How To Build Abs
Imagine what it would be like if you knew exactly how to build abs. How cool would it be to know that no matter what you look like right now, you knew exactly what you need to do to build the perfect six pack. If you knew exactly what you needed to do and had a guarantee that if you did it you would get a six pack, would you be motivated? I am assuming the answer is yes.
What if I told you I can tell you exactly what to do to build abs…would you be interested? The truth is getting a defined and ripped stomach isn’t that hard. You just need to know what you are doing and work smart and hard.
The equation to getting a six pack is to get your body fat as low as possible and perform ab exercises to build up your abs a bit and make them “pop”. If you combine a healthy diet with an awesome workout and cardio program you will get abs much faster than you thought possible.
The problem is many people lose motivation because they just don’t think their body can get a six pack. Listen carefully, you already have a six pack! It is just being covered by some fat right now. This means once you start to lose belly fat then your abs will be visible!
In this article I am going to tell you how to put together the perfect diet for yourself and I am also going to tell you how to put together the perfect abdominal and cardio routine.
However, before I do that I would like to say one thing. There is something you can do right now that will help you achieve a six pack much faster. In fact, if you do this I can guarantee that you will get better results than someone who didn’t do it. So what am I talking about? Goal setting.
Goal Setting
The human brain is very interesting, it likes to have targets to hit in order to keep you focused and motivated. Setting goals is the best way to motivate yourself, especially when you are tempted to eat unhealthy foods or skip a workout. Right now I want you to get out a piece of paper and write down your goals. Yes, make sure you write it down, studies have shown that people who write their goals are much more likely to achieve them. Plus you can read them every day when you wake up and before you go to bed!
Write down how much you want to weigh, what you want your body fat percentage to be, what size jeans you want to wear, ect. Describe what you want to look like, maybe you just want a flat stomach, maybe you want a ripped midsection? Whatever it is write it down! Once you do that then continue reading this article on how to build abs.
Diet, Workouts, And Cardio
Diet And Nutrition
I am going to be honest right now, if I had to choose between nutrition and workouts to get a six pack, I would choose 
nutrition. The reason for this is because you can exercise all you want, but if you do not have a clean diet then you will never get the abdominal muscles that you are looking for.
I am a true believer that building ab muscles starts in the kitchen. But what exactly should you be eating? There are many different views on this, but if you need to lose weight quickly then I recommend you follow a diet called the Ketosis Diet.
The Ketosis Diet
This diet has been proven to help people lose body fat very quickly, and even though there are people out there who would tell you to follow this diet for long periods of time, I do not think it is healthy to follow it for more than three months at a time.
The Ketosis Diet is very similar to the Atkins Diet in the sense that you are really going to limit your carbohydrate intake. With the Ketosis Diet you do not want to eat more than 15-30 grams of carbs per day.
This diet consists of eating a lot of protein and fat with each meal. I know a lot of you are probably afraid of eating too much fat, but there is no need to be afraid of it, it won’t actually make you fat, especially if you restrict your carb intake.
This is a very complex diet and there have been many books written on it so I won’t get into detail about it at the moment, but just know that if you need to lose body fat quickly then it is a good diet to follow and you should consider purchasing a book that goes into detail.
What If I Don’t Want To Limit Carbs?
For those of you who don’t want to limit your carb intake (like me) I recommend the following:
First off, make sure you know exactly how many calories you need to eat per day to lose weight. This can easily be done by searching for a daily calorie requirement calculator. Once you get that number just subtract it by 500 and that will be the number of calories you need to eat every day to lose weight assuming you are following a healthy diet.
I emphasized “assuming you are following a healthy diet” in the sentence above for a reason. You can’t just get all your calories from unhealthy foods such as foods that are high in sugar because your body will still store them as fat. If you eat too much sugar, your body will use what it needs for energy and then just store the rest as fat. This is why you always hear trainers and nutrition specialists say that you need a well BALANCED diet. I recommend you get 60% of your daily calories from protein, 25% from carbs, and 15% from fats.
Spread Your Meals Out
Now that you know how many calories to eat and how to balance them out, we need to talk about spreading out your meals.
If you are eating three meals per day, you probably think you are doing it right. It makes sense right? We should eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. The truth is you should eat TWO breakfasts, TWO lunches, and TWO dinners every day.
Some of you might be thinking that doesn’t make any sense at all, how does eating more often help you lose weight? The answer is simple. Just because you are eating more often doesn’t mean you are eating more total calories. Whatever you would normally eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, split it in half and eat every two-three hours.
If you need 2,000 calories to maintain weight, that means you should be eating 1,500 calories per day to lose weight. Take those 1,500 calories and divide them by six. That equals 250 calories. That means with each meal you should be eating 250 calories, and if we calculate our 60% protein, 25% carbs, and 15% fat rule, this means that of those 250 calories, 150 of them should be from protein, 62.5 of them should be from carbs, and 37.5 of them should be from fat.
Also, make sure a good amount of your protein is coming from lean sources such as fish and chicken and your carbs are coming from healthy foods such as fruit and veggies.
If you can follow those tips above you will lose belly fat very quickly and your abs will start to appear faster than you thought possible!
How To Build Abs With The Proper Workout
Now that you guys have a good understanding of how to structure your diet, let’s move on to exercising. I am sure this is the part most of you have been waiting for!
If you think I am going to tell you to just do a bunch of crunches and sit ups every day, think again! The truth is your abs are targeted no matter what you do. This means you can be doing squats and you will still be working your ab muscles.
Also, when training your abs you shouldn’t just do bodyweight exercises. You should do exercises that add weight. In fact, if you are wondering how to build abs through working out, adding weight to your exercises is probably the best way to build and develop ab muscles because it will make them pop out.
So What Type of Workouts Should I Do?
Well first off, if you aren’t doing a full body strength training program you need to start doing it ASAP. Like I said above, just because you aren’t working out your abs directly doesn’t mean they aren’t getting worked. If you do full body workouts three days per week such as squats, push ups, wall sits, lunges, ect. you will not only be indirectly targeting your abs but you will also be making all your other muscles stronger which will force your body to burn more calories when it is just “resting”.
What About Directly Targeting My Ab Muscles?
Doing a full body workout is a great idea, but hitting your abs directly is also a very good idea. I recommend you hit your abs directly on the days you do cardio (which I will talk about cardio in a bit).
Your ab workouts should consist of both body weight exercises and exercises that allow you to add weight. Doing high repetition movements such as crunches will allow you to put your abs under tension for a long time which will help you lose belly fat. But once you add the weight to it you will challenge your abs which will cause them to “pop out” a bit more. If you have ever seen a really skinny person with extremely low body fat who doesn’t really have that great of abs, it is probably because they are not using any weights.
When I first start my workouts I like to focus on my lower abs first so I will do exercises such as hanging leg raises and leg lifts. If it is an exercise I can add weight to then I first do the weighted version for three sets then I will do two sets without the weights.
Once I finish my lower abs I move onto my upper abs and do thing such as crunches and decline crunches. Again, I start with weighted movements then move onto bodyweight movements.
After I finish the upper abs I target the oblique’s. I actually don’t use any weights when I hit my oblique’s because I like to keep my waist nice and thin. I recommend you do the same if you are wanting to get the best looking abs. However, I do understand for some athletes they need to have strong oblique’s so working them out with weights is a must.
Working out to build abs really isn’t that difficult. Just remember to keep your ab workouts simple. Hit your upper abs, lower abs, and oblique’s all in one workout and make sure you combine high repetitions and weights.
How To Properly Perform Cardio
I seem to get emails every day from people asking me if cardio is important and if so how long they should perform it for. The answer to the first part of that question is yes, if you want to get the best abs possible then cardio is important because it will help you lose maximum body fat.
To answer the question about how long cardio should be performed for is more of a complex answer. If you want to do cardio to build abs, how long you do it isn’t as important as how intense you do it.
I do believe traditional cardio (jogging on a treadmill or keeping a steady pace on the elliptical) works, but I don’t believe it is the most efficient way to burn fat. The good news is the type of cardio that will get you the best results will only take you about 20 minutes to do. The bad news is it is intense! This type of cardio is called High Intensity Interval Training
The Benefits To High Intensity Interval Training
HIIT (which stands for high intensity interval training) will not only burn calories during your workout, but it will also force your body into continuing to burn more calories for hours after your workout.
The main reason people love doing HIIT is because of how quickly it can shed fat off their bodies and they don’t need to just jog around for an hour or so everyday.
You can finish your HIIT workout in 20 minutes or less and you only have to do it three days per week instead of every day.
I am sure this is starting to sound appealing to you huh?
How To Perform HIIT
Now that you know the benefits to it, I am sure you want to know how to perform it. It is actually very simple to understand, not as simple to perform! You can use any of the cardio machines to do HIIT but I do recommend the treadmill. You will start off with a 1 minute fast paced jog, then you will turn up the speed and sprint for 1 minute, then you will decrease the speed and do a 1 minute light paced jog, then increase the speed again and perform a 1 minute sprint. Keep doing this for 20 minutes. This means you will get 10 sets of light paced jogs in and 10 sets of sprints in.
If you can’t go for the full 20 minutes yet, don’t worry. Start off by going just six minutes, then progress to 10 minutes and then work your way up to 20.
How To Put All This Information Together
Now that you know all the things that you need to do to learn how to build abs, you are probably wondering how to put all this information together so you have a step by step plan to get ripped abs!
If you are looking for that step by step plan, I just finished writing a book called Complete Abs Makeover that gives you an exact diet, workout, and cardio program to follow.
This book usually sells for $47.00 but since you guys found your way to my website, I want to give you a discount. If you want to get your discount to this book and get your hands on the awesome step by step plan then Click Here.
Comment On This Post For A Chance To Win A Personalized Diet And Exercise Program From Me
If you comment on this post (which you can do below) you will automatically be entered for a chance to win a personalized diet and exercise program from me. If you are the daily winner I will send you an email asking you a few questions about your current diet and exercise program and what you goals are. Then once I receive your answers I will put together a diet and exercise program that was specifically designed for YOU!
Just comment below for your chance to win.
Hopefully by now you will have a general understanding on how to build abs. If you have any questions don’t be afraid to shoot me an email.
