Ah! The elusive six-pack! It’s difficult to get, especially if you’re female. Women, on average, have a higher percentage of body fat than men and this makes it harder for women to get their abs muscles to show. To get your abs to “pop” as a female, you need a body fat percentage of 20% or lower. That’s a sticking point for some people. Plus, it’s more important to be healthy than it is to have abdominal definition. However, if you’re serious about getting your abs to show, you can get there by doing four things. Let’s look at each one.
Cardio
You could get six-pack abs without cardio, but some cardio, whether it be moderate-intensity or high-intensity interval training, helps you burn more calories and reduce your body fat percentage. Some research suggests that high-intensity cardio is better for fat loss since it gives more of an afterburn, so you burn more calories even after a workout is over. In fact, a study found that after six weeks of high-intensity interval training, subjects oxidized more fat relative to carbohydrates as an energy source. The shift from using carbohydrates as a fuel source to fat could lead to greater fat loss.
Another study found that high-intensity interval training led to greater fat loss than low-intensity aerobic training. A study published in the Journal of Obesity also found a greater loss of abdominal fat with high-intensity interval training. It’s important to choose cardio you enjoy, but high-intensity interval exercise may give you an advantage if you’re trying to reveal your six-pack.
Multi-Joint Strength Training
Multi-joint strength training is a powerful tool for acquiring six-pack abs. Multi-joint or compound exercises are those that work more than one muscle group at the same time. When you activate multiple muscle groups, especially those in the lower body, you burn more calories, and if it’s intense, you get an afterburn that lasts for hours after your sweat session is over. Plus, strength-training exercises, like deadlifts, squats, push-ups and even bench press tightens your core too since core muscles serve as stabilizers when you do other compound exercises.
In fact, resistance training may trump cardio for weight loss. In one 18-month study of 249 overweight and obese adults, weight training, using machines, led to significant fat loss with less loss of muscle tissue relative to consuming a weight-loss diet alone or combining a weight-loss diet with walking. That’s important since you want to preserve metabolically active muscle tissue while shedding tummy fat to get your abs to pop. Therefore, don’t sacrifice strength training for cardio. Include both in your six-pack workout.
Focused Abdominal Exercises
Some fitness trainers believe that compound, multi-joint exercises are all you need to hypertrophy your abdominal muscles because squats and deadlifts also activate your ab and core muscles. However, you’ll get better results if you do exercises that isolate your abs such as crunches. However, crunches also target your hip flexors, so your abs aren’t the only muscles doing the work. You can reduce the contribution of your hip flexors and place more emphasis on your abs by not lifting your head and neck off the mat over 45 degrees of flexion. The top of a crunch should be just after you lift your shoulders off the floor.
If you have back discomfort when you do abdominal exercises, stick with ones that don’t require lumbar flexion. Even if you don’t have back problems, vary the exercises you do for your abs. Exercises like planks and their many variations and the popular Bird dog exercise also works your core muscles. You can even branch out and do standing abdominal exercises. If you do crunches, do them on an unstable surface such as a stability ball.
Reduce Body Fat
It might not be abdominal definition that is keeping you from a six-pack. Maybe you have body fat covering those abdominal ripples. The only way to unveil them is to trim down the layer of fat that covers them. Exercise is only one part of that equation. Just as important, if not more so, is nutrition. Whoever said, “abs are made in the kitchen” is right. You can exercise religiously, but if you eat whatever you want, you won’t see those ab muscles.
If your abdominal muscles are still hiding, look at how you’re eating. Sugar, refined carbs, and ultra-processed foods aren’t ab-friendly choices. Enjoy more whole food sources of protein, healthy fats, and fiber-rich fruits and vegetables. Forget about rigid calorie restriction, upgrade the quality of what you eat, and consume those foods and beverages mindfully.
If you’re not losing belly fat, you might also be restricting calories too much. Try cycling how much food you eat. One day, eat a diet lower in calories but the next day a higher calorie, nutrient-dense diet. Some studies show this approach can help jump start fat loss, but, even better, don’t allow your calorie count to drop too low in the first place.
The Bottom Line
Here’s hoping you now have a better idea of what you need to do to build more beautiful abs. It takes consistency and patience but doing so will be beneficial for more than aesthetics. If you trim down the belly and waist fat, you will lower your risk of chronic health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some forms of cancer. Keep training, but do it right, and combine it with a healthy, but not too restrictive diet.
References:
- SuperAbs Resource Manual. Len Kravitz, Ph.D.
- com. “Is Cardio Really the Secret to Fat Loss?”
- J Obes. 2011; 2011: 868305.Published online 2010 Nov 24. doi: 10.1155/2011/868305.
- com. “Lose fat, preserve muscle: Weight training beats cardio for older adults”
- Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 May;112(5):1671-8. doi: 10.1007/s00421-011-2141-7. Epub 2011 Aug 30.
- Effect of Exercise Type During Intentional Weight Loss on Body Composition in Older Adults with Obesity. Obesity, 2017; 25 (11): 1823 DOI: 10.1002/oby.21977.
- Int J Prev Med. 2014 Apr;5(4):447-56.
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Thanks for all your great advice!