How To Get Six Pack Abs And Keep Them Forever

Six Pack Abs Made Easy – A Mind Shift

Six pack abs are a sure sign of personal control. There’s almost nothing more intimidating to other guys than taking your shirt off in public and having a lean, trim waist, and washboard abs.

And you know it’s true too. Remember the last time you were at the beach or in the gym locker room and you saw “that guy” – the one with the abs you wished you had? Yeah, I remember those days too. But now I’m “that guy” – the one who goes to the beach and stands out from everyone else – who’s different.

I make a statement about myself with my six pack and it’s this, “I believe in personal awesomeness.” In my opinion, one of the signs of personal awesomeness is having a full-fledged set of six pack abs. (And apparently Hollywood’s, since most heros have them too…)

What do I mean by “personal awesomeness?”

That’s the ability to control yourself and exert influence on the world around you. And that’s ultimately what we all want.

And a set of six pack abs means that you’ve at least got the self-control, self-mastery portion down and are on your way to conquering the world around you.

One of my friends once said that any guy over 40 who has a six pack is gay. That’s obviously stupid and a defense mechanism on his part. Funny thing was when he and two of my other friends and I were all working out in his garage in the middle of summer where it was 105 degrees and we had our shirts off, they all kept commenting on my six-pack. I will say this, one of the things having a six pack over the age of 30 tells you (and women by the way) is that you have high testosterone levels (good for mating) and that you’re assertive at the least and aggressive at best.

These are both great traits in men who still want to be men and haven’t traded in their pair for house slippers and a Prius.

So first and foremost, before you even think about working out or ask “Dude – what’s the fastest way to get a six pack?” you have to have this attitude of self-mastery – of achieving personal awesomeness.

That means having a six pack is an attitude – a mindset and without that, you can read all about the “best ab workouts” and do some high-powered super fancy ab workout routine and you’ll never, never, never see your abs. Never.

Trust me, I’ve been there. And it’s one of the top 5 most frustrating places to live.

So, in order to stop wasting time, after you get the “Attitude of Personal Awesomeness” you need to know…

The “Magic Formula” For Success Or How To Finally Get Six Pack Abs Once And For All And Forever

Getting a six pack isn’t really a mystery, it just appears that way. And part of that is marketing and the other part of that is the culture we live in. We live in an “instant” culture where everything you want is instantly downloadable on an iPhone app or you can get in approximately 3.5 minutes at the Mickey D’s drive thru (and that’s if there’s a line).

We fail to understand what our grandfathers, men of the “Greatest Generation” who rebuilt the world after defeating Hitler and Hirohito knew – that success is the product of consistency.

So when that nagging little question pops into your head “What’s the fastest way to get a six pack?” remember first and foremost and above all else is that it’s to be consistent with your plan.

Secondly, it’s to be patient with that plan. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your six pack won’t be either.

Ok, so consistency is the first thing.

The second is the food you eat. You’ve got to spend the majority of your time focusing on how you’re fueling your body. You wouldn’t put diesel in a Ferrari, so you gotta stop putting junk food in your body. Every once in a while is fine, where “once in a while” means maybe once per week, but the majority of the time you’ve gotta eat “healthy.”

And by “healthy” I mean delicious foods like steak, veal, salmon, chicken, turkey, whole eggs, pork loin, and other foods like that.

Toss in some fruit and vegetables and the occasional potato or two and you’ll start burning off that belly fat in no time flat.

To get started it’s really just that easy.

The next thing to take care of is your workouts.

 

Six Pack Abs Workout Concepts

So, what then are the best ab workouts to get that six pack and start being personally awesome?

First and foremost, they’re the ones you actually do. Yeah, that’s right, you gotta actually do the work. And I’m talking to you Mr Dreamer Guy. Plan on spending about 45 minutes three days per week actually working. And embrace doing new stuff – learning new exercises that you may not be comfortable with. Embrace the short-term possibility of looking foolish in order to learn some new stuff.

These will be hard at first, and maybe always. You’ll have to exercise what our grandfathers called “discipline” which is that stuff that rebuilt the world 70 years ago and it’s that stuff that’s lacking now and explains why our world is turning to garbage. This “discipline” is what separates the “high-achievers” from the “always-dreamers.” It’s the “magic” that gets stuff done and will get you those ripped abs.

Getting Six Pack Abs By Doing Nothing

But here’s the best part about getting your six pack – doing nothing. Now let me explain because I’ve talked a lot about so far about the mental stuff and consistency and stuff like that. You also gotta know, like Kenny Rogers says, “when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” You’ve got to know when NOT to work out and when to rest and recover.

That’s right, you’ve actually gotta have the discipline to SLEEP. If you were like me, you probably slept a lot in college. 9- 10 hour nights weren’t uncommon – going to bed at 1am and getting up at 10 or later, especially on Saturdays.

Well I want to let you in on a secret – you’ve gotta go back to that kind of schedule to get your six pack. Now hold on, hold on – don’t freak out – lemme explain. Instead of staying up late and watching Letterman or Leno or the Redhead and dragging yourself out of bed at 5 or 6 in the morning over to the coffee maker, turn the TV off and get to bed by 10.

Yeah, that’s what I thought too – way too early. I needed to “unwind” and “relax” but I was killing myself by going to bed late and getting up early. Here’s a little extra motivation for you – You know that belly fat? Yeah, the stuff that hangs over your belt when you sit down – that stuff? You can start to lose that by going to bed early and sleeping more. If there was ever an “easy” way to lose stomach fat – any fat – this would be it.

Bottom Line – Sleep = Six Pack Abs.

You, Food, And Your Belly – A Six Pack Abs Diet You Can Live With

As I mentioned earlier, you’ve just gotta deep six the junk food if you ever even hope of getting rid of that belly fat and seeing those six pack abs hidden underneath. (That’s right – they’re already there – you just have to get to them.)

And that’s because junk food – McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Donuts, Pizza Hut – all those places – interferes with ALL the processes in your body from digestion to sleep to your sex drive. (Yeah, you read that correctly – SEX DRIVE. Junk food has been shown to not only decrease your testosterone levels, but it also increases your estrogen levels and gives you “man-boobs.”) And when your hormones are all messed up, you’re doomed to a life of doughy fatness. Totally un-awesome.

I’ll never forget my senior year of college. I roomed with 3 other guys in a house who would stay up late, drink 2 liter bottles of soda, and eat bags of chips. I almost threw up when I saw “Matt” with his shirt off – he had breasts! And breasts with hair on them! (Okay, just threw up in my mouth a little bit remembering that image…) He wasn’t too happy with me when I was like, “Dude – you gotta stop eating that stuff – you’ve got boobs!”

Here’s a quick and dirty six pack abs diet action plan you can implement today.

*Married Guy Notes.

1. Toss out all the crap in your fridge and cupboards – the cookies, cakes, candies, pastries, ice cream and crackers or take the down to your local homeless shelter.

*Don’t worry if your wife gets mad at you – if it’s not good for you it’s not good for her either. Lead from the front my man. She may fuss and yell at first, but when you start losing that belly fat and becoming more of who you were meant to be – who you want to be and she’ll start to respect you more.

2. Go down to your local grocery store and make friends with the butcher. Buy yourself a bunch of steak, pork chops, chicken and eggs.

*Ask your wife to go with you if you don’t know where these places are. It makes for a good Friday night date. The store is empty so it’s easy and you’re wife will thank you for taking an interest in her and your life together. Buy her a “treat” while you’re out. Many grocery stores have Starbucks in them – she might enjoy an a latte and a chat.

3. Then go over to the fruit section and buy yourself one piece of fruit for each day of the week.

4. Next, go to the frozen vegetable section and buy yourself a one pound bag of frozen green vegetables – your choice, just no peas.

*If you’re wife is with you, you may have to stop by the fresh vegetable place – “Produce” I think it’s called because women like fresh vegetables better than frozen – at least mine does…

5. Then go buy a couple of jars of salsa – it goes great on everything.

6. Prepare your food with this simple template.

Breakfast: 3 eggs, 1 piece of fruit

Lunch: Meat and 1/2 pound of frozen vegetables

Dinner: Meat and 1/2 pound of frozen vegetables

*Here’s where the fresh veggies come in. And I’m about to hit a raw nerve here but, most guys who are overweight have overweight wives, and even kids. And neither of them are happy about it, but most are too afraid to talk about it to each other in depth. So, now’s your chance to take the reigns and be the “man of the house.” Everybody’s now eating meat and veggies every night for dinner. If the kids whine and cry, tough – do like my dad did – send me to my room hungry. A couple of nights of this and they’ll fall right into line.

And it’s literally that easy. Don’t overthink this or you’ll screw it up.

Just follow the simple six pack abs diet action plan to the letter and you’ll be off to a great start. You’ll probably lose 2-3 pounds, maybe even 5, your first week doing this.

The 4 Big Six Pack Abs Building Hormones

Ok, now you’ve got the junk food out and the six pack abs diet in. Here’s why this is so dang important: Hormones.

See, you can cut your calories and “lose weight” but it doesn’t mean you’ll see your six pack. You’ll just be a smaller version of you current self. So we’ve gotta eat that way to maximize the “Big 4″ Anabolic (growth) Hormones that will help you build muscle and burn fat at basically the same time.

Here’s a quick rundown of each hormone, what it does, and how it helps you banish belly fat, murder manboobs, and laser-off your lovehandles. (Nice alliterations, huh?)

Testosterone: This is THE male sex hormone. It’s what makes you a man. It also helps you build muscle and burn fat as well as keep the fat off. In fact, it is THE reason why men are more muscular and have less body fat naturally than women. When you boost your body’s natural production of “T” you’ll automatically lose fat.

So how do you do that? First and foremost by eating the right foods like I described above. Secondly, through specific styles of workouts.

Growth Hormone As it’s name suggests, “GH” is responsible for the growth processes in the body. Increase your natural production of GH and you’ll increase your body’s ability to grow muscle, burn fat, and tolerate carbohydrates better.

And you do that, or restore the function of GH in your body, by pulling the junk and carbs out of your diet for a little while, then strategically injecting high quality carbs back into your diet. That, and through proper weight training.

Cortisol Cortisol’s gotten a bad name in the news over the last decade. Yes, it’s true – too much of it is responsible for that belly fat, but you do need cortisol. It helps your body recover and reduces inflammation, which is necessary for recovery from all things like being sick to weight training.

But too much, as I already said, leads to excess belly fat, decreased T levels, and decreased GH output. Restore it to it’s natural levels through decreasing your stress at work, sleeping more, and of course, working out.

Insulin Insulin has also gotten a black eye or two from the media, especially with everyone “getting” type 2 diabetes. (Don’t get me started…) It’s responsible for helping your body store sugar in its cells. The problem comes when you eat too much food and too many carbs. You’re body releases extra insulin to store that extra food and it stores it as fat.

So, pull the carbs from your diet for a while, drop your calories, increase your meat and protein in your diet and you’ll start to reduce the amount of insulin your body releases at each meal. This will start burning off that body fat hiding those six pack abs, especially the stuff on your waist and lower back.

Be following the “secret” six pack abs diet I just outlined for as little as three weeks, you’ll start balancing out your anabolic hormones. You’ll notice big, big differences in how your pants fit, how you look in the mirror, how you feel on the inside (you might find extra motivation or feel more assertive and/or aggressive) and will probably notice an increase in your sex drive. (Better give your wife or girlfriend a heads up on that…)

The Magical Six Pack Abs Workout Training Template

Six pack abs workouts are literally all over the internet, bookstores, and probably downloadable as an iPhone app for all I know. Let me save you some time and effort and just tell you the “secret” about all these workouts (or the ones that actually produce results).

Here it is – you work out hard 3 times per week, using free weights, and performing “big” exercises, and you skip the cardio. That’s basically it. Sure, there are some variations, but those are the basics.

3 x Week For Best Results

We have been brainwashed to think that “more is better” in almost everything. Sure, more money in the bank is great, but more nagging from the boss isn’t. The best ab workouts are only 3 days per week because they recognize this principle.

By working out every other day, you give your body a chance to rest and recover. (Remember that sleep thing?) This is where the “magic” happens, not in the gym. The workouts stimulate the process to get six-pack abs, the rest days is where the change actually happens. It’s like going to work and getting your paycheck every 2 weeks.

And there’s really no need to do more, except activities that are relaxing and fun and of course, not counter-productive to getting that six pack.

Total Body = Total Success

We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that we have to do all these fancy exercises and body part splits – where you train chest one day, legs the next, (yes, I said “legs” – the most overlooked area when training for six pack abs), shoulders another, and then arms the last.

That might be fine if you’re a pro-bodybuilder using a ton of drugs (or any drugs for that matter) or a powerlifter handling massive amounts of weight, but for us Regular Joe’s, training the body as a whole, the way it’s designed to move, is the best bet.

In fact, even the old-school strongmen and weightlifters used to train this way – the whole body at one time. And they were strong and lean.

So, since as success guru Tony Robbins says, “success leaves clues” – let’s not try to reinvent the wheel here. Now’s not the time to forge a new path. Trailblazers are often punished by indian and animal attacks, and we don’t have time or energy to fight them off. So we’re going to do what’s been done before – work the entire body three days a week. And we’re going to rest on the other days.

What About The Ab Work?

There’s a lot of controversy right now about whether or not to do specific ab exercises or not. Some coaches say your abs get worked when working your total body and you don’t need to anything direct or specific.

And they’re right to a point. If you’ve already done a bunch of specialized ab workouts and gotten them nice and strong, then, no, going for a period of time without doing and specialized ab exercises isn’t going to hurt you.

But on the other hand, if it’s been awhile since you’ve worked out or you’ve never worked out at all, then you better believe you’ll need to do some very direct and focused ab workouts, including specialized ab exercises for the muscles that lie underneath and support the coveted six pack.

If you don’t, you’ll just end up hurting yourself doing the other, bigger exercises and that’s the fastest way to not see your six pack!

Big, Hormone Pumping, “Ab-Ripping” Total Body Exercises

Guys wearing white coats in labs have proven again and again that one of the best ways to shed body fat is to use “big” compound exercises like the Deadlift, Squat, and Bench Press to stimulate your body’s natural production of its hormones.

For example, heavy sets of 5 reps on the Squat have been proven to increase your testosterone levels.

So guess what goes on the ol’ “how to get abs” checklist?

That’s right, the Squat, the Deadlift, and the Bench, and variations of those exercises.

And it’s not just the positive changes you’ll see in your hormonal profile either. It’s also because these exercises use pretty much every muscle in your body. And that means work. And work means you’re burning calories. And burning calories means you’ll be burning fat.

Why weight training and not just cardio?

Because weight training burns more calories per session than traditional cardio. Plus traditional cardio makes you weak and skinny, which again, doesn’t fit into the whole “personal awesomeness” feeling.

And finally, as if the fear of being weak and skinny isn’t enough, you’re body will never become stronger as a whole from traditional cardio (hence the “weak and skinny” outcome). But I can push your “cardio” through weight training.

Back when I was a trainer in NYC about 15 years ago, I put a heart rate monitor on me when I was squatting a heavy set of 5 reps. Guess what my heart rate was?

177bpm.

Yeah, pretty high. I was sweating and breathing hard so I was “getting my cardio in.” You will too.

The Top Five Best Ab Exercises For Men, Ever. Period.

There are so many great ab exercises, especially for men, that there’s not enough room to put them all in here. Here are what I think are the Top 5.

NOTE: These aren’t necessarily where you start, but definitely where you’ll want to progress to.

 

1. Hanging Leg Raises. These little babies are murder on your abs if done right. The problem is they’re really hard to do right. Doing them right means doing them slow and controlled maintaining tension on your abs the whole time. Most guys do them wrong and swing their legs up into the air.

 

 

2. The Squat – any kind. You better believe that your abs work when you squat, especially heavy, but it’s the systemic response that makes the Squat the “King of All Exercises.” Literally every muscle grows. Every hormone surges. Your body transforms over night and the fat just melts right off your stomach and sides. It’s really cool to experience.

 

3. The Deadlift. This has similar miraculous properties to the Squat. And to be fair, not everyone can or should squat, but EVERYONE can and should deadlift. One of the best ways to get a strong, well defined set of six pack abs is to have strong hips and a strong lower back. The Deadlift will get you both.

 

4. The Military Press. The Military Press used to be the classic test of a man’s upper body strength. That’s because you’ve got to be strong all over to push heavy weight over your head. And your abs have to be especially strong. In fact, the Military Press is probably the most underrated of all ab exercises for men because you develop a strong set of abs to go with that strong pair of shoulders too.

5. The Kettlebell Swing. This exercise might actually fall into the “fastest way to get a six pack” category. Might. Here’s why: These suckers are similar to the Deadlift, except they’re done explosively, through a bigger range of motion for a lot more reps – a lot of reps actually. This means you’re going to work all the muscle in your body at the same time, and you’re gonna breathe and sweat really hard. Really hard. You’ll see heart rates similar to what I mentioned earlier with my squat experiment. And when you do these correctly, you’ll actually feel your abs, along with everything else, working.

 

Are there other exercises you can do to get your six pack?

 

Sure. And you should do them. These are just the Top 5 – these are the ones you should aspire to get to as fast as you can, and do routinely once you can do them.

Well, there you have it – a complete “no-holds barred” primer to getting and keeping your very own set of six pack abs. Follow it, and you’ll be well on your way to getting a set of ripped abs and becoming “personally awesome.”

If you want something even more detailed – something with specifics like more in-depth eating and workout plans to help you reach “personal awesomeness” even faster, click here.