I have a problem that I figured I would run by everyone here: I am 20yrs old, 11% bodyfat, 200lbs, 5’9", athlete, good shape, but I look like I have a fucking GH gut. If I relax my stomach muscles, it sticks out really far. Here’s the thing though, it isn’t flabby and I can see a nice six pack if I assume good posture and tighten up my stomach (hence the whole GH gut). So it just sticks out REALLY far. I can hide it pretty well just by keeping a tight core and good posture all day, but as soon as I relax it, WHAM, it shoots out. Is this just a muscle imbalance/postural problem, or what? Something worse? It has been like this as long as I can remember, has looked like this when I was at my highest weight, and has looked like this when I was at my lowest weight. I don’t have any problems with any lifts either that I know of, and do plenty of work for my core both directly and indirectly. Any help or guesses as to what the problem might be, please respond!!!
Shot in the dark…Do work for your traverse abdominis, the body’s natural weight belt. The way it was described to me is that even though your rectus abdominis are in shape your TA is not and thus the “pot belly/GH” look. I’m dealing with it now myself and it seems to be working, dropped a few notches on the ole belt. Anyhow, vacuums or “thin tummy’s” as Ian King calls them works this area. Look into the articles by Ian or just make a habit of doing vacuums through out the day. Suck in till you can’t, while blowing out and contract. Hold this for 5 seconds and build it up over time. The goal would be to hold this for around a minute while breathing naturally, think Frank Zane. Hope this helps.
The problem is as Frank has stated (transversalis abdominis). I’m going to bump a thread up entitled “Power Breathing” where I shared a martial arts technique called Bending the Fire with another poster. Do the Vacuums that Frank mentioned between your power breathing sets. This should help tremendously.
What Frank said.