated with these exercises, especially if done improperly.

The best cardiovascular exercise for fat loss without muscle loss is an exercise performed at a low intensity but for a longer time, e.g., walking at normal pace.

You burn more fat during a normal walk, and more carbs during running.

Walking is also easy on your joints and carries no risk of knee and ankle injuries.

One thing which is important for everybody, including those who are not interested in having six packs, is that muscle loss can result from underutilization of that muscle as well. If your job is mostly desk-based, or your lifestyle is overall sedentary, you can lose some muscle mass overtime. Therefore, it’s good to add some exercise in your routine. The ideal scenario is to work every major muscle twice a week.

Beware of saggy skin

Remember that slow and steady wins the race.

After all the sacrifices and your hard work for that dream look (resisting that strong temptation everytime you see others enjoying those fries is not easy…), the worst situation to experience is loose skin hanging on your trunk ruining all your efforts and making your body look worse than before.

Saggy skin is unavoidable if you want immediate results. So, go slowly.

The best way to avoid loose skin after weight loss is to limit your weight loss to no more than 2 pounds per week.

This pace is more suitable for your skin, as it will have more than enough time to adjust itself with the shrinking size of the body.

Drink plentiful water

Water is your most trustworthy companion in this long journey.

Water is virtually calorie-free, but it has the ability to fill your stomach earlier, which is very helpful in fat loss.

Drink about 2 liters of water daily. Other than this much amount, you need some extra water during and after a workout. Additionally, you need to drink more water if the weather is hot.

Besides, drinking more water is also good for your skin. Water gives that glow to your skin, which is one of the essential components of your dream body.

Discipline yourself

You can’t achieve anything in life without discipline, and this applies here as well.

You have a goal in your mind. You want that summer body to be more confident in front of people and more attractive to potential mates.

Now, you have to make a very practical routine for yourself, and strictly follow that till you get the fruit of your patience.

You can have a cheat day every week, e.g., on Sunday, but stick to that routine on weekdays.

One more thing you need to know is that fat loss is a slow process.

Initially, you will lose more weight because of excess water loss from the body, but then it will slow down. It generally takes months to see the desired results.

Keep your morale high. Stay motivated. Only then you will succeed.

The best way to keep your motivation high is to join communities of people having similar goals.

Luckily, you will find many such groups on online social platforms like Facebook and discussion boards. Make new friends at the gym or your workplace who are also fitness enthusiasts like you. Discuss fitness-related issues with them. Learn from their experiences.

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