Real Fitness Experts

The single most scrutinized area when determining someone’s fitness seems to be the abdominals, the abs, the core, the six-pack, the showcase, the powerhouse, the cut gut. That magical section of the body from below the navel to the ribcage.

It’s the first thing everyone wants to have and the hardest to get and maintain. So before we delve into the best way to get those “killer abs,” let’s dispel one monster myth:

“All you have to do is work a few minutes a day, three times a week on our super duper fab ab trimmer/tracker/roller/cruncher/ blaster/master/pilates-esque/yogafied/bonafied mega platinum super-pro training machine for this one time low price and you’ll be ready for the cover of Men’s Health or Women’s Abs Daily.”

You cannot spot reduce. You cannot eat whatever you want, grunt a little bit and significantly change your body. Here’s the big tip: whenever you order the next great ab machine, you will also find a meal plan enclosed that “you have to follow for optimal results” and often they’ll try to sell you some supplements as well to “bump your metabolism” “curb your appetite” and help you achieve your goals.

Yes, every body is different. Some of us put more weight on in different places. However, the fat-burning process is a total body process. Pick the most arduous workout you can think of and you’ll have to practically kill yourself to burn 1,000 calories. However, if you put aside the cheeseburger, that’s 590 calories, resist the super-size of french fries, that’s 610 calories, plus back away from the large cola which runs over 300 calories, and eat a healthy tasty, low-glycemic meal, you just saved over 1,000 calories just by choosing real food over garbage.

Okay, everybody knows it’s important to eat good food, but here’s the stunning reality: we all have killer abs, it’s just hard to see them on many people because there’s so much fat in the way. Work your abs like crazy and they’ll still be hidden behind the fat. Drink lots of water, eat high fiber, low glycemic foods in reasonable portions 5-6 times a day and you can burn that fat away to reveal the abs you already have.

Now I’m not saying that activity isn’t important. Yes, it’s critical to work out to have strong, usable abs that feel and look the way you want. But what you eat, how much you eat and when you eat it, is absolutely necessary unless you’re very young and genetically gifted.

Think for a second about athletes, boxers have an absolutely hellacious training regimen. Yet, many of them go into the ring with spare tires. As a martial artist, I’m constantly amazed at mostly men and some women, proudly wearing their black belts, which they’ve legitimately earned, with their bellies hanging over them. Overweight baseball players, football players, the list goes on. These people are busting their butts, fitness-wise. They’re just eating crap and it shows on their bodies.

Okay, I think you’ve got the idea now. You want abs, change your eating plan. For some more information go to www.yodo.org, click on ‘nutritional breakthroughs,’ and then click on ’safe and smart fat loss.’ Contact me if you want a list of low-glycemic foods and more information about safe supplementation. (This little piece of marketing was in the original article and obviously would not be in the kind of article I would submit for your site.)

Now, let’s get to the exercise part. The abs are pretty amazing in that you can work them every day with great intensity. And for optimal effect, after you’ve done a set routine for a while, you need to change things up, vary speeds, add resistance, even change the angle of the exercises. That’s one of the reasons we have so many different ab programs and machines.

Joseph Pilates developed his abdominal “core” exercises by combining elements he had learned from gymnastics, dance, yoga, boxing, even performing in the circus. I think pilates training is excellent to strengthen the abs. Ironically, over the years, Pilates has been commercialized to the point where a few mat systems have reduced the exercises to a few popular systems where you spend your time on your back on your butt and on your side. That’s fine, but it’s leaving out many important ab exercises that Joseph Pilates did on his feet and utilizing arm strength.

To cultivate, articulate and educate the abs, variety is the spice of life. When I was competing in gymnastics, we would do a few sets of some leg opening, jack-knife type warm-ups and then throughout the workout, whether on rings, sidehorse or whatever piece of equipment, the abs were utilized to perform every move. What was so great about the ab work is that it was always in combination with other muscle groups to effect a trick, whether it was a press to handstand or other more complicated maneuvers. The point is, the abs were worked out while doing something, rather than just working the abs out to work out the abs.

The same thing with dance. Since a dancer has to extend his/her body in as long a line as possible, ab work in dance class works on strengthening the lower back in conjunction with the abs. And in every move, whether trying to balance on one leg in ballet, or twist and torque with manic quickness in jazz, the abs were working with the rest of the body.

Yoga provides other opportunities to work the abs in union with the rest of the body. Boat pose, the classic legs up pose while sitting, taken by pilates and a myriad of lifts, from crow, crane, elephant trunk, scissors, plank, side plank just to name a few. The abs are critical but they’re just a part of the whole.

In martial arts, you have “slow-cooking” ab strengthening in tai chi and chi gong and fast twitch torque and un-torque in kung fu and tae kwon do. The success of every technique depends on strong abs and beyond the classic roll ups, crunches and gymnastic type ab-work, the true cultivation of the abs comes when working on punches, kicks and blocks.

Working the abs is sometimes like going on a diet. There’s always another program, another machine. When it’s new, you work for a while, and then you drop it and get back to your old life. The key is to make working your abs a part of your new life. And the best way to do that is to find exercises that you enjoy doing. Once ab-work becomes a chore, it’s only a matter of time till you drop it.

So, give yourself to best chance to succeed. Learn the proper technique of breathing, find an ab routine that you like, change it when it starts to get easier and look to work your abs in pilates, yoga, dance, martial arts or YODO™ (couldn’t resist) (again this would not be in an article for submission) and maintain a low glycemic eating plan.

The most effective way to breath when working abs, is to inhale through the nose on your preparation, fill the diaphragm, open the ribs, grow the spine, and exhale when you make the move, whether rolling or crunching upward as you pull your low abs, mid abs and finally your ribs and intercostal muscles at the end. Your exhale should power you to the full range of motion of the move and then inhale to prepare for the next.

Lastly, don’t fixate on how your abs look. Start with how they feel and what you are able to do with them. Just because you don’t see the six-pack doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Work the abs, consistently for the rest of your life because they will save your back. And while you’re at it, work the rest of your body too. Changes will come step by step. Be patient, be persistent and find ways to enjoy yourself as much as possible with your chosen activities.

Remember, you are embarking on an ab plan, which grows and evolves as you progress.

Jerry Colker
www.yodo.org
310-270-6248