Oct 09
19
You have abs! Yes, really!
Coach Marks back in Jr. High gave me this advice: If you want a 6-pack, all you need to do is do 100 sit-ups every day for 3 months. So I took him up on it. 12 weeks and approximately 9300 sit-ups later I still didn’t have my 6-pack abs. (However I do find sit-ups incredibly easy to this day) Turns out Coach was as right about gaining wash board abdominals as he was about short-shorts. *shudder*
There isn’t a whole bunch of little muscles in you abdominal as it might appear, but actually a flat sheet of muscle which is criss-crossed by ligaments which give it a segmented “6-pack” look when exposed. I use the term exposed, and not defined, developed, or created for a very specific reason. I’m pretty sure that I don’t need to first explain that everyone has these well defined, segmented abs, by virtue of being a human being you have them. It’s simply a question of how much fatty tissue is covering them up.
That’s the reason that those thousands of sit-ups never did me any good, there was too much fat covering the muscle up. I could have done 10 times the amount of sit-ups and never produced any meaningful results since I was a 180 lb 14 year old!
In order to reveal your own 6 (or mythical 
pack you first need to reduce your body fat. As I’ve discussed before weightlifting and interval training are the 2 ways to lose this fat the fastest. While everyone is a little different, expect to reduce your percent body fat to below 10%. Most muscle magazine models are somewhere between 4-6% just as a reference. To most accurately determine your %BF (percent body fat) involves a set of calipers and a measuring tape, or a large tank for submersion. However, a good estimate can be found using this %BF Calculator.
NOTE: These calculators are estimates, individuals of different body types, and amount of muscle mass can skew their results.
It’s true that doing core group exercises can help tone and shape your midsection in addition to strengthening your body overall. Indeed, once you get your %BF into the 10-12% and below range, a tough core routine will pump those muscles up and make them even more visible. But the fact remains that no amount of sit-ups will help if there is a layer of fat hiding your muscles.
However, don’t let this deter you from doing core exercises even if you aren’t in the 10%BF range. A strong set of core muscles will pay dividends in a lot of ways. You use these muscles from sitting up, to walking and running, picking up an object, laughing, and nearly any other activity you can imagine.
