My friend Ben Greenfield has a system to help triathletes gain muscle the right way, which will help them to get “ripped”, without being bulky, get rid of the “skinny-fat” syndrome that plagues many of us, and even to slim down with the right weight training and diet. Here is an article he wrote on getting a flat stomach. Towards the end, he mentions the diet aspects to this, and I say this can’t be emphasized enough. You could have the perfect workout, but if you are still eating the wrong foods, you will never see those muscles shine through!
How to Get A Flat Stomach
by Ben Greenfield
Whether it’s a sign of health, beauty, virility, or movie star status, a flat stomach is something that many people all over the world crave. This is because a flat stomach is so hard to get, it can indicate full-body power or virility, and it is essential to powerful performance. In this article, you’ll learn how to get a flat stomach safely, effectively, and with zero liposuction involved.
Despite what many folks appear to believe, six-pack abs are not six soda-can shaped muscles that sit under the skin of your stomach, somehow magically filling and emptying as you become more or less fit.
Instead, your stomach muscles are made up of four basic groups that, like most muscles, appear to be named by ancient Latin monks:
The key to better abs, which most people neglect when trying to get a flat stomach, is a training program that targets each of these muscles, and not just one of them. You simply can’t train just one single muscle group of the stomach in isolation and expect for your abs to look fit, trim, toned, ripped or flat. Instead, you need to train all the stomach muscles in a functional, multi-muscle manner.
This is same reason why people who want nice arms can’t just do bicep curls, but also need to do pull-ups and deadlifts, and why people who want a better butt can’t just do lying hamstring curls, but also need to exercises do squats and lunges. The body responds best when we train entire muscle groups that surround our “trouble spot,” and not just the isolated trouble spot. So people who want a flat stomach can’t only do crunches.
So if this type of multi-muscle training is a goal, what would a flat stomach workout look like?
You should work your stomach muscles every 2-3 days, including abdominal exercise as part of a scheduled cardio workout or weight training workout. For your flat stomach training, you should include one exercise for each of the abdominal muscle groups, and also one exercise for your lower back.
So during a typical flat stomach workout, you would include several sets of a flexing exercise, a twisting exercise, a planking exercise and an extending exercise.
No matter how well you’ve developed your stomach muscles, you need to get rid of layers of stomach fat that can cover up your abs. Here are three tips to get rid of that last little bit of flab around your waistline:
Pillar 1: Weight Training
Pillar 2: High-Intensity Cardio Intervals
Pillar 3: Aerobic Fat-Burning Sessions
Weight training alone or cardio alone is often not enough to erase that last bit of storage fat, so use of the modes above in your training routine.
Using the tips in this article, you can get the perfect musculature for a flat stomach, develop a functional core that gives you powerful physical performance, and lose belly fat.
Sign Up to Get 6 Ways to Gain Strength for Triathlon AND Build a Better Body!
Receive our 6 part series with tips on how to get: