Everybody seems to want to know how to get ripped abs. I've found that most people believe that getting ripped, protruding abs involves doing hundreds of stomach crunches and situps frequently. They believe that doing so will burn fat off of their stomach area, exposing their abs.
I used to believe this same thing, and it was getting me nowhere. After some research and trial and error experimentation, I discovered the truth about how to get ripped abs.
First off, you will never have visible, six-pack abs if you have a layer of fat covering your abdominal area. To get ripped abs, your primary goal should be fat loss. Even if you have an incredibly strong core of abdominal muscles, if it is covered by fat you will never see them. This idea is key in order to understand how to get ripped abs.
Second, the idea that doing countless stomach crunches to burn fat is a myth. You cannot spot-reduce fat from a single area of your body by targeting it. Body fat is lost evenly across your body when you combine a solid exercise and nutritional program. I make sure I strongly emphasize this idea when telling people how to get ripped abs, because so many believe that stomach fat is lost through abdominal crunches and situps. Not true!
In order to be able to start seeing your abs, you must lose body fat. This is accomplished through strict nutrition and a consistent exercise regimen.
Because everybody is different, no single nutritional program will work for everyone, but in order to get ripped abs keep a few things in mind:
1. Eat every 2-3 hours
2. Eat around 1 gram of lean protein per pound of body weight with every meal. Lean proteins include, but are not limited to: tuna fish, low/nonfat dairy products, chicken breast, whey protein powder, shrimp and other fish, etc.
3. Drink 16-20 ounces or more of water with every meal.
4. If you are sensitive to fat gain, you are most likely carbohydrate-sensitive. This does NOT mean you should remove carbohydrates from your diet, but rather limit them to a lower percentage of daily intake, and eat less of them at later hours of the evening.
5. Eat lots of vegetables.
6. Limited saturated fats and avoid trans fats at all costs.
7. Determine your basal metabolic rate and consume less calories than you burn.
Nutrition is an extremely vital aspect of understanding how to get ripped abs. However, it is not the only aspect. Weight training and cardiovascular exercise also play a big role in getting ripped abs. Here are a few tips:
1. To lose fat efficiently without losing muscle mass, choose high intensity cardio over long duration cardio. This will enable you to shed fat while retaining your ab muscles (and every other muscle for that matter), a huge factor in understanding how to get ripped abs !
2. Perform high intensity cardio at least 3 times per week. If you hit a fat loss plateau, experiment with increasing the duration and/or intensity of your sessions or adding another session.
3. Targeted abdominal exercises should be performed 2-3 times per week at the most. Other compound exercises, such as barbell squats and deadlifts, work the abdominal region as well, so keep this in mind before making the mistake of doing ab crunches every day.
4. There are hundreds of ab exercises. I've found that decline situps and decline crunches work particularly well in developing the abdominal region, especially once you start adding weight. Simple floor crunches are also very effective for the beginner.
Put these ideas into action including a good nutrition and exercise routine and you will see results!
About the Author
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