100 Sit Ups A Day to Get A Six Pack?

There are many people who dream about having a six pack, whether it be to feel great about yourself when you look in the mirror or just to look great at the swimming pool or beach. If you are one of these people then keep reading this article.

There are a lot of myths out there when it comes to how we actually get a six pack stomach, one of the biggest being that if you do hundreds of sit ups every day you will soon have a six pack stomach. Unfortunately I have to tell you that this is completely false, you can do as many sit ups or crunches as you like but this alone will not give you a six pack.

The six pack effect is actually caused by the natural ridges in your abdominal muscles, in essence everyone has a six pack, whether you can see it or not is a different matter. The reason for this is that most people have a layer of fat on their stomach that hides the muscles.

Performing stomach exercises such as sit ups, crunches or any other variation will harden up these muscles and even build them slightly, but it WILL NOT get rid of the layer of fat which is covering them. This is how we really get a six pack, we have to get rid of the layer of fat which is hiding them. That brings us to another myth which I would like to squash now, their are no magic exercises that will specifically target your belly fat. In fact spot reduction of fat anywhere on the body is impossible. What we actually need to do is lower our total body fat level, and when we get low enough we will be able to see our six pack. This level differs from person to person but generally need to be under 12% body fat for a man. As I said everyone is different and each person may lose fat from particular areas faster than others, some of us have the tendency to lose the fat on our bellys last of all, which can mean that we need to go slightly lower in body fat percentage than others.

Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about this it is just in our genetics. So how do we go about losing this fat to reveal our lovely six packs? Well there is a few simple steps you need to start using that fat. Firstly you need to follow a healthy eating plan. Start cutting out the junk foods and processed meals which contain saturated fats, trans fats and refined sugars. All of these things will seriously affect you getting to that six pack stage. Replaced these foods with natural fruits vegetables and lean meats such as poultry, this will naturally bring down your calories, decrease the bad fats and sugars in your diets and increase the complete proteins.

The next thing you need to do is get exercising! many people try to avoid exercise and put all of their efforts into starving themselves! This is the worst thing you can do, if you drop your calories too low and even start skipping meals, your body will think that it is being literally starved! Being such a clever piece of machinery, it will then respond by altering the way it works to prolong its own survival. The Starvation response, as it is known, will cause a number of actions in your body. These include slowing down your metabolism to make any energy supplies it has last longer and holding onto body fat as much as possible, this is because it see fat as a great survival tool, especially for warmth. Your will also start to enter a anti catabolic state, this means that it will breakdown your muscles to use as energy, so if you continue to lose weight you will only be losing muscle not fat. This is why some people end up looking really unhealthy even a bit rake like when they lose weight.I've drifted off the exercise thing there but I thought that it was important for you to know about the starvation response.

Back to the exercising, the best way to lose that excess fat is by burning it off using cardio exercise, by this I mean an exercise that gets your heart and lungs working. Great cardio exercises include running, rowing and cycling, these are all so good because they can be performed continuously for long set periods of time. To start you should aim to do twenty to thirty minutes of cardio at least three times a week, and when you know what results you are getting from this you can increase up to forty five minutes per session, up to six days a week. I say six days because it is good to have at least one day for your body to rest.

Even better than just doing cardio is to combine cardio with a resistance training program. Performing weights two or thee times a week, will tone your muscles and even build them up. This will prevent your body from going into a anti catabolic state, as the muscles are being used, and also increase the amount of calories your body naturally burns off. This is because muscle actually burns calories by just being there and maintaining themselves! If you add resistance training you should be carefull not to go too over the top with the cardio as this may cause you to over train. Weight training can be highly demanding on your body, so it is important that your body get's enough rest to recover.

You should also be training your abdominal muscles on weight training days, although I said that you already have a natural six pack, you do need to work these muscles to firm them up and even build them slightly. This way they will look great when you remove that layer of fat and reveal them! I should also mention that the way your abs look, i.e. the symmetry and size of each 'pack', is in your genetics. Not everyone will have a perfect six pack, but they will still look great anyway!

That is it I have squashed I few myths and given you a few easy steps that you can apply today, and be well on your way to having a great six pack stomach!

 

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