13 Never-Dying Myths About Six Pack Abs

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Myth 1: You Can’t Have Six Pack Abs

This statement is as ridiculous as saying you can’t have a biceps or a triceps. You know you have both of these muscles, right?

Well abs are no different. You already have them. You just don’t see them, because they are covered by unattractive belly fat. You don’t have to be excessively overweight to not to be able to see your abs. As low as 2-5 millimeters of fat layer around your midsection can fade out definition of your abs completely.

Ultra leanness is necessary for the whole package of six pack abs to be visible. The lower your body fat level is, the more chiseled your midsection is going to look. You can have visible abs regardless your genetics and other factors if you want it bad enough. You just have to know what to do.

Myth 2: You Get Abs By Doing Ab Exercises

At some point this may seem a logical step to follow, but in the reality it’s just your precious time thrown out in the trash. You could do ab exercises for an hour a day for a year straight and still have a zero sign of six pack abs.

While you can develope your abdominal muscles by doing ab exercises, your abs still won’t be visible while there are layers of fat sitting on top of them. Most people already have enough abdominal development so all they have to do is to shred that fat off.

But you can’t destroy that belly fat by doing ab exercises. That’s because ab exercises do not reduce belly fat. I didn’t come up with this. Researchers did.

I hope you know understand that there is just no point of tuning your mustang if you will never drive it out the garage.

Myth 3: Supplements Are Required To Burn Fat

Nope. The only thing that is required to start melting unwanted fat is a constant energy deficit. You can achieve that by consuming less or burning more calories.

While there are some supplements that can give you a little boost, none of them will ever work if you won’t have a caloric deficit. Period.

Supplements contain calories too you know.

Fat burners + caloric maintanance level or surpluss = wasted your hardly earned money

Use supplements to go slightly beyond your normal capabilities, but only if you track your total daily energy intake and your total daily energy expenditure. Anyways before you invest in any of the supplements, check the supplement bible whether it is worth the bucks. There are many popular supplements that have been proven ineffective in researches.

Myth 4: Abs Are Made In The Kitchen

Not so fast space cowboy! Although this statement is partially true, it’s not 100% true either. Because you have to train your abs, but not necessarily in the kitchen. Just sayin’.

The thing is, you could diet down to ultra lean levels, but it won’t guarantee that your abs will pop out. If you want to develope eye catching six pack abs, you still need to train your abdominal muscles.

Ab training is a must for skinny guys who lack lean muscle mass. But for those who have excess body fat, the main focus still should be on lowering body fat level thanks to a discreet nutritional plan.

Myth 5: You Can Shape Your Abs

Unfortunately no.

Genetics will determine the configuration of your six pack abs. Some abs line up evenly, some abs don’t. For some people those blocks of abs are symmetrical, for some they are not. There is nothing you can do about it except love it and embrace what your momma gave you.

But it would be great if it was possible as the shape of my six pack abs is not regular.

To be clear, I am talking here about the shape – form, width, heigth and number of your abdominal blocks. You still can fix abdominal imbalances that exist in professional sport like bobsleigh. And you can build thickness of your abs as well.

Myth 6: You Need a Gym To Get Fit

You know what I think…that’s just a lame excuse. You can have an amazing and super effective wokrout at home with zero equipment in about 5-15 minutes a day.

Check out Lisa’s body from BodyRock.tv or those guys from Barstarrz.

If you can’t find as less as 5 minutes for a burst workout at home, then you should think over your life and your priorities. Cut out TV time, browsing social networks, spend little bit less time in a shower, wake up few minutes earlier, work out while you cook your breakfast… just don’t say you can’t find time before you haven’t really tried.

Myth 7: Training Abs With High-reps Is Correct

Not exactly. It depends what you are looking to achieve.

You see, your abs are no different than any other muscle in your body. Why would you want to treat them differently? 50 repetitions of the bicep curls won’t help you to build big “guns”, neither 50 and more reps of sit-ups and crunches.

To develope thickness of your six pack abs, it requires added resistance for low rep count.

Myth 8: There Is One Killer Ab Exercise

Actually, there are a bunch of different and effective ab exercises. One better than the other, but none of them is the best. The thing is, even the top exercises get less and less effective over the time if you do them constantly.

That’s because your abs get used to a particular stimulus and a movement. What you need to do is to change from exercise to exercise to promote muscle confusion.

Almost every time when you introduce a new and challenging exercise into your ab workout routine, you’ll notice that that exercise was the bomb. The real killer.

Myth 9: You Can Isolate Upper And Lower Abs

Six pack abs is one muscle called Rectus Abdominis. So technically you can’t isolate upper or lower abs. But what you can do is emphasize a particular part of the muscle choosing the appropriate exercise.

Doing ab exercises like crunches where you ar required to curl your upper body, work more your upper part of the Rectus Abdominis. On the other hand in exercise like reverse crunch where you curl your hips up, the lower part of the muscle will be more engaged.

Myth 10: You Must Do a Lot Of Cardio

Neither it’s a must, nor it’s necessary.

Classical steady state cardio burns calories, right? Right. But instead of spending an hour on a treadmill to burn 200 calories, you can cut the same amount of calories off your diet. Simply with no hustle.

What is more. Excessive cardio training may do more harm than good. You see, steady state cardio burns calories only in the moment and usually do not engage your muscles at the same degree as strength and high intensity interval training does. Which means you do not stimulate your muscles enough to signal your body that you need them.

So at some point your body starts breaking your lean muscle tissues down for the energy. Especially if you are on a low calorie diet.

Running on a treadmill for 30 minutes or more is literally like taking a pill for muscle loss. As a result your metabolic rate decreases and your fat loss progress shuts down.

A lot of cardio paired with a caloric deficit = “skinny fat”

Myth 11: You Must Do a Low Carb Diet

Not at all. Carbs are not evil as you may have been told to. Actually they are little angels that give you the energy, keep your brain functioning, normalize your digestion and minimize the risk of chronic diseases, even cancers.

Carbohydrates do not load your body up with exess body fat as long as you do not over do the quantity.

Low or no carb diets are not lifelong sustainable. Carbohydrates are needed for the central nervous system, the kidneys, the brain, the muscles, including your heart to function properly.

Therof if you want six pack abs and at the same time you want to enjoy life at it’s fullest, this approach is not for you.

Myth 12: Dietary Fats Make You Gain Fat

Although fats get stored as fat more quickly than other nutrients, they are not making you fat as long as you eat the right type of fats and do not overdo the quantity.

The truth is, you need healthy fatty acids in your diet to boost fat loss.

The secret of abs doesn’t rely on excluding any macronutrient out of your diet.

Myth 13: There Is a Shortcut

Contrary to all the ads floating on the Internet, there is no shortcut to the six pack abs. There is no secret exercises, diets, magic pills only bodybuilders or fitness models know about.

The truth is getting ripped six pack abs takes time and discipline. How long it will take for you to get visible abs depends on your current starting position, your motivation, your workout and nutritional strategy you choose to follow.

Is any myth about six pack abs missing here?

Do you know any more myths about abs? Leave a comment below and let me know.

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About Matiss Bartulis

Sweets and pizza addict. Online and real-life fitness coach. Author of the "From Fat To Six Pack" E-mail training course. You can find him on Google+ and Facebook.

Comments

  1. “Myth 2” isn’t a myth, and you said so yourself when you explained the most annoying myth of all, Myth 4.