Whether you are a competitive bodybuilder, athlete or just a weekend warrior we all pursue the ‘six pack’. The question is why? What is it about the ‘six pack’ that we admire so much? Is it because it looks good? Shows athleticism? Whatever the reason just through a little bit of hard work you can get the look your after.
Different Approaches
There are two schools for thought when you are looking to achieve the ‘six pack’. One is to eat clean. This involves macronutrient timing such as carbohydrate cycling. So the idea here would be to time your carbohydrates around your training. For example in your weekly training you may have high carbohydrate and low carbohydrate days, this depends on what phase of training you are currently in. You would plan your high carbohydrate days around your high intensity or high volume training days, so on these days you would eat 5-6 meals with carbohydrates; in addition you would limit your fat intake on these days. Therefore on your low days you may just consume 1-2 meals with carbohydrates in and the rest would be fat and protein. Obviously there are many variables when it comes to manipulating diet and these should be fine tuned depending on the individual.
The other school of thought is to train your abdominals. The Abdominals are very strong muscles and therefore should be trained with a moderate weight, in addition to a variety of exercises. This may include weighted crunches on a swiss ball, side bends, leg raises, farmers walks, overhead carriers, plank variations to name a few. The bigger the abdominal muscle the more it will show when body fat is low. Note. Training the abdominals should be done in conjunction with a full body strength routine
The Sixpack Solution
So to achieve a ‘six pack’, you have to do a combination of the above. What is the point of dieting down to a low body fat when you have no abdominals on show? Consequently, why train your abdominals in every session when your body fat is too high and you can’t see them anyway!
Building a six pack is not rocket science and if you really want to have them on show you have to put the work in through strength training and eating clean. The ‘six pack’ is made in both the kitchen and in the gym.
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