How To Get Massively Ripped Six Pack Abs
Are you tired of hearing about shortcuts to six pack abs? Then guys, I’m with you. Pull up a chair. I’ve got you covered. I’m going to take you step by step to how to get a six pack regardless to what body fat level you’re at right now. So you’re looking for a step by step way to get to a six pack and you haven’t quite found that truthful information out there that’s going to get you there. So what I wanted to do here is put together an article where we specifically address how to get to a six pack depending upon the body fat level that you’re at right now.
What to do at 30-40% body fat.
We know that there is lots of different variations of body fat levels that we can have and the path to a six pack is going to greatly different depending upon where you’re at right now. So what I’m going to do is cover all the different ranges of body fat and tell you specifically what your path should be, what you should focus on and what you should ignore. So you can find that helpful post that you’ve been looking for all along. So we’re going to kick it off right away with our first group, our 30-40% body fat level. First up, 30-40% body fat and note guys I’m saying body fat and not body weight. If you can identify with this, your attack plan is as follows. You want to focus 90% of your efforts on changing your nutrition habits. You want to make sure you’re making small changes. Small changes made over the course of time, right it didn’t take you a day to get to this point guys. So it’s not going to take you a day to get out of it. So you want to make small changes. And try to simplify your meal plan choices. Take 5 breakfasts that you actually enjoy eating and then rotate through those. That’s plenty of breakfast options to last you for many, many, many weeks. Without becoming bored or stale. Secondly, look into supplementation. Do you need supplements at this point. My answer is NO. You’re focusing on the manucia when you should be focusing on again, changing your overall dietary habits. At this point supplements are kind of a waste. Why you ask? What winds up happening is these guys think that, Well I’m taking these supplements so I can be more lax on my diet here and that’s not the case. First you need to get your nutrition in order. You can worry about the supplementation later. Thirdly, you need to begin conditioning. Conditioning is important guys, you got to get your body moving. You have to establish a caloric deficit. One of the best ways to do that is just through conditioning. I feel thatin early introduction to high intensity interval training, without the high intensity is the best way to go. So if your interval is even a two mile per hour slow walk with a four and a half mile per hour slow jog, if that’s what you can handle at the moment, that’s what you can handle. You can work yourself up. But I do think that incorporating intervals into your conditioning is key. Finally, work on smart strength training. Yes it’s a good idea to be in the gym, but you guys know, you’ve seen this guy before in the gym, he’s the one that winds up hurting himself. He’s the one that uses terrible form on push downs, you know that kind of thing. He is the one doing crunches and pulling on his head. He’s the guy that’s doing all the things he thinks he’s supposed to be, but unfortunately at this weight and at this level of conditioning, he winds up hurting himself and not coming back to the gym at all. If you are a former athlete who has had experience training and you’ve let yourself go, you might find that you can bounce back quicker to the more standard training styles. If not then start with smart training. Overall guys you just want to get the basics, you want to get yourself going. You will work yourself down from this group all the way down to where we’re going to get to in this topic. The focus has to be in the right place and that’s your game plan for right now.
Great…you are down to 20-30% body fat!
Now right down to the next range. 20-30%. What is the focus? Guys the common theme, the majority of it should be on nutrition. At this point, supplementation though, can become a little bit of a factor. As you start to become more dialed in on your nutrition, you will find that supplementation allows you to become a lot more consistent and reliable in terms of the choices that you’re making. You know what you’re getting. If you’re choosing the right supplements guys, you’re getting nutrients and you’re controlling your portions on those nutrients. So you’re able to basically get more reliable nutrition as an option but should not be your sole source of nutrition. You still want to be ingraining the right nutrition habits here. They are going to carry you through all the way down to that under 10 level. As far as your ab repertoire, we didn’t really even talk about ab exercises in that first group as I didn’t think it was all that necessary. You have got too much work to uncover the abs to be worrying about them at that point. In this case with this group we want to start increasing the ab repertoire. We want to start doing the basic ab exercises. We want to start doing planks and crunches. Crunches work guys, they flex the spine, it’s one of the key roles of the spine. We don’t want to rely only on crunches. We want to start doing some standing rotational work with light tubing or with cables. Just to get your abs working properly. You don’t need to be doing all these complicated variations of ab exercises. A lot of guys and you will find that when doing certain reverse crunching movements, in this lower body fat range, you get lower back pain. Why is that? It’s because your abs are still too deconditioned and not strong enough to handle the loads of your lower body in those reverse crunching movements or hanging movements. So you’ve got to pick and choose and most of all, I think find the benefit in focusing on core engagement on all of your big lifts. When you’re doing your bend rows and your squats, engage your core. Be aware of it and try to hold it and activate it throughout the rep so that you have that stability carrying through. That’s going to go a long way towards helping you build that foundation for your six pack as you continue to strip away this body fat. And in terms of your conditioning, you still want to be improving your intervals at this point. We like interval training here. So you want to start to improve those intervals. If you were doing two mile and four mile, you’re going to be doing four and six miles an hour or seven miles an hour. Try to gradually improve your conditioning as you can, so you can continue to use that as a source of burning fat, burning calories to establish that caloric deficit. But this here guys, this is your game plan for getting out of this zone and down into the next one.
No Mans Land…15-20%.
Alright guys moving on to the next group, 15-20% body fat. What I call No Mans Land. Why? It’s because it’s where most guys get stuck on their way to their six pack abs. This is a hard realm to get out of because it requires the most consistency. You’ve already done a good job. If you’re in this range guys, you’ve put yourself in a range that’s better than average. It is going to take a consistent dedicated effort to get yourself out of here. I have got to give you some encouragement as it is one of the easiest places to get out of if you do it right. Here is what you have to do. In order to get out of No Man’s Land you have to be consistent, like I said, that requires variation in your training. Don’t keep doing the same workout over and over again. Your mind will get stale. Your muscles will get used to it. You’re going to wind up being here because as I say, If you keep doing what you’ve been doing you’re going to keep getting what you’re getting. What you want to do is vary your program. You want to have consistent progression here. Here is where you are aiming for an additional rep. Here’s where you’re aiming for a little bit more on your conditioning, a little bit more effort. All these things are going to add up. As you start to push, you’re going to see changes. And as you see changes, they should inspire you mentally to be able to push further. Once you get through here the rest is easy guys. We put abs in every single exercise now. You want to push yourself as hard as you can. You don’t want to annihilate and start overtraining. Supplementation is another thing that will assist in your efforts of your good nutrition. It’s going to make it easier. It’s going to make it be more consistent. So everything comes down to consistency. Supplementation gives you that edge in this point, for our recovery from our hard workout. If you are leaving it all out there, the supplementation, the right kind of supplementation will help you to recover from those hard workouts. So you can continue to repeat it and be consistent. So your goal here it to remain consistent. Do everything you can. Ab exercise, again, the repertoire increases again. You should have a little less back pain if you were the guy that did have back pain in the 20% range because your abs should be stronger. You should be able to tolerate more of an increased repertoire. Especially with some of the curling from the lower body up. Like a hanging bar, the more difficult ab exercises are well within your range to do.
The 10% Range.
Next up is the 10% body fat range. Right here you’ve got visible abs at this point but you think you can do a little bit more. You think there’s still some room for improvement. And that’s a good thing because you’re right. If you’re goals are to get a really ripped six pack, then you’re going to have to get lower than 10% body fat. Here is where we sort of have some new techniques. At this point, when we talk about nutrition. When it comes to nutrition I am a firm believer in cheat meals not cheat days. Even your meals, you want to try to keep them to a minimum. If you’re eating 5 to 6 times a day, you’re looking at 35-40 meals a week. Try to slip up on only a couple of them if you really are dedicated to wanting to get a ripped six pack, you’re going to have to make some of those modifications. Yeah, I’m not saying eat uncomfortably or starve yourself. It does not mean starvation, it just means, not succombing to these really bad cheat meals. Lets take our ab workout to a new level. Now we want to start following specific sequencing. Lower abs, bottom up rotation, top down, mid range, top down rotation, static contraction of the abs, anti rotation, and rotation. Those things start to matter and if you want to start following that. Suffice it to say that at this point guys, the sophistication level of your training of your abs specifically, increases. You want to start pushing yourself again, like I said, that one extra rep, that extra intensity, that better effort on your conditioning workouts. All of it’s going to add up to get you through this wall here at 10% and really get you down, lean, ripped and athletic.
Wrapping Up
Alright let’s wrap it all up guys right here. The absolute shredded 5%-7% body fat. This is where guys, you are going to become your own worst critic. You know exactly what you have to work on. These are the guys that are going to say, I’ve really want to get my obliques a little bit more or I have got to work on those lower abs. This is where you become sort of a scientist of your own body. Your supplementation, again, fine tuning guys. You should be so consistent with your supplementation by now. You should be so consistent with your nutrition at this point. Everything should be dialed in, it’s just a matter of tweaking to make sure that you look the way you want to look. If you are getting older, it gets tougher to keep fit. Be sure to check out my article on the Expiration Date Theory for more information on the importance of fitness as you age. I hope you guys found this incredibly topic helpful.