I'm very lean—less than 10 percent body fat—but I still have only two visible segments of my six-pack. How do I get the final four?
When I first started working out in a commercial gym, circa 1980, there was this guy who'd come in and start his workout with a set of full situps on a slant board, which was the opposite of what everyone else in that little proto-Bally's was doing back then. We were doing hundreds of cute little crunches while he was doing dozens of nasty situps. Guess who had the abs?
I like the full-range-of-motion ab exercises, as opposed to the truncated crunch variations, for three reasons: One, full situps are harder, and I think harder is better. Two, they force other muscles in your thighs and trunk to help with the exercise, and I believe the more muscle you use, the more muscle you build. Nature didn't design your muscles to work in isolation; why try to build them that way? Three, their reputation as being hard on a healthy back is exaggerated. (There's some risk, but not more than in exercises such as reverse crunches, which no one regards as dangerous.)
Here's how to do the full situp on a slant board: Hook your feet under the braces, lower yourself until your lower back is flat against the bench, then pull yourself up to a full sitting position.
As you get better at it, you can lower the angle of the slant board and increase your knee angle—that is, put your butt farther from your heels. I like to do this exercise with straight legs. From that elongated position, first push your lower back against the board, flattening your spine, then start curling up.
What's the best ab exercise?
Studies have shown that one exercise or another works certain abdominal muscles harder than other ab exercises do. But within each study you'll find lots of variation from one participant to the next—what works the upper abs hardest for one person in the study might work the lower abs hardest for another. The best exercise for you is probably the one that feels as if it's working your muscles the most while you're doing it.
Examples: A couple of years ago, I started doing stability exercises for the first time. The best-known of these is the plank, also called the bridge, also called that damned painful thing you do on your elbows and toes. You've seen it in MH a bunch of times—you rest your weight on your forearms and toes, pull your abs in tight, and hold your body in a straight line from shoulders to heels. After a few weeks of doing this twice a week—along with the similar side bridge, in which you rest your weight on one forearm and the outer edge of the same-side foot while holding your body straight as a pencil—I noticed muscles on the sides of my waist that I'd never seen before. I could feel those muscles working hard, and sure enough, those muscles grew.
Another time, mostly out of boredom, I decided to do sets of 100 crunches on a Swiss ball. My abs felt as if they'd been stoned (in the biblical sense), and within a couple of weeks, they looked distinctly more rocky.
I've followed every bit of advice you've ever offered, and still have excess flesh right below my belly button. How do I get rid of it?
Since my advice hasn't worked, I went to a higher authority. "It's 100 percent diet, and it's the obvious stuff," says Jose Antonio, Ph.D., sports nutritionist and co-host of the Performance Nutrition radio show. "Eliminate processed carbohydrates. If it comes in a package, don't eat it."
If you've already tried eliminating junk carbs—fiberless cereals, sodas, "low-fat" baked goods—try something more advanced: Separate carbohydrates and fat, so you never eat both in the same meal. Ideally, you alternate between the nonfat and the noncarb meals throughout the day, with each meal containing some protein. This is a technique recommended by John Berardi, PhD., adjunct assistant professor in the department of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas at Austin who does individualized diet consultation at johnberardi.com.
It's easier to recommend than to implement. But I use it when I need to take off a pound or two of fat, and it works every time. A few examples of how to do it:
Breakfast
No Fat: High-fiber cereal with blueberries and nonfat milk
No (or low) Carbs: Eggs with low-fat meat
Lunch
No Fat: Sandwich made with turkey breast, whole-wheat bread, lettuce, tomatoes, and mustard
No (or low) Carbs: Tuna salad with mayonnaise
Dinner
No Fat: Baked skinless chicken breast, sweet potato, and salad with nonfat dressing
No (or low) Carbs: Sirloin steak and mixed- green salad (which has very few carbohydrates) with olive-oil-based dressing
Snack
No Fat: Nonfat yogurt, fruit
No (or low) Carbs: Peanut butter
My abs don't line up evenly. Is there anything I can do to make them straight?
Other than take away their show-tune collections, no, there's nothing you can do to straighten your abs. But look on the bright side: Even asymmetrical abs are still abs. And let's not forget that Owen McKibbin, the most popular cover model in this magazine's history, has crooked midbody muscles. (His ears are kind of funny looking, too.)
How often should I work my abs?
