The Myths About Abs

The Myths About Abs

Everyone wants to know the secret to abs. I see tons of friends and people in the gym doing thousands of crunches and crash diets in order to have a toned and aesthetic midsection. What exactly works? In this blog post I am going to cover a couple of myths that people have about having abs. 

Myth #1: Doing lots of crunches will be develop a defined midsection.

Doing 25000 crunches helps you lose 5lbs, effective?

Truth and what you should do: 

Crunches helps in developing your rectus abdonminis but they won't "spot reduce" fat in your midsection. What is hiding your abs from showing is that your abs are actually shy and hiding behind your abdominal fat so what you have to do strip off the layer of fat!! 

Myth #2: There is "one" killer ab exercise

Truth and what you should do:

There is no killer ab exericses at all. Planks, Leg Raises, Cable Crunches, Dragon flags are all great exercises. BUT. Having abs is a complete bodyfat game. For most people to see their abs, they will probably have to get to sub 10% bodyfat, those shredded individuals, even lower.

What you can do is to watch your diet and be in a caloric deficit to lose the fat all around your body. You can't out exercise a bad diet! Time to try 5 sets of STOP EATING.

Myth #3: Doing plenty of cardio helps in achieving a toned midsection

Truth and what you should do:

It's true that doing cardio burns calories and aid in creating the caloric deficit required for fat loss. However there are better ways to do it. Tons of cardio will eventually lead to fat loss together with muscle loss. This usually leads to the skinny fat situation. The amount of muscle you have on your body ultimate affects your body's metabolism (your ability to burn calories without doing anything).

What I recommend would be to start doing weight training, focusing on compound exercises. Compound exercises are extremely effective for a few reasons. 

1, They work mutiple muscles at the same time, bang for your buck and time efficient

2. They engage your core

3. Greater release of hormones

With more muscle, you body tends to burn more calories which enables you to be able to eat more and still lose fat, How awesome is that :D 

Myth #4: You can train and make your 4pack into a 6pack, a 6pack into 8packs.

Truth and what you should do:

The cold hard truth, you can't change how your abs look!!! Some people will be blessed with symmetrical 8 packs, also there will be people with crooked abs. Also, you can't train to make your 6 pack to be a 8 pack. It's impossible. Abs are purely genetic.

Me and my 4 crooked abs. But beats having nothing :p !

However, getting lean and toned midsection displays an individuals confidence, and having abs will still be better than none. So forget about the shape of your abs and start working on it! ABsolutely right!