Trying to lean out, lose a few inches from gut, and get some visible abs. Assuming diet is in check (deficit, 1g protein per lb of BW, etc) should I get more weighted Ab work or more HIIT. I was doing one 15 min HIIT session 2-3x per week and 5 ab exercises. Thinking about going to two 15 min HIIT sessions and 3 ab exercises. OR am I just overthinking it?
Abs mean nothing if you are not lean enough to see them.
If your not getting the results you want from what you are doing then modify.
Either less cals or more cardio. Keep the ab work in.
You might be overthinking it a bit, but that’s the fun part. With your diet plan looking good, I’d lean toward more weighted ab work and less HIIT (which can sneak up on you fast in a bad way if not careful. Info HERE).
Now, “more weighted ab work” doesn’t mean more exercises. Just find a couple you really feel (almost like a cramp) and keep them focused and concentrated.
I like Coach Thibaudeau’s philosophy on ab training: fail as fast as possible. Meaning, make it so you can’t get over 8-10 reps, even with a basic unweighted crunch. That involves bracing like you’re about to get punched in the gut, hard top-end contractions, and milking every rep.
Here’s the most I ever learned about ab training in 30 seconds:
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As it was already posted in this thread, you need a low level of body fat to have visible abs.
Abs exercises don’t make you lose a significant amount of fat.
Does that mean that the answer to your question is to do more HIIT?
Not necessarily.
HIIT can help you lose fat by increasing caloric expenditure, which can help you create a caloric deficit (which is almost always required to lose fat)…
But I think that you are missing the big picture. To lose fat, you (most probably) need to be in a caloric deficit. It’s good that you are thinking about adding HIIT (or any other form of activity to burn more calories). But in the grand scheme of things, it’s not going to move the needle much if your diet isn’t truly solid (yeah, you mentioned that your diet is in check, more on that later).
Let’s say that you do one HIIT session per week and that it “burns” 250-300kcals (which is roughly what 15 min of HIIT will do).
That’s 250-300kcals more burned in the whole week. When you understand that to lose a pound of fat in a week you need to be in at least a 3500kcals deficit (for the week), that 250-300kcals looks pretty minimal, doesn’t it?
I’m not telling you NOT to add the HIIT session. 2 HIIT sessions is manageable, especially if you are already doing one.
But expecting some form of magical transformation in the abs department from adding one HIIT (or more abs work) is wishful thinking, at best.
Diet and overall daily activity levels are the key components.
You mention that your diet is in check, but you only mention protein intake.
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What’s the rest of your macros look like (carbs and fat), and more importantly…
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Are you losing fat at the moment? Because if you are not losing fat it means that your diet, however adequate you believe it to be, you are eating too much compares to your activity level to get leaner.
And YES, having better-developeds abs can make them visible more easily. For example, most males will start to have good abs definition at around 10-11%. Because my abs are so thick, I can have a pretty good six-pack at 15%. But that thickness was built through decades of heavy lifting and lots of abs work. It’s not something you ca develop in a few months with more abs work.
In the grand scheme of things, adding more HIIT (I do not recommend ever doing more than 2… maybe 3 sessions, a week) will be a drop in the ocean if your food intake is not appropriate.
One more thing… sometimes adding more hard training can lead to a lower overall caloric expenditure! How? By making you more fatigued which will lead to lowering your amount of daily physical activity/movement. That decrease due to fatigue and energy conservation can even surpass the calories you burn during your added hard training.
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Really great info here, thanks.
Just to expand on it with some more info on me. I’m 51, 6’3", 225, 18% BF per Dexa this month (up from 16% in Nov.). My RMR is around 2100 calories (I had an RMR test done last year). I’m trying to keep my daily caloric intake at 2200-2400 daily with 40% protein and 30/30 between carbs and fat. I’ve not perfected that but I’m weighing and counting and getting there.
I’m in the gym 6-7 days per week with an every other day format of a heavy lifting day followed by an “abs/cardio” day and then another heavy lifting day and so on. Rest days just happen when I can’t get there (usually at least once a week)
Lifting days are 1 major compound lift done per day in a Reverse Pyramid (squat, dead, bench, shldr. press) followed by 3 isolation moves of 4 sets x12 reps. Nothing to failure but try and get to where I have 1 or 2 reps left in the tank.
On 200mg weekly of Test. I was on CJC 1295/Ipamorellin for 6 months until 12/15/23. I wondering if that’s why my BF went up to 18% from 16%. (I was at 22% when I started)
Here’s a photo to give you an idea of what’s going on. I’m happy with everything but the gut and just want to lean that out some more. I figure I can get that if I can get done to 12% iish body fat.
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That’s not much of a “gut,” man! Looking great!
With fat loss, that tends to be the last part to go. (My spot is right below the belly button.) Sometimes, to make it go, we get kind of extreme and wind up looking gaunt everywhere else. I don’t think you need to worry about it too much, but lots of great advice above from CT.
That’s true. I look worse overall when I’m super lean. In photos, with the lighting and angles it looks great, but in person, I look gaunt (one guy once asked me if I had cancer).
My best look is around 10-11%. But what helps me is that I have very thick abs, so I have good abs at 11 (even 12%) so the overall look is good.
I guess what I’m saying is that you could try training your abs harder. CS posted a great video on how to do your abs exercises, what I’ll add is that what I found to work best (once you do abs the right way) is to superset one loaded abs exercise for 6-8 hard reps with an unloaded exercise done for 8-10 reps focusing on the contraction and “trying to fail as early as possible”. That’s always what worked best for me.
And kudos for posted a REAL body fat percentage. To be fair, to have abs definition you probably “only” need to drop down to 12% on DEXA rather than 9-10% measured by calipers.
I would say that you can tweak your diet a tad, without becoming extreme, to get the body fat moving in the right direction.
As fo the peptide having helped you stay leaner, absolutely! Growth hormone (and thus the peptides that increase GH levels) is well known to increase fat mobilization and use for energy. So if gt slightly leaner (or maintained the same leanness) while on, I would expect that you would increase body fat once you stop if you keep everything else the same.
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Awesome. Thanks for the help.