The Elusive 6-Pack Stomach

By Team Beachbody

The hottest area of interest when it comes to fitness is narrowing the waistline, flattening the stomach, and achieving that elusive "6-pack" look for the beach.

Guess what? You can do it, but you need to attack it from two angles.

1. From the inside out.Your abs are muscles, hidden below whatever pizza, pasta and desserts you've been enjoying. So as long as you approach them in your fitness routine like any other muscle group (chest, arms, legs, etc.) they will respond and both tone up and get more defined.

Walk around any fitness center and you will be amazed at how little people understand about working the abdominals. They'll knock out 10 repetitions on this contraption, then do a few crunches, then get right back on the weight bench or treadmill thinking they've attacked the entire abdominal plate. But they've only scratched the surface.

Because of the way the body uses leverage to lift (or bend) at the waist, to get a great ab workout you need to focus on each area of the abs in a specific sequence so the body can't focus on just one section of the muscles and ignore, say, the obliques, or the lower abs. We call that Sectional Progression(TM), and all it means is that you want to thoroughly challenge each section for a burst of reps, then move onto the next until you've exhausted the area. Follow that advice each time you work out, and you will see amazing results in weeks.

Avoid contraptions that promise a 3-minute shortcut. The abs need repetition to tone and define, again, just like any muscle group. We've found that with between 6 and 7 minutes of rapid reps you can get a thorough ab routine out of the way. Anything more and you're probably going to get lesser results for the time, and add strain to your back. It's not necessary.

Here are the five moves we recommend:

1. Basic Crunch: hands locked behind head, elbows wide, eyes up, keep your chin off your chest. Knees bent, feet on the floor. (10-20 reps.) Don't pull on the neck—keep your chin off your chest!
   
2. Oblique Crunch: drop your knees to one side and continue to do crunches to the side—focus on the oblique. Repeat on the other side. (10-20 reps.)
   
3. Bicycles: keep hands behind head, lift feet off floor (straight legs), then pull one knee up to the opposite elbow. You don't have to touch the knee to the elbow to be successful, and again, don't pull on your neck! (10-20 reps.)
   
4. Hip Rocks: keep arms behind head, bring your feet together, knees spread as you try to touch the bottoms of your feet together. Rock your feet up and then down to touch the floor, keeping your knees wide for the entire movement. (10-20 reps.)
   
5. Superman Crunch: legs straight up in the air toward the ceiling. Hands together at the thumbs as if you're Superman flying through the air. Reach up toward your toes, touch them if possible, but touching not required. It's a small motion that works the upper and mid section of the abs. (10-20 reps.)

2. From the outside in.We sound like a broken record, but to see those beautiful ab muscles that everyone has, you have to trim the outer padding. That means controlling caloric intake so you gradually reduce those inches. As you start to see the combination of caloric control and ab work result in defined abs (in about 2-3 weeks) it starts to get easier. For most, in less than 60 days you can have that 6-pack you've dreamed about.

And there is no better feeling than slipping into a bathing suit when your abs look defined and flat. All you have to do is the Beachbody one-two punch. Work the abs properly, and trim off the outer layer of padding.

Tip: The price of the machine has nothing to do with its effect on your abs. Remember football great Herschel Walker? He was featured in Sports Illustrated with the perfect set of abs—accomplished through a well-rounded routine of ab crunches to hit the entire abdominal area.

For a complete ab routine in just 7 minutes a day, consider Beachbody's "GREAT ABS GUARANTEED!"