So you are wondering why your abs are not growing or showing?
Without a doubt you’ve all seen those people at the gym – you know, the ones who spend hours doing one abs exercise after another trying to achieve that coveted six pack.
Unfortunately it never quite materialises and before long they don’t bother renewing their gym membership.
It’s not surprising – who wouldn’t be frustrated and discouraged after spending so much time and effort to build a solid core only to come up short?
Well first let us give you the good news.
The great thing about fitness and bodybuilding is that there is a direct correlation between the time and effort you put in and the results you get.
If you do cardio 6 times per week you will lose weight. If you do the right exercises, progressively overload and eat a clean diet you will get bigger.
However, when it comes to developing your core, things are a big trickier. It makes sense – six packs are pretty rare so to actually get one is quite an accomplishment.
The reason six pack abs are so rare is not entirely due to lack of effort – it’s because people are approaching it the wrong way and focusing on activities that are not effective.
To get six pack abs you need to train intelligently but most importantly you need a clean diet with calorie deficit.
Working out abs every day of the week with every possible exercise out there won’t help you – in fact, it will actually make the process more difficult! So why exactly is your six pack program not working?
Check out the reasons below.
6 REASONS WHY YOUR ABS AREN’T GROWING & SHOWING
1 – YOU TRY TO SPOT-REDUCE FAT
Listen guys, as much as we would like it to be the case you simply can’t reduce spot on a particularly part of your body by doing lots of exercises there.
That means you can’t do hundreds of crunches expecting to lose fat over your stomach. So how can you lose that fat?
Well, you can’t target it directly in any way – you simply have to lose fat throughout your body and over time you will gradually lose it on your stomach as well.
What kind of sucks about the whole thing is that your stomach tends to be the last place you lose fat yet the first place you gain it.
As you can imagine this makes achieving and maintaining six pack abs that much more difficult.
Stick to a clean diet and eat clean. Do some cardio but don’t neglect resistance training. Over time your body composition will improve but it is a very gradual process.
2 – YOU WORK ABS EVERY DAY
Do you train chest every day? How about legs? (If you even train them period, that is). Abs should be no different – they need time to recover like any other muscle group.
Remember that your abs don’t grow while you exercise – they grow during the recovery phase. Abs should not be trained any more than once every 3 days or 2.5x per week.
This will allow your abs to recover properly and also give you more time to train important lifts like deadlift, bench press and squats.
Most of the time you spend in the gym should be dedicated to training the major compound lifts listed above.
These are the ones that will build mass, increase testosterone levels and ultimately transform your body. In fact, many of these exercises work your abs heavily as the core muscles are recruited to keep your body straight and balanced.
3 – THEY ARE NOT VISIBLE
A lot of guys with six pack abs actually don’t have very strong core muscles.
What do we mean by this? Well, most of us have a nice layer of fat covering our abs which prevents us from seeing the six-pack.
Once you shed that fat away they all of a sudden become visible. However, it’s possible that your abs haven’t actually become any stronger – they are just visible because you no longer have a layer of fat covering them.
What we are trying to say here is that it doesn’t matter how many advanced-level ab exercises you can perform.
If your body fat % is too high you won’t see them, period. Men need to get their body fat in the single digits to get visibility. Start performing some high intensity cardio and eat a calorie deficit to melt that fat away!6 Reasons Why Your Abs Aren’t Growing & Showing
4 – YOU ONLY DO CRUNCHES
Crunches are the most popular ab exercise out there as they don’t require much in the way of equipment or skill.
However, they don’t actually work the entire core – just the top part.
While building this part of the six pack is important you will want to work every area in order to build a nice, well-rounded physique.
Start adding in exercises like planks to help keep the stomach tight, as well as rotating exercises that hit the oblique and help give you that v-cut.
Some great exercises you should be doing include bicycle crunches, leg raises and cable crunches.
5 – YOU AREN’T INCREASING INTENSITY
Are you still benching the same weight as you did a year ago? Then why do you think that doing the same ab routine for years will improve your physique?
Remember that your abs work like any other muscle – they respond to progressive overload.
If crunches are becoming too easy then try doing them with a dumbbell or plate on your chest.
Similarly, do sit-ups on a decline bench to make them more challenging. Keep increasing the difficulty and your abs will respond by growing.
6 – YOU AREN’T USING A FAT BURNER
Did you know many guys have a slow metabolism and are fat without abs because of it ?
If you are one of those unlucky guys that has a slow metabolism there are a number of things you can do to fix that.
Make sure you are sleeping enough, eating healthy, exercising regularly and taking in the right ingredients.
The best way to supercharge your metabolism and lose fat is taking in an all natural fat burner. – See the best 3 fat burners here.
These supplements contain ingredients that are scientifically proven to take advantage of these benefits:
- You will have a higher metabolic rate, burn more calories throughout the day.
- Suppress hunger cravings, you will be less tempted to eat junk foods and candy
- You will increase your energy levels, you will have higher energy levels throughout the day.
- Eliminate water retention, you will hold less water and look more cut.
Just make sure that the supplement you are using contains scientifically proven ingredients in generous dosages.
Source: 6 Reasons Why Your Abs Aren’t Growing & Showing
