Hey guys, this is my first post here. I have been around the forums just reading for a bit to get a feel for the place and seems great! Anyway, my question was with regards to abs and more specifically how to work them out so that they will be clearly defined even when I am not flexing. I was wondering if lots of cardio is the key ie. going on the bike for 30-45 mins, or doing tons of reps using my body weight or doing a lot of weight with my ab exercises like with resistance bands and dumbells.
Also, I realize it is probably a combo of all three. I included a picture I found in “powerful images” to give a good example of what I am talking about. I look forward to feedback from you guys and thanks in advance.
Oh, and btw, the guy in the picture is Christian Thibaudeau, one of the article-writing-coaches on this site. Read his articles, and you’ll probably get a better picture of how to get there…
Ok, first of all, get ready because you’re probably going to catch a lot of flak for asking about defined abs. Just be warned.
Now then, to actually answer your question, abs are made in the kitchen. You can do all the ab work you want. Heavy, repetetive, whatever. If you don’t have low enough body fat you won’t see them. Generally you’ll probably find heavy, lower rep, ab work to be more beneficial for strength gains but as far as definition goes, it’s all a matter of getting lean.
Take a look at your diet and read some of the articles on here to get an idea of what you need to change. A good place to start is Vroom’s beginners thread here:
[quote]MMAniac wrote:
Hey guys, this is my first post here. I have been around the forums just reading for a bit to get a feel for the place and seems great! Anyway, my question was with regards to abs and more specifically how to work them out so that they will be clearly defined even when I am not flexing. I was wondering if lots of cardio is the key ie. going on the bike for 30-45 mins, or doing tons of reps using my body weight or doing a lot of weight with my ab exercises like with resistance bands and dumbells.
Also, I realize it is probably a combo of all three. I included a picture I found in “powerful images” to give a good example of what I am talking about. I look forward to feedback from you guys and thanks in advance.
Cheers.[/quote]
Whether your abs show or not will be determined by your body fat levels. Getting that low enough is a combo of strength training, nutrition, and energy system training…what works for you that is cos people different of course.
adding some density to your abs will certainly help when you become that lean. however, it just depends on the look your after…
Thibadeau, as you provided above or something like Brad Pitt ala Fight Club.
Body fat percentage: to show some decent abs definition most men need to be at least as low as 10% body fat and to have deeply etched abs most will need to get down to 6-7% or so… however in some cases it doesn’t need to be that low; see the next two factors for more on that.
Abs thickness: here we are talking about the actually thickness of the muscle belly. The muscle portion of the abs (the “squares”) can be hypertrophied just like any other muscle group while the tendon/ligament portion (the “lines” between the “squares”) do not hypertrophy much. So the more size you add to the abs muscle, the deeper will the separation be.
Genetics: some peoples have muscles that grow very easily while others are stubborn and take forever to gain a bit of size. This can also be the case of the abdominal muscles. As I mentionned in factor no.2 it is the contrast between the “squares” and the “lines” that make the abs appear deeply etched even at rest.
So if an individual has stubborn abs the muscle bellies will not grow much and as a result the contrast will not be significant. In that case it becomes harder to have that deeply etched look, i.e. you’ll need to get down to very low body fat levels to get the results you need. Since I have relatively thick abs, even at 10% I show much of the same abs look as I do in the picture you posted above.
I could also mention two examples that are at the extreme of the spectrum. A football player I trained (quaterback) had very deep abs BUT no muscle separation anywhere else and his body fat tested out at 13%. If you were to judge his body fat percentage only by the look of his abs most would have believed him to be around 6%.
On the other side of the spectrum you have my own girlfriend Christiane… she is a competitive bodybuilder and has the most deeply separated back and shoulders I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m talking about cross-striated traps here. However, even in contest shape she has almost no abs definition… to get some sort of separation she must pose in a certain manner and under a certain type of lighting.
In the first case, the QB has abs that were easy to hypertrophy while in the second case we have the opposite.
Genetics also determine the shape of your abs. Individual with a long torso such as myself an actually have an 8-pack while individuals with a short torso often showcase only a 4-pack even at super low levels of body fat.
So what we can take out of this is that:
a) To have great abs, unless you are genetically gifted in that department, you’ll need to get down to a low level of body fat. Exercise (weight lifting and cardio) will help in that regard, but it’s at least 80% about nutrition.
b) To have deeply etched abs you need thick muscle bellies. So you must make the ab muscles “grow”… the abs are no different than other muscle groups: they respond to progressive overload. If you were to perform sets of 50-100 reps with no weight in the curl would that lead to big biceps?
No… so why would doing endless sets of light abs work be any different? If you want to make the abs grow you must challenge them with progressively increasing loads.
Wow, I am truely amazed at how quickly you guys replied to my post and how much useful information you gave. Thanks SO much for the great info it is much appreciated. Definately the warmest welcome onto a board that I have received. And a big thanks to Christian for posting
One follow up question. About what Leash said that you work up to around 250 to have a lot of good muscle mass and then cut weight to lose fat and really show the definition. What is the best method to properly cut weight over a reasonable period of time. I don’t need anything as extreme as jumping into a sauna with sweats on. I mean like going on the bike every day, avoiding carbs or meat…etc. I am curious as to the proper way to cut weight and only lose fat and no muscle mass or at least as little as possible. Thanks again guys!
[quote]MMAniac wrote:
Wow, I am truely amazed at how quickly you guys replied to my post and how much useful information you gave. Thanks SO much for the great info it is much appreciated. Definately the warmest welcome onto a board that I have received. And a big thanks to Christian for posting
One follow up question. About what Leash said that you work up to around 250 to have a lot of good muscle mass and then cut weight to lose fat and really show the definition. What is the best method to properly cut weight over a reasonable period of time. I don’t need anything as extreme as jumping into a sauna with sweats on. I mean like going on the bike every day, avoiding carbs or meat…etc. I am curious as to the proper way to cut weight and only lose fat and no muscle mass or at least as little as possible. Thanks again guys![/quote]
Judging by your profile, the last thing you need to be thinking about is losing weight. T-Nation is ‘generally’ a body building/bulking based website so be warned again that you posting certain questions such as those above may get you ripped a new.
Seriously though, 6’ and 165? You need to gain ATLEAST 35 lbs; it doesn’t sound like you have the thick musclular abs that CT was talking about that will get you where you want. And avioding eating meat, are you joking?!?!
Read the beginners sections and you’ll learn more than you could ever have imagined.
[quote]slickid wrote:
MMAniac wrote:
Wow, I am truely amazed at how quickly you guys replied to my post and how much useful information you gave. Thanks SO much for the great info it is much appreciated. Definately the warmest welcome onto a board that I have received. And a big thanks to Christian for posting
One follow up question. About what Leash said that you work up to around 250 to have a lot of good muscle mass and then cut weight to lose fat and really show the definition. What is the best method to properly cut weight over a reasonable period of time. I don’t need anything as extreme as jumping into a sauna with sweats on. I mean like going on the bike every day, avoiding carbs or meat…etc. I am curious as to the proper way to cut weight and only lose fat and no muscle mass or at least as little as possible. Thanks again guys!
Judging by your profile, the last thing you need to be thinking about is losing weight. T-Nation is ‘generally’ a body building/bulking based website so be warned again that you posting certain questions such as those above may get you ripped a new.
Seriously though, 6’ and 165? You need to gain ATLEAST 35 lbs; it doesn’t sound like you have the thick musclular abs that CT was talking about that will get you where you want. And avioding eating meat, are you joking?!?!
Read the beginners sections and you’ll learn more than you could ever have imagined.
[/quote]
Good post. While telling him all about abs may be informative, to ignore that this guy is skinny as fuck to begin with is a mistake. It is one thing for an avid weight lifter of 220lbs to ask about ab development, and quite another for some guy who just got a membership at a gym and weighs all of 160lbs to do the same. One of those two needs to spend a few years actually building some muscle.
I obviously do not want to cut weight now! I was saying that if I weighed about 250 lbs. what is the proper way to do it. Also, just for the record I did not just get a membership at a gym. I have been working out for over a year now and have done a ton of research to make sure that my form is right and that all of the exercises I am doing are those that produce results in the areas I want results. I am so skinny because I have played hockey for all of my childhood at a very high level and now do MMA training 4 to 5 times a weak with intensive cardio that makes it all but impossible to gain a lot of weight even though I am taking protein powder. I am setting aside about a hour a day if I can to just read articles and browse the forums to become as informed as possible. Thanks for your posts guys.
You need to eat, and eat a shitload, to gain weight. Take a day where you think you’ve ate a lot, double it, and that’s where you probably need to be if you’re in fact doing MMA 4 or 5 times a week and want to move the scale.
Protein powder doesn’t mean shit, it’s a supplement, meant to coincide with a quality diet. Check out the massive eating calculator by Dr. John Barardi to get a ballpark figure:
You asked what’s the best way for a 250lb muscular guy to drop a bunch of fat quickly, check out this article by Dr. Berardi. Basically the point here is that diet controls weight gain and loss:
