The Best Way to Work Your Abs is to Shut Your Mouth

It happened again today. Someone approached me in the gym and asked to see my abs. As is usual, after I obliged by pulling up my shirt and flexing a little, they asked me what I do to keep my 6 pack so sharp, "what ab exercises do you do?"



Also, as usual, they were shocked and didn't believe me when I replied, "absolutely nothing." Those who work out with me on a regular basis know that I was telling the truth. I don't work abs. Oh sure, I work on my hip flexers as the snowboard season approaches ( it really helps me with my grabs), and I have worked abs with heavy weights in the past, but I really haven't done any regular ab work in the past 15 years.

And yet my abs are sharp, one of my best body parts. How can that be?

The answer is two fold. First, I work out damn hard; heavy squats, leg presses, and dead lifts along with weighted chins, dips, and "cheating" triceps presses, all of which work my mid section to one degree or another.

Second, I am extremely lean. I never let my body fat get above 8% and most of the time it's in the 6-7% range. I get down to about 5% for competition. With so little fat on my frame, those abs that have been naturally developed through decades of heavy lifting stand out quite nicely. Most people will start to see a very nice 6 pack at about 10% body fat.

For most people, I would suggest a similar protocol. Develop your abs through heavy lifting and sports and then get rid of the flab to let them show.

It absolutely amazes me how much time is spent, I should say wasted, doing abdominal exercises in an effort to display that coveted six pack. Folks spend countless hours doing dozens of variations of crunches, keg raises, and twists thinking that they're "working the core" and will soon show the deeply etched mid-section of a fitness model.

The main trouble with this approach is that ab exercises by themselves burn very few calories and thus really don't help you get lean. And because the fat is really deposited as a layer beneath your skin and is not attached to or a part of the muscle at all, ab exercises do nothing to reduce the fat that covers your abs. You have to have heard that there is no such thing as spot reducing.

There are really only two ways to get rid of this excessive layer of fat. Either exercise more or eat less. Although these two approaches are highly complimentary, working best when employed together, eating less is by far the most important of the two. As I tell my colleagues and clients, "you can't out exercise a bad diet." In fact, it's easy to blow away two hours of intense exercise with 5 minutes of unhealthy eating. So, if you want to see those abs that I guarantee are going to be there if you lift hard and heavy, don't put either excessive amounts of, or unhealthy, food in your mouth.

As I said in my title, "the best way to work your abs is to close your mouth."