Everyone wants abs. You’ve read about them, seen countless pictures of them, and think you know everything there is to know about how to get ripped and sculpting that perfect body.
Ready to do 500 sit-ups a night? No? Good, because that wasn’t going to do the trick anyways. “Abs are made in the kitchen” – Live by this quote, keep reading and you’ll understand the ‘Truth About Abs‘.
Yep, this is me roughly 2 years ago. Time frame is a little over 3 months between pictures, while only dropping NINE pounds. Yes, very few pounds makes a huge difference if you follow a strict diet and good workout routine to ensure that majority of weight lost is fat and not muscle. Who the hell doesn’t want to look like that after putting in work for THREE months? How is it done, you ask? Simple low calorie/high protein diet with hypertrophy training routine. Nothing fancy, just consistency with old-school methods that
you can order and have been proven to work.
The Truth About Abs
I ordered an e-book on diet and working out, and it turned out to completely change everything I knew about, or thought I knew about, sculpting your body. On this site, I’ll share a few things with you that you can find in the book, but if you want the complete package and experience, you’ll have to buy it. For $40, you cannot go wrong. You can keep spending $60 on “fat burners” or “cleansing diets” or bogus workout instructional videos, but if you want the real deal, this is where to get it.
I’ll share with you some tidbits that I took from the book and put into my owns words in later articles that I put on this site, I even plan on putting a short ab workout that I’ve took from the book and kind of mind into my own routine. The routine will get you on the right path, but there is a lot of information you need to take in from the “Truth About Abs” if you want to make a transformation like the I did above.
How to get Ripped
Here is a little bit that I got from the book, and it is completely true: It doesn’t matter what you do in the gym, if you have layers of fat covering your abdominal muscles then nothing is going to show. Having abs show is a matter of LOW BODYFAT. Lower body fat = tighter skin = more definition = how to get cut.
Everyone has abs. Every human you see walking around has a full set of abdominals, regardless whether they workout or not. They just have TOO MUCH FAT covering their abs for anyone to see. Again… it doesn’t matter what you do in the gym if you don’t get on a strict diet to drop the weight and body fat covering those abs. NO WORKOUT OR TYPE OF CARDIO WILL GET YOU AROUND THIS, NO MATTER WHAT THEY CLAIM ON THE INTERNET OR TV ON HOW TO GET ABS. Doing cardio isn’t how to get cut.
Getting lean by dieting
So what do you do? Start counting calories. In the book you’ll find the most efficient way to find your “golden number”, AKA your calorie maintenance number, that causes you to lose weight at a pace of at least a pound a week if you adjust your calories to go below it. How long does it take to get a cut six pack is answered simply by how many calories you reduce per day compared to your golden number, but if you’re at too much of a deficit each day then you will be at a high risk of losing muscle. Got to find that balance to learn how to get sculpted abs and the book will explain how.
I’ll provide some general tips and information over the coming weeks/months and include a short ab routine as promised, but if you don’t check out the Truth About Abs, then you are more likely just going to be spinning your wheels and not making much progress. Click below to watch a short video over the book, with two different versions for male and females looking to get abs.
Here is a quick routine for abs that I put together from “Truth About Abs”. A lot of people tend to think doing countless sit-ups will solve their sloppy midsection. Two things:
1) Diet is #1 when losing body fat. No diet, then no results. 95% of people in the gym look pretty much the same, year in and year out, solely because they don’t understand this nor how to get ripped abs.
2) Treat your abs as any other muscle, work them out the same and use weights in progressing them. Hundreds of sit-ups a night isn’t doing anything. Hit the upper and lower abs with intensity and progress with additional weight when you’re able to.
In an earlier post on this site, you can find my 3 month progress when I first started if you want to see what kind of results to expect. I’ll discuss a few exercises that I’ve considered staples to help with defining and building your abs along with excellent diet and overall routine from the “Truth About Abs” e-book.
Exercises for Ripped Abs
Weighted Decline Sit-ups –
Get on a decline bench without the bar and grab a weight, recommended to start with a 2.5 or 5 lb weight, or possibly nothing. What ever it takes to get a good burn, then you can slowly work your way up through the weights.
Try 4 sets of 10-12 reps to start. Place the weight DIRECTLY behind your head with both hands, not in front of your chest or stomach. Slowly concentrate on flexing the ab muscles on the way down on the exercises, then explode on the way up. Slow down, fast up — this is how to get abs. Repeat for previously mentioned 4 sets of 10-12 with 1-2 minutes rest in between.
Weighted Straight Leg Raises –
Most gyms have a machine dedicated for this, if you don’t know what it looks like then ask a trainer or whoever is working the gym about a machine that you can do leg raises on. These are great lower ab exercises.
Recommend 3 sets of 10 if doing this after weighted decline sit-ups. Rest on your arms with legs hanging, then while keeping your legs slightly unlocked (doesn’t have to be completely locked to be straight, just enough bend to take the lock out of the knees) swing legs up in a swooping motion til your legs are slightly above parallel with the ground, then back down slowly. You may fill this in your quads if your legs are neglected in your workout. Explode the legs on the way up, slow and concentrated motion on the way down while focusing on using the abs. Explode through the positive, and slow down through the negative, textbook way on getting ripped abs through exercises.
Weighted Planks
– The above two exercises are enough to develop your core, but this is icing on the cake as it also develops your transverse abdominis muscle, which helps to keep your core “tucked in” and give your stomach a flatter appearance while still showing great ab definition. Perfect for showing off that body after you’ve put in work to achieve your beach body.
3 Sets of 45 seconds with a weight placed on your back (easier done with a partner so he/she can place the weight on top of you). If you are unsure how to preform this exercise, Google is your friend. Plenty of sites with ‘how-to’ videos on this exercise. Only difference is a weight is placed on your back for added resistance instead of increasing time. If this becomes easy at the end of your ab workout after doing the above two exercises, then increase weight or time to a full minute, but not pasted that. Keep the time to a minute max and just increase weight from there.
In my opinion, these are considered the best ab exercises for abs as well as exercises for lower abs, pair these with the rest of the workout and diet that you find in “Truth About Abs” and you’ll be on your way to a beach body easily within months. Order the book today by clicking below and watching a short presentation over what exactly your getting.
Everyone loves to lose that last bit of body fat during the beginning of the year… right when Spring is starting up and Summer is right behind the corner. How to get ripped fast is a popular question this time of year. Gym suddenly fills up to 2-3 times it’s usual crowd, and everyone is getting their daily workout in hoping to get a beach body that they can only dream of.
Then 2 weeks later it thins out and it’s back to the usual dedicated ones that are there all year round. Happens every year. Everyone gets in a rush to lose body fat fast, but don’t want to stick around to do the work it takes to getting a ripped six pack.
How To Lose Body Fat
Losing body fat isn’t something that can be accomplished in weeks, sometimes not even months. People expect too much while not even putting in the required effort to lose body fat. Yet everyone thinks after a few weeks of no results that they might as well hang it up and go back to sitting on the couch and killing some ice cream. Basically, your typical human being.
The ‘losing body fat’ process can take months on a great diet and workout, but it will eventually lead you to a great six pack of abs. Educate yourself on a low calorie and high protein diet while working out 3-5 times a week with a half-decent program. You don’t have to starve yourself, you don’t have to run 15 miles a day, you don’t need surgery, and your genetics aren’t limiting you from achieving your goals. Get in the gym, stick with something, and turn it into a lifestyle instead of a hobby. Workout because it’s stimulating, make it fun. Do it because it is part of your day and skipping a workout all of sudden makes your day feel empty. This is the point when 6 months fly by and your are constantly improving your beach body and when looking back at pictures you can barely believe your eyes.
Basically: Get a diet, a program, and stop looking for results overnight. Anyone can achieve it if you want it bad enough.
The problem with many people starting off or looking to step foot to get in a gym is motivation. People lack the mental toughness that it takes to do the same thing over on a consistent basis to achieve results, especially to when it comes to learning how to get ripped abs. Whether it be sticking to a certain calorie amount everyday or hitting your workouts everyday of the week that your routine has planned, any little slip up can cause you to fall to the “lazy” side and make you think getting abs is to hard to achieve.
Top-notch motivation doesn’t let that happen, motivation to workout is what everyone lacks outside the gym. Keep the motivation to diet or motivation to go to the gym!
Motivation to Workout is Key
Everyone has a place that they get their motivation from, either within themselves or from another person. It doesn’t matter where you get it, just that you actually have it if you want to learn how to get cut. That’s the most important thing to have when your goal is figuring out how to get abs fast. You go to the gym for a few weeks and start looking in the mirror for results, you’ll just wind up like the majority of people… looking for reasons to give in. Specifically because a few weeks isn’t even enough time for your body to begin changing, much less make a physical change in your appearance. It’s the ones that turn working out into a lifestyle instead of a hobby. Yeah, they’d like to see results as quick as possible… but they aren’t going to give in just because they don’t have a six pack in a month or their strength isn’t increasing as much as they like. They stick with it because they know it isn’t easy and they are willing to put in the work for it. Motivation is key when learning the fastest way to get a six pack, no amount of knowledge or advice can replace that.
If you’re thinking about quitting the gym, don’t. Stick around a little longer and you might be surprised at what you can achieve, keep the motivation to workout alive if you want to learn how to get ripped.