Years ago, I had a moment of clarity by a swimming pool. I had been busting my ass in the gym all winter, training with heavy weights in an all-out effort to get jacked.
When summer finally came around and I stood by that swimming pool, I took my shirt off and hated what I looked like. Sure, I had some muscle to show off but my abs remained hidden behind a layer of belly fat.
I realized right there that the way I trained as summer approached had to change. I had to put more emphasis on training my abs directly and doing the thing I never wanted to do: cardio.
Over the next few years, I began improving my cardio by eliminating the dreaded steady-state cardio and shifting my focus toward conditioning.
Instead of boring multi-mile runs on a treadmill, I started running sprints, selling my soul on an Assault Air Bike, torturing myself on a Concept2 Rower, and powering through the SkiErg.
I started training my abs in ways that no one else in the gym was. Instead of doing crunches and planks, I jumped on a pull-up bar and swung my legs up until my midsection felt like it was on fire.
And my strength training began to reflect my goal of getting abs. Instead of pumping out sets of dumbbell curls, I did heavy compound movements that used multiple muscle groups at once and turned my body into a metabolic machine.
I did the same thing this year in preparation for summer. I wrote down exactly what I did and put together a month-long workout plan that I guarantee will work for you.
Most of us will admit to wanting killer abs, but very few of us ever have a solid plan on how to accomplish it. Until now.
Perhaps the best indicator of losing enough body fat is when we can see our abs.
The only way to lose body fat around our stomachs and get our abs popping is to make it our primary goal.
One of the biggest mistakes I often see people make when trying to accomplish this is not having a plan. This 30-day plan is your guide to making it happen and its entire focus is on tightening up your midsection.
To get there, let’s clear up some of the confusion and get you on the right track.
Ab training by itself is not going to burn fat and give you a washboard stomach. Cardio by itself won’t give you abs, either.
But, if you do them together and add in some strength training with compound movements and the right nutrition strategy, it becomes nearly impossible to not be ripped.
Planks and crunches are a waste of time.
To properly activate and grow a muscle, it needs to stretch and overcome resistance. Neither planks nor crunches do this.
Instead, the core movements in this program will induce hypertrophy in our abs, leading to actual growth that will make them pop.
