THESE DAYS, HAVING SIX-PACK ABS is basically synonymous with being sexy and in shape. For men, this means a washboard stomach. The goal is a little different for women: less defined but flat, lean, and toned.
Fitness magazines are constantly touting new ab workouts. Fancy new supplements are released every month that promise to kick your fat burning into high gear and help you get a lean, rippling stomach. There are quite a few “ab gurus” online selling eBooks on the secrets of getting a six-pack.
At first glance, the belief that ab training gives you great abs seems to make sense. That’s basically true with any other muscle in the body, so it must also hold true for the abs, right?
Well, not quite.
While direct ab training will grow the muscle over time, just as with any muscle, you’re not just going for bigger ab muscles—you’re going for visibility. That is, if you have a beautifully developed set of abs hiding under a layer of fat, you just look fat.
A study conducted by Southern Illinois University Edwardsville demonstrated this very clearly with 24 healthy adults1. A control group did nothing different, and the other did 140 repetitions of ab work 5 days per week for 6 weeks. After the training period, the ab training group saw no change in body weight, body fat percentage, abdominal circumference, or abdominal skinfold measurements. Although their abs were stronger, they looked exactly the same.
So the good news is you don’t have to train your abs for hours and hours every week to have a six pack. In fact, you don’t have to train them at all. What do you have to do?
If you’re a guy, the mystical secret to a sexy stomach is to get your body fat percentage under 12%. Yup, that’s it. When your body fat percentage approaches 10%, your abs become clearly visible whether you directly train them or not. If you’re a woman, getting your body fat percentage under 20% will get you a flat, lean, toned stomach. That’s all there is to it (although exact numbers vary by body type, of course).
While reducing body fat percentage requires nothing more than making sure your body burns more energy every day than it gets from food, there are a few little tricks that have been scientifically proven to speed up the loss of not just fat, but abdominal fat in particular. The first is known as fasted training.
FASTED TRAINING HELPS REDUCE ABDOMINAL FAT
When you eat food, your body breaks it down into various substances, one of which is glucose, or blood sugar. Your body also releases the hormone insulin, which tells your liver, muscles, and fat tissue to take the glucose from the blood and store it.
Your liver and muscles store the glucose as a substance known as glycogen, and your fat cells store it as a substance known as triglycerides. The storage of glycogen expands the size of the muscle cells, and the storage of triglycerides expands the fat cells, which in turn expands your waistline.
When you’re in this fed state, fat burning does not occur. Your body uses the glucose in the blood for all its energy needs and stores the excess. Depending on how much you eat, this state can last for several hours.
But, as the nutrients recently eaten are absorbed, insulin levels decline, and the body senses that its post-meal energy is running out. It then shifts toward burning fat stores to meet its energy needs. Day after day, it juggles these states, storing nutrients you eat and then burning its stores when the supplies run out.
When insulin is at a baseline level, your body is in a fasted state and therefore relies on its energy stores. For a moderate-sized meal, it takes 2–3 hours for your body to enter this state. When exercise is performed in this state, fat loss is accelerated. Weight training in a fasted state is particularly effective. As an added bonus, research has shown that weightlifting in a fasted state results in an improved anabolic response to a post-workout meal.
A fasted state is also great for that six pack because it increases blood flow in the abdominal region, resulting in more stubborn fat mobilization. And it gets even better: Fasted training first thing in the morning has an added benefit since fasting for longer than 6 hours increases your body’s ability to burn fat8. There is one significant drawback: accelerated breakdown of muscle tissue. Fortunately, this is simple to prevent. Supplementing with BCAAs 10–15 minutes before training will suppress muscle breakdown during your workout.
A fasted state is also great for that six pack because it increases blood flow in the abdominal region, resulting in more stubborn fat mobilization. And it gets even better: Fasted training first thing in the morning has an added benefit since fasting for longer than 6 hours increases your body’s ability to burn fat8. There is one significant drawback: accelerated breakdown of muscle tissue. Fortunately, this is simple to prevent. Supplementing with BCAAs 10–15 minutes before training will suppress muscle breakdown during your workout.
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