Complete abdominal routine
Over the past year or so, I have been approached by several people asking about my ab routine. Questions about training come in various forms:
How many crunches do you do a day?
How often do you work the abs?
Do you combine cable crunches with leg raises?
Sometimes questions come with a little flash. For example, “do you eat… do you eat food?” or “so, how big is your waist?” Theatrics aside, and regardless of form, people are essentially asking the same question: how do I get stage-worthy or beach-worthy abs?
In the vast majority of cases, I think those interested look to me to rattle off a list of exercises like an infomercial seen on late-night TV. Perform 1000 cable crunches, 1000 scissor leg lifts, 9 minutes of front and side planks and finish with an hour of shirt-soaking HIIT cardio 3 times a week AND YOU WILL HAVE ROCK HARD ABS TOO.
I honestly think the aforementioned ab routine, crazy as it sounds, would be easier to swallow than the cold reality I hit people with. And here’s the truth: great abs are made in the kitchen, NOT the gym. Boom!
After dropping this bomb on people, you can see how the light in their eyes disappears. Well, not really, but you can clearly see the disappointment. Leading a healthy lifestyle is hard work. It takes dedication, consistency, and a willingness to forego adult treats and beverages. Sounds like fun, right?
The infomercials have done an amazing job of making people think they can get rock hard abs in less than 6 minutes a day. The truth is, you can’t blast your way into an amazing core. It is impossible.
If you’re still reading this article, don’t give up. I’m not all doom and gloom, as the recipe for building great abs is pretty straightforward. And, it all starts with diet. In fact, many people, myself included, believe that 80% of building a great body is diet.
So here are the steps:
Step one: Determine the number of calories you need to “run” your body
Second step: Create a caloric deficit to burn body fat
Step three: Engage in exercises that develop your abs.
Now that we know the process, let’s go through each step in detail.
Step one: Determining your caloric needs
Are you ready for a tougher love? I hope so because it’s about to get tough.
Food is fuel. Period. Food is not a pleasure, nor is it a consolation. You need to start thinking of food as the building blocks of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. And, each of these macronutrients is made up of calories. Fats are 9 calories, while carbs and protein are 4 calories each. Once the depersonalization of foods is complete, you are ready to organize these blocks to build your diet.
Cover model extraordinaire Greg Plitt has a great online video explaining how to determine your calorie needs. The video can be found at http://vimeo.com/17389252. In this video, Greg provides calculations to determine his base calories, which is the sum of the static calories plus the metabolic rate calories. Before starting the video, he may want to grab a pencil, paper, and even a calculator if his math skills are rusty. And, if you’re like me, you’ll have to stop and rewind the video a few times to get the calculations right.
After performing the calculations contained in the video, I determined that I needed to provide 3,140 calories per day. Here is an example of how I distribute those calories over 8 meals:
Only me: 10 egg whites, 2 whole eggs, 2 slices of Ezequiel bread, 2 tablespoons of almond butter, coffee
Meal two: 3/4 cup of oats and 2 tablespoons of protein power
meal three: 9 oz turkey and broccoli or asparagus
food oven: 8 oz chicken and broccoli or asparagus (1 sweet potato on high carb days)
Meal five: 1/2 oatmeal with honey
Meal six: 3 tablespoons of protein
Seventh meal: 9 oz turkey, chicken or fish and broccoli or asparagus
Meal eight: Depending on calories needed: protein shake, eggs, or even a tablespoon of almond butter
Water: 1-2 gallons per day
Depending on various factors (eg allergies, personal preferences, culinary skills, etc.), your diet may look drastically different than mine. However, there are some key principles to keep in mind when developing your own diet, including the following:
1. Be sure to consume at least 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight
2. Stay away from processed foods
3. Drink at least a gallon of water per day
4. Eat every 2-3 hours
Step Two: Create a Caloric Deficit
Once you determine your base calories, you can subtract 500 calories to lose weight. For example, if my daily calorie goal were 3,140, my new goal would be 2,640 calories. By creating a caloric deficit, your weight and body fat will decrease over time.
When I’m trying to lose body fat, I hit my caloric deficit through a combination of reduced calories and increased cardio. For example, I will decrease my food intake by 250 calories while doing cardio to achieve an additional 250 calories of production.
Step Three: Develop Your Abs
There are a plethora of exercises you can do to develop your abs and strengthen your core. The core is “complex” and must be trained directly and indirectly. Indirect exercises would be compound movements, such as squats and deadlifts, in which the core is engaged to stabilize and protect the spine.
When performing direct exercise, you should focus on all three parts of your abs: upper, lower, and sides. Some of my favorite exercises to work the abs are:
Cable crunches (above)
scissor leg raises (below)
Side planks (sides)
If you follow the steps above… YOU TOO WILL HAVE ROCK HARD ABS.