The perfect six-pack. How to get it?

A perfect six-pack is a dream of many men. However, achieving it is not an easy task, especially when training at the gym is not your favourite way of spending time, and your diet leaves a lot to be desired. So how do you go about sculpting your abdomen?

The perfect six-pack: start with a diet!

A slim, sculpted figure is now the ideal that many men aspire to. Just look at the ads for men’s clothes, accessories and other items aimed at men – they feature tall, slim guys with broad shoulders and ideal abdominal muscles.

Achieving such a figure is only possible with a combination of natural physical conditions and hard work at the gym, as well as a proper diet. If you too dream of a perfect six-pack, first of all you need to take a look at your diet. The first step to improving the appearance of your abdominal muscles is to get rid of the fat layer, and this won’t work without introducing healthy eating habits. Here are the golden rules of a proper diet:

• 5 meals at fixed times,
• vegetables and fruit should constitute 50% of each meal,
• exclusion of fast food, stimulants, highly processed products from the diet,
• proper hydration – at least 2 liters of water a day.

Of course, this is only a fraction of the necessary changes you need to make in your daily life. When implementing a new diet, it is always a good idea to consult a dietician, who will help you establish an individual menu, which will help you prepare balanced meals. You can also take advantage of the increasingly popular boxed diets, which allow you to significantly reduce your intake of fat and other ingredients that negatively affect your figure.

Workout is the key to success!

It’s clear that diet alone can’t create a perfect six-pack. In order to do so, you need to train your abdominal muscles in a way that evenly activates their different parts. Remember that each workout must consist of a warm-up, proper part and stretching.

What’s more, when creating a training plan we should not focus solely on the abdomen, as this will lead to an uneven silhouette, and what’s more, it can cause pain, for example in the back. Exercises should involve as many muscles as possible, with particular emphasis on the abdominal region. The widely held belief that slapping on hundreds of sit-ups every day will give you a perfect tummy has nothing to do with the truth! Training must be balanced and be in correlation with diet.

How to start?

How do I go about training for the perfect six-pack? It depends on your body shape. If you’re a slim person, you’ll start working on sculpting muscle almost immediately

If your belly is hidden under a fold of fat, then you need to get rid of it first, using the so-called cardio training, which guarantees to speed up metabolism and burn fat tissue. At the beginning half an hour three times a week is enough. With time you should gradually extend it. What can we include in such a workout? Intensive swimming, running or cycling, for example, are excellent options.

Abdominal muscle sculpting

Once satisfactory fat burning effects appear, then exercises aimed at sculpting abdominal muscles should be included. Remember that they must involve all the parts located in their area, i.e. straight, oblique and transverse muscles

Exercises for a perfect six-pack are many, but it is enough to choose a few of them, and then perform them in 2 series at the beginning, with time increasing the number to 3-4 series, and in the long run diversifying them. Here are some sample exercises:

• plank – this is one of the most popular exercises that involves all the abdominal muscles; when performing it, however, remember not to lift the hips too high – they should be placed on an equal level with the back;
• lift your knees in a sit-up – sit on the floor, legs joined and straight at the knees; then slightly tilt your torso back and bend your joined legs at the knees and lift them above the ground – your body forms a V – then straighten your legs, keeping them above the ground and bend them again. At first, you can slightly support yourself with your arms, but over time, try to keep them folded over your chest;
• scissors – lying on your back, raise your legs 45 degrees off the ground and swing your legs, alternating between one at the top and the other.

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