Getting perfect abs – the 4 key ingredients

When they think about getting that perfect set of abs, most people have a mental image of the task being mainly working with crunches and sit-ups (and perhaps a few leg lifts thrown in for good nmeasure).

Unfortunately, it’s realistically going to require 4 distinct activities to get the the jaw-dropping results you see highlighted on TV and in the movies; there aren’t any short cuts, unfortunately. These 4 activities are necessary and they’re aimed at the crucial combination – lose fat, build muscle.

Your Diet

The major realization here is, you can spend 24 hours a day working on crunches but if you still have too much body fat, you’ll never have six-pack abs.

So, one key thing is that your diet has to be one that supports fat loss. First thing being, think about calories — you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. Second, you need a good balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fat – and yes, there IS healthy fat. You need the protein to build muscle and also to help muscle recover from the damage caused by exercise; and, protein can help you to control your appetite. You need carbs for energy. And healthy fat because some forma of fat – and most fat in people’s diets is NOT the right type of fat – are an essential part of a balanced diet.

Cardio Exercise

Why cardio? Because 3500 calories = 1 lb of fat, so if you want to lose the fat to expose that six-pack, cardio helps to burn the calories, and therefore burn the fat.

Strength exercises

People are often surprised to learn that strength training has the biggest impact on the metabolism … meaning, if you perform this type of training regularly, you’ll literally put your body in a position where the metabolism speeds up and … you’ve guessed it, your burn fat more quickly. Large muscle exercises – squats, bench presses, lunges, etc – performed regularly will have a bigger impact on metabolism even than cardio and certainly more than small muscle exercises (bicep curls, for example) although it all helps. The faster you burn the fat … the faster you get those great abs you’re working so hard for.

Abs-specific exercises

And only now do we come to the exercises that most people have in mind from the outset – crunches, sit-ups, and leg-lifts in all their variety.

So, this is the path you need to take for great abs; but the biggest obstacle isn’t actually associated with any of these. The biggest challenge is purely mental, and it’s simply this – are you willing to pay the price?

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