Get Great Abs This Summer

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It’s not too late to start building a great beach body. Learn how to get great six pack abs and a flat stomach with these diet and exercise tips.

A “six pack” is viewed by many as the ultimate symbol of fitness, and with good reason. It takes hard work and dedication to get those gorgeous six pack abs that celebrities love to show off. Despite what those advertisements for ab toners would like people to believe, a huge percentage of the work towards getting great abs is done in the kitchen. All the crunches, planks, sit ups, and other ab exercises in the world won’t work if there’s a layer of body fat covering those lovingly developed muscles.

For a man’s abs to show, he will likely need to get down to below 8% body fat. A woman’s abs will show at around 14%. Those percentages aren’t exact – some people tend to store more fat around their midsection than others, but they are a good guideline to work from. The average healthy woman’s body fat is somewhere around 22% to 24%. It takes a very lean and athletic body for the abdominal muscles to show through.

Loose Body Fat to Get Great Abs

For someone who is close to their ideal weight, cutting body fat can be a slow and difficult process. Many people make the mistake of starving themselves. All that does is make them smaller, but not leaner. A starved body tends to hold on to fat, and consume muscle instead, so you’ll end up hungry, and with an even worse body composition.

To lose body fat, a person should eat fewer calories than they need to maintain their existing weight, but not so few that their body thinks that it is being starved.

The amount of calories a person needs per day depends on their basal metabolic rate. The deficit in calories can be achieved by either eating fewer calories than required, or eating at maintenance, and then using exercise to burn some extra calories. Aim for a deficit of about 200 calories a day. It may seem like progress will be slow that way, but the results will be sustainable, and should result in fat loss, rather than muscle loss.

A healthy diet should include foods that are rich in protein and healthy fats. Some carbohydrates are useful to give you energy, but carbs should not be the primary source of calories.

Exercises to Build a Six Pack

For burning calories, cardio is good, but the treadmill, elliptical, and rowing machine should not be the only forms of exercise.

Weight training is often overlooked or dismissed by those who are exercising to improve how they look, but a well planned weight training regime is an important part of building a brilliant beach body.

Many people, especially women, are worried that weight training will make them turn into the Incredible Hulk. It won’t. Those huge bodybuilders that appear on TV spend years training with incredibly heavy weights, taking supplements, and eating carefully tailored high protein diets to get to the size they are.

Doing some good compound lifts a couple of times a week leads to an increase in overall muscle mass, which can contribute to a leaner, more toned appearance – and build up those abdominal muscles. The extra muscle that you gain from those lifts will also help you with your body fat loss goals.

Consistency: The Key to a Great Body

Getting great abs takes a lot of work, but it can be done. The key is to be consistent – don’t skip too many workouts, and try to stick to a sensible diet. One missed workout, or an evening of pizza and cake won’t completely ruin an otherwise good exercise plan, but giving up completely because of an occasional slip will spell the end to progress.