Yeah, Yeah.  I know you’re always busy. There’s never enough time to go to the gym.  You sit all day surfing the web, working on projects and next thing you know…  You don’t even have time to stand up away from your computer.  You have a dream, a model’s body or maybe you just want a flatter, tighter stomach.  The dream of the six pack.  You really want to have that, don’t you?

Many ab exercises can be done, even at home.  Here are a few exercises that can be done:

• Crunches (old school)

Almost all people know how to do this.  This exercise targets the upper abdomen.  It’s one of the basic but effective exercises. To perform crunches, you need to lie on a flat surface with your hands in your chest or behind you head.  Contract your abs, then hold for 2 seconds, then return to your lying position.  Proper crunches are in a continuous and controlled fashion.  Concentrate on your abdominal muscles to pull your upper body up.  Avoid using the neck or shoulders to push yourself up.  This incorrect practice will cause stress and strains.

• Side Crunches

They are basically the same as regular  crunches, except that the main focus is on the oblique muscles which are also called love handles.  It also uses the same technique, only that you are crunching to either side of our abs.  This would burn the sides of your abs.

• Lying Leg Lifts

This exercise targets the lower abs.  with this kind of exercise, you are on the same position as with the crunches,  you lie flat on your back and lift your legs six to twelve inches of the ground.  This would exercise the muscles in the lower part of the abdomen.  When performing leg lifts, place your hand under your buttock.  It adds leverage and helps you get your feet elevated.

If you want to add more weight into the exercise, attach padded weights into your ankles.  These weights can be purchased at the local sports store.  If you do not want to buy weights, you can simply fill up old tube socks with enough clean, unused cat litter to make one or two pound weight.

• V- Crunches

It’s almost like lying leg lifts except your chest is at a 45 degree angle starting out.  Sit at the edge of a bench and reach back just enough to support yourself from completely lying on the bench.  Once you’ve stabilized, bring your knees toward your chest.  You would be creating a V motion.  The base of the V would be your abs.

• Cat stretch

It’s the same with the movements made by a cat when they stretch their back. This simple action is a quick and easy exercise.  Get down on the floor with your hands and knees, with muscles relaxed and looking straight ahead.  Next, tighten your abdominal muscles while thrusting you back upward as far as you can.  Maintain the position for five counts before lowering your back.

• Bicycle Crunch

To do this, start y lying flat on the floor. Put your hand beside your head then raise knees up to 45 degrees angle and them perform a pedaling motion like what you do when you ride the bicycle.

• Standing Side Bends

Standing side bends encourages the loss of fats in the oblique muscles.  To start, stand up straight with the stomach sucked in, legs straight and hands on the sides.  Simply lean the body from left to right being careful not to rotate the hips and while keeping  body facing front.  There is a variety of side bends, this is the torso twists.  Instead of bending side to side twist or rotate the upper body from left to right while keeping the legs straight.

You can remove your flabby stomach and replace it with six pack abs, as long as you have disciplined and of course the will to do so.

Don’t forget, if you’re not going to eat right and make healthier choices, then don’t bother trying to get a six pack or a flatter, firmer stomach.  As my friend and business partner always says…”Don’t expect anything to change if you have a crappy diet!”

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an interview by Geovanni Derice with Mike Geary – Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a fitness
professional from NYC, Certified Personal Trainer, Geovanni Derice. The
interview is below and I think you’re going to like it… I reveal some
of the hardest hitting strategies for getting rid of that stubborn
stomach fat to uncover those flat six pack abs that everyone wants.

“GD: Welcome Mike to our
4-ever-Toned Fitness Journal. For those who do not know you, please
tell us a few things about yourself and how you can help our readers
with their fitness and health.

MG: Thanks for having me,
Geo. Well, to go back a little, I have been heavily involved in fitness
and sports for about 17 years now, ever since I was a teenager. Being
involved in sports in high school got me interested in strength
training and conditioning.

At that point, once I started feeling more energetic, getting
stronger, and looking better, I was instantly hooked for life. I’m 33
now and still addicted to the way living a healthy and fit lifestyle
makes me feel energetic, confident, strong, and youthful on a daily
basis.

I decided earlier in my 20’s that I wanted to make the commitment to
help other people experience the excitement of being fit and getting in
the best shape of their lives, especially since we’ve reached an
epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, etc.
That’s why I became a fitness professional. It just gives me so much
satisfaction to help others, who have struggled for years to get in
good shape, and show them that it can be done, and it can be fun in the
process.

I’ve expanded over the years from just reaching local individuals
with personal training, into being able to help people all over the
globe achieve their fitness goals with the reach of the internet. I
only hope that my passion for fitness inspires people to take action
and improve how they look and feel for life.

GD: Now Mike, there’s so
many things out there as to what works and what does not work… if you
had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get flat lean
abs, what would they be?

MG: The first and most
important thing to get control of in order to lose your belly fat and
get flat abs is cleaning up your diet. Exercise is important, but your
diet is king when it comes to losing body fat so that you can see your
abs.

There’s so much confusion these days about what a healthy diet that
promotes fat loss really is… after all, we are bombarded by
conflicting messages in the media about what is healthy and what is
not, and you have all of these gimmicky diet books about low carb, low
fat, high protein, vegetarian, fasting, atkins, south beach, liquid
diets, and hundreds more. There’s so much conflicting info, that the
average consumer doesn’t even know where to start when it comes to
eating for fat loss.

The second thing that works time and time again, is to focus on the
intensity of your workouts and focus on working the body as a whole in
order to get the best metabolic response to lose that stubborn stomach
fat.

In order to really get lean, the workouts should have a high
intensity, with short rest periods, working the largest muscle groups
of the body, instead of trying to isolate specific small muscles like
the biceps, triceps, or calves.

For the third thing, let’s talk about actually training the abs
specifically. When it comes to training the abs, if you want real
results, I always recommend forgetting about the crunches and sit ups
for the most part. They are ok for someone that is really
deconditioned, but most people that already have some training under
their belt need a much better stimulus for their abs than crunches.
Crunches are one of the abs exercises that actually provide the least
amount of resistance, and remember that resistance is what develops and
tones the muscles.

I provide a ton of great abs exercises in my book, but one of THE
highest resistance exercises for the abs, is hanging leg raises (but
NOT the way you see most people at the gym doing them). The key to
doing these and actually working the hell out of your abs is to curl
your pelvis up as you raise your legs. Almost nobody ever does this
right. To be honest, the majority of people cannot do this at first,
but I provide some strategies in my book as to how to progress to doing
these correctly.

GD: What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted “6 pack abs”?

MG: Well Geo, I know this
sounds funny to most people, but the MAIN thing that people are doing
wrong to get those flat 6-pack abs is… are you ready for this?

They spend entirely too much time focusing on training their abs! WAY too much time spent on abs exercises. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

Remember, having a flat and visible six pack of abs is all about
getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your
workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment
in your body, and increasing your metabolic rate. That just does not
happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like
the abs.

Instead, you must use the majority of your time focusing on training
the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, back, and chest.
That’s what stimulates your metabolism and the fat burning hormones
that will get you truly lean and sporting a flat sixxer!

GD: Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum defintion with their midsection?

MG: When it comes to
developing the abs themselves, I again refer to any kinds of hanging
abs exercises, as well as some good floor abs exercises like lying leg
thrusts (all described and illustrated in my book).

However, maximum definition in the abs and midsection comes from
losing bodyfat, and the most effective exercises featured in my program
for that goal are various forms of swings and snatches (unique dumbbell
or kettlebell
exercises that almost nobody ever does in normal gyms), squats,
deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, clean & presses, mountain climbers,
sprinting, and other full body exercises and calisthenics. If you want
great looking flat abs, focus on those instead of focusing so much on
training the abs directly!

GD: When it comes to diet
Mike, people really have tried millions of ways to get one thing… and
that is fat loss. What recommendations have you used to successfully
help your clients lose body fat and keep it off?

MG: I have included a fully
comprehensive discussion of this topic in my book, which accounts for
almost half of the book, but I’ll try to make some nice simple
generalizations to get people started on the right path immediately.
The most important thing is that your diet is as natural and
unprocessed as possible. It almost always comes back to the
overprocessing of food that makes it unhealthy, and makes it totally
wreck your metabolism and hormone balance in your body.

For example, why eat refined grains, when you can eat whole grains
(even better are sprouted grains, as I usually recommend limiting grain
foods overall for best results).

Why eat refined sugar, when you can get natural sources of sugar
from a high nutrient whole food like fruit. Why eat highly processed,
refined, and hydrogenated vegetable oils (these are THE worst thing in
the modern diet), when you can eat natural sources of healthy fats like
nuts, avocados, fish, eggs, coconut milk, organically raised meat, and
so forth.

The point is to not fall for some gimmick like extremely low carbs
(although I do believe in a fairly reduced carb intake as that is a big
problem for most people), low fat, super high protein, or any other
combination that has you focusing on one macronutrient vs. another.

Your body needs all macronutrients to thrive and obtain a variety of
vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. Trying to cut an entire food
group out just works against what your body needs. I get into much more
detail on this vitally important topic towards losing body fat
(especially that stubborn stomach fat) for life in my book.

GD: Thank you very much Mike for sharing with us all of this great information.

Well,
I hope you enjoyed this interview and plucked several nuggets of info
to get you motivated and started on showing off your flat abs shortly.
If you don’t already own a copy, be sure to pick up a copy of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book and discover the entire system I’ve developed for ridding yourself of that extra ab fat for good!

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