December 22, 2009
You’re getting discouraged, and it’s hardly surprising, because you have worked on those six pack abdominals for so long, and they are still not showing. How many more crunches do i have to do to get them developed enough to show as a perfect set of six pack abs?
First of all, you are not the only one in this state, there are many more people in this position, so don’t give up yet, and with a few changes, your abs and six pack will be defined very soon. Despite our best intentions, which can be seen by the number of crunches we do every day, not every one can get their abdominals to show. You know that your abs are way stronger, nevertheless they still don’t show, so what exactly is happening? Well, what you need to do first is to make absolutely sure that it is your abs that you are targeting in your crunches, an also check that you are not rushing them. For many workout enthusiasts, it is the number they can do in a fixed time that is important, but that lowers the level of the exercise. To benefit more, each muscle contraction should be held for a few seconds, and if you are trying to beat the latest record of number of the crunches in two minutes, then you cannot do this, and the crunches will not be as successful for you. So slow down, and improve the quality of your exercises, and any other workouts you do that target the abdominal muscles.
The next thing you need to do is to find out what your body fat ratio is - if you are a gym member, you can get weighed there and the scales will be able to tell you your body fat ratio if your bathroom scales aren’t able to. This number should be around 12, but if yours is a lot higher than this, then that confirms why your 6 pack abs are not showing. The body fat ratio is a guide to tell you how much body fat you have, and the higher the number, the more layers of fat your body has. The more fat you have, the more layers of fat are covering your abdominal muscles, so if you have been doing your exercises correctly, your abs will be well developed but just covered by too much fat.
Now then, if too much is the cause of your abs to not be defined as great six pack abdominals what can you do? You obviously need to lose some of those layers of fat, and abs exercises alone will not achieve this for you. You need to do some cardio exercises, to lose some weight. Now this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to workout even longer in the gym each day. You can probably spend less time on your abs crunches, with more time doing cardio. Combine this with eating a little less, you will be able to to losing some body fat. Make sure your diet is healthy for you, and not over doing the alcohol. The occasional drink is fine, but drinking alcohol on a regular basis is just giving your body with too many calories from an unnecessary source.
So, to summarize, do your exercises appropriately, lose some body fat and your 6 pack abs will be defined and showing like those on others you’ve been jealously watching.
