Lose inches off your waist with this device!

If you see a promise like this, save yourself some time,  stop reading (not including this post of course) and dont buy any quick fix product.  In this post I will explain the misconceptions about how to get a six pack and how to achieve this “holy grail” of fitness.

There are countless ads and infomercial blatantly lying to their customers promising amazing results with one machine, exercise or diet program in a matter of weeks.  Unless your 19 years old with a metabolism of a hummingbird and great genetics, the only way to get a six pack is hard work and dedication.

The number one misconception I come across time and time again is from people who want to lose weight around the middle.  They ask me what ab exercises they need to do to lose weight around the middle.  Let’s get this out of the way right now…you CANT get a flat stomach from doing sit ups!  What their goal is has nothing to do with sit ups or abdominal exercises.  They want to lose weight.  Weight loss comes from a good diet and burning calories.  And until you get your body fat under around 12 percent for guys and 19 percent for girls you will not begin to see that six pack.  Doing sit ups helps build the muscles you see when your body fat is low enough for them to emerge.  Sit ups and other core exercises do not burn enough calories to burn body fat.  So here are the steps to getting that six pack!

In order of importance:

1.  Eat Right.  If you are eating what you think is a healthy diet and your weight is not moving that diet is not working for you.  When eating on your own is not getting results, get on a diet program and keep a food diary.  Only then will you be aware of exactly how much and what you are eating and how to tweek your diet to make positive steps towards your goal.  There are a million different diet books out there and the BEST one is the program you can stick with.  If the diet cuts out too many of your favorite foods or is too hard to follow, the diet will not work.  Find one and stick to it!  No cheating!  You can be good all week and taking weekends off will ruin all your hard work.  Stop spinning your wheels, make sure your weight is moving and overall –  be consistent.

2. Burn Calories through exercise.  Any good diet program will have better results when you exercise along with it.  If your not sure what exercises to do get a personal trainer to show you the most efficient exercises to achieve your results.  The first kind of exercise people think of as far as weight loss is cardio training.  Cardio training will be an absolute neccessity to achieving your six pack but only based around a solid strength training program.  The classic example is the marathoner/sprinter example.  Marathoners have very low body fat for sure, but very thin and weak looking.  Compare them to a sprinter who is absolutely shredded and strong looking.

Doing only long distance cardio is catabolic (breaks down muscle).  After your glycogen reserves are burned up, then fat is burned for energy and after about an hour MUSCLE is used for energy.  This is not the desired effect.  You want to burn the fat, keep the muscle and rock out with your bad self!  Your week should look like this:

At least 3 times a week of full body movement, challenging weight strength training.  About 4 – 7 days of cardio training 20 to 60 minutes each session.  Mostly anabolic (muscle building) sprinting or metabolic conditioning workouts with weights and some long distance cardio if you looooove doing it.  Just plain walking is also very acceptable because you burn calories without tapping into the muscles for energy.

3.  Abdominal exercises.  Ironically the least important step for achieving your six pack.  You can have the most amazing six pack known to man but if you can’t see it under 10 pounds of fat, what good is it.  But when you do finally get to the desired body fat it would be nice to see that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  First…crunches suck, you dont have to do them.  They do not activate your abs very much and they are awful for spine.  Fun fact – chin ups and squats activate your abs much more than crunches.  When it comes to ab exercises I dont mess around.  I just stick to the most hard core exercises such as the ab wheel, body saws, knee raises, and knees to elbows to name a few.  How do you know if a exercise is hard core?  When you are doing them ask your self “am I awesome!?”, if the answer is “yes” then it is hard core!

If you follow these steps you should be on your way to washboard abs.  Just remember to keep your eye on the prize and be consistant!

Muscle up tutorial

The muscle up is a great exercise that combines an explosive pull up with a dip.  It can be done on a pull up bar but more commonly on Olympic rings.  Check out my tutorial here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/ProgPT?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/eoIm305AwWA

Hello world!

Progressive Personal Training is here to help you find the perfect diet with foods you like, give you amazing workout in our studio or in your home, and motivate you to see your goals through!