Hi Paul.
Abs are all about diet!
Exercise may etch them out a bit, or even build them in the first place if your seriously puny, but none of that will count for shit if your body fat percentage is too high.
Here’s what you really need to know.
The ‘Rectus Abdominis’, is named after the ‘rectum’, because of the amount of shit that comes out of six-pack abs trainer’s mouths!
Just fucking with you, but even so-called experts will talk of the rectus abdominis and the six-pack as if they’re one and the same, but they’re not.
Some people will have an 8 pack like this dude.
This is me by the way, after double Pie and Mash, so forgive my obvious bloat!
Other people may be less fortunate, and only have a 4 pack, such as the poor chap below!
Would you believe that’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, on the best day of his life!
So how hard would Arnie have had to train to get his abs as good as mine, the lazy fat Austrian Oak?
Ok, so it’s not me with the 8 pack, but the answer for Arnie is that he couldn’t have trained hard enough!
And neither can you unless you have enough bands of fascia crossing your abdominal area, which is a real shame if you’re a young lad struggling for something you’ll never attain.
Let me share something no dickhead gym trainer seems to understand.
Imagine a blown-up balloon.
Now imagine you have a bunch of elastic bands, and as you slip each band tightly over the balloon, the bulges you’ll see in the photos above are the bits of the rectus abdominis you can see sticking through the rubber bands.
So, in Arnold’s case, he obviously has less elastic bands (fascia bands), with which to work with, and so no amount of any ab exercise is going to change that.
Watch out for that, and the next time some wankey 25-year-old stud is trying to sell you a six-pack ab course with ‘Guaranteed Results’, you can call bullshit.
As your bodyfat levels reduce, you’ll soon be able to see the hand you’ve been dealt, and besides, a 4 pack has hardly held Arnie back, any more than it should you.
Ab Classes! Since when?
When people tell me; “my ab class is 45 minutes long”, I tell them “you can’t have been working abs then”!
After doing 5 to 10 minutes of abs with me, their only fit for the showers or the toilets, and the trendy juice bar can wait.
This is because most of the bullshit exercises taught in these classes aren’t even strictly ab exercises.
If you were working your abs effectively in isolation, they’d be fucked in 3 to 10 minutes’ max!
Besides which, a 45-minute ab class might burn fewer calories than a slice of bread, so it’s clearly as ineffective as any other exercise, in terms of weight management.
These classes are all about the core (Transverse Abdominis), which has much more endurance, plus the abs (rectus abdominis), the oblique’s (for twisting), the serratus for pulling your shoulders round, and if your breathing deeply enough, your intercostals.
Hip flexors are also heavily recruited in these so-called ‘Marathon Ab Sessions’, and this, plus just enough rest in-between sets, and yes, you could string out your midsection workout to 45 minutes.
But honestly, even if you were a professional boxer planning on getting punched in the gut for 12 rounds, or a serious track and field athlete, then 30 minutes of the above 45-minute routine, will be a complete waste of time.
So why do them?
Well, no one would have done 15 years ago, and further back than that, anyone proclaiming to be an ‘ab expert’, whose whole reason for being born was to wear a fucking six-pack and coach other idiots to do likewise, would have been laughed at!
Nor would I, or any other serious coach have believed you if you told us that people would pay these wankers good money to learn their ‘secrets’, which of course don’t exist.
But then back in the day, we didn’t have the internet, photoshop, access to the fat loss drugs, and social media pressurizing every youngster into believing ‘abs are the shit’.
So, when I see otherwise ‘puny as fuck’ guys wandering about with their shirts off, with their six packs proudly on display, I can’t help laughing, and if the girls have become that dumb that that’s what they want in a man, then so be it.
It used to be that a strong neck, arms, chest, broad shoulders, and a solid butt gave the girls the unconscious idea that this guy would not only be a good fuck, but also a strong protector that would make healthy babies.
Guys are way more feminine today than ever in history and considering homosexuals don’t breed, their certainly on the increase, meanwhile, the newest and biggest business in the medical world, are fertility clinics.
If you’re a guy reading this who’d actually cry at the sight of Leonardo Dicaprio going under in Titanic (a film you knew the punchline to before you went to see it), then I guess all you can hope to build will be a set of nice abs, since a great body, a strong family or character, will probably be out of the question.
My advice would be to avoid any ab class like the plague and take matters into your own hands.
Train your abs every day if you want (5 to 10 minutes and obviously not 45), they can certainly take it, just be mindful of what your goal is.
Whatever sport you may participate in, and there are no exceptions to this I can think of, then the chances are that your abs don’t come into play much when you’re on your back, or toes and elbows!
So for fuck sake ‘Stand Up’ when you’re working abs!
This is why these ab classes are a fucking joke, and from the coach’s perspective, he/she wants to keep maybe 20 or 50 people ‘herded’ into one small room or open gym area, each armed with their own yoga mat or swiss ball.
Therefore, by necessity, all the exercises in these classes will be on your back, side or front in some form of a plank.
Plus, these coaches often don’t even know what I’m banging on about here, as they aren’t athletes of any kind themselves, just pretty boys and girls, who know what the dumb arse public ‘want’, and are oblivious to what they actually ‘need’.
Your life pretty much takes place on your feet, doesn’t it?
And aside from things like wrestling and Judo (which all still start from standing), most sports do require that your ‘doing something’ on your feet, while your midsection (TVA, RA, Oblique’s, Serratus, Intercostals), are merely playing an important supporting role, which is worth remembering.
So, if a sportsperson in any way shape or form is reading this, then look to discover every standing midsection exercise involving pulleys, bands, a landmine barbell, kettlebells, medicine balls, Bosu balls, ropes and so on, because there are tons of them, they all work brilliantly, and will all pretty much translate into your sport, daily life, and work.
On that note, many people sit for 8 hours a day at work, sit for 2 hours commuting, 2 hours eating, and so on, which leads to very tight hip flexors.
Keep that in mind before you start doing tons of ‘knees bent’ top-down, or bottom-up type of exercises for your abs, which can make things worse, and another reason why standing workouts are so important.
For pretty boys/girls who don’t give a toss about sport/functionality, then just pick 1 good top-down (where your trying to move or ‘curl’ your upper body towards your knees, like crunches), 1 good bottom-up (trying to move your lower body or knees towards your trunk), 1 great rotational exercise, and one core stability drill (like a plank), into each of your workouts.
There are dozens from each of those 4 types to choose from, and since your midsection will adapt to the same old thing very quickly, find a different four for each workout and you’ll always keep your abs guessing, because you’ll only ever need to repeat a foursome every 5th ab workout (because there are so many to choose from).
Do no more than 3 sets of each of the 4 exercises, and each set should take no more than a minute to complete.
Abs recover very quickly, which is how these spastics manage to survive a 45-minute ab class and still come away smiling, so try and go from one set to the next, and only take a rest in between when you absolutely need to.
There’s no ‘Geneva Convention’ that says you need a fucking rest after any exercise, let alone 1 to 3 minutes’ in-between sets, so get stuck in and see how quickly you can get through your 12 total sets.
The whole thing should take no more than 12 to15 minutes, and if it does, then you’re not yet ready for 3 sets of each exercise, so dial it back to 2.
Or you can be a faggot, and take 2 minutes’ rest in between sets if telling people, you ‘do’ 12 sets of abs (or kidding yourself), is more important than results.
Also, bear in mind that people pay for these classes, and the minimum time most people will perceive as good value for the money, is around 45 minutes.
It’s a shame people don’t value payment for results, over payment for perceived value in time, compared to something else, but then how much would a gym junkie be prepared to pay for my 10-minute ab session, and where would the money be in that for the coach or gym owner?
How Long Should You Train?
Be mindful of anyone who tells you they spend 2 hours or more in a gym each session.
Chances are they spent 1 of those hours standing around ‘recovering’, chatting, drinking, or taking selfies.
Well, you know what, you have friends who spend an hour a day standing on fucking subway platforms, and you don’t hear them bragging about that, do you?
So this idea of being impressed by gym rats who tell of spending 10 hours or more working out each week, is nonsense.
If anyone asks you how long you train for, always use my bog standard answer; “times not important, its effort and intensity that matters, so I’m in and out for just as long as it takes to finish my routine, and not a minute longer”
I know a guy at my local gym who’s obviously been asked ‘how long do you work out for’ a thousand times. He’s 60, and since he’s been training for 30 years and in reasonable shape, his opinions are often consulted.
But somehow, he must have enjoyed the response he got from people more when he told them 1.5 hours a workout than when he told them just 1 hour.
And likewise, 2 hours a session rather than 1.5, got an even better response still.
He’s now one of these guys who ponces around on the weights for half an hour, then has a coffee at the juice bar, before doing his Pilates class.
After which he ponces around for another hour on the weights, before enjoying his much-needed smoothie, or post workout protein shake.
Some days he even does a morning class on top of this evening routine.
This dude is such a nice chap, and will always stop and take time to talk to any of the dozens of people he knows in the gym. He also always showers there too, which is fine.
My point being, is that I’ve heard this man tell impressed people (usually none the wiser females), that he spends 3 to 4 hours in the gym each day, and he’s not lying, is he?
He looks half decent as I said, but he could easily have the exact same physique and other benefits, for less than an hour a day, guaranteed.
That would give him an extra 10 to 15 hours a week to study, write a book, be with his family, or whatever floats his boat, which I’m guessing, is ‘being at the gym’, oh, and telling people he’s been to the gym, though I suspect not in that order!
Unless you’re an athlete with tons of specific skills to practice for 2 hours, twice a day, then amazing goals and achievements can be had from getting in and out inside 1 hour of actual training time (including warm ups and cool downs).
I know many people who truly value their time, that get done and dusted inside 45-50 minutes, with amazing results.
More is seldom better when it comes to exercise, so be careful who you listen to.
All the best,
Blunt Coach Andy
