Achieving a 6 pack can be one of the most difficult muscle groups for some people to develop. For others, they were born with a visible 6 pack. I don’t think that there is another muscle group that has more myths going around about them than the abdominals. Every guy wants to have a 6 pack. Any guy that says he’d rather have a keg is just using comical relief to hide his sadness.

We have all watched late night TV. So, I’m sure that you have come across those awful infomercials showcasing the latest greatest gadget that is going to make your 6 pack pop! Here’s the truth behind these gadgets… They feed off of the quick fix mentality that our society tends to have and pushes these products hard until it’s discovered that they aren’t effective.

I remember when I was growing up, my Dad had something called the Ab Flex. This thing looked like a spaceship basically. The idea was that you grab onto the handles, flex your abs so that your stomach is hard, and then push it against your body forcing a resistance block into the device. You would perform this over and over again to perform the workout.

First problem, your muscle fibers aren’t going through a range of motion. All that you are doing is keeping your muscular range of motion frozen in one place. In order to effectively stimulate the maximum amount of muscle fibers, you must go through a muscle’s full range of motion. In the case of the Ab Flex, you might as well just get constipated and count that as a workout.

Secondly, there wasn’t even much of a resistance increase possibility. So the only way you could “progress” is by doing more reps. As you probably already know, at a certain point you are just training your type-1 muscle fibers that are there for endurance.

You might as well forget every abdominal workout gadget that you see on TV. The factors that you need to work out your abs with for gaining size is by limiting your reps to a lower range, performing a full range of motion, and having the ability to increase in resistance as you progress.

Whenever you train with a workout routine to gain muscle, you will be engaging your abs everyday automatically. But this doesn’t mean that you don’t have to dedicate a full workout to strictly your abs. It’s critical that you dedicate at least one day to abs. The beauty about abs is that you can’t over train them. Like the calves, abdominals can take an incredible amount of consecutive punishment.

There are two main different areas to your abdominals that you should focus on. These areas are the front (rectus abdominus), and the sides (Oblique’s),. When you train the rectus abdominus, you are training both your upper abs and your lower abs. These cannot be separated since they are the same muscle group. Likely, you’re used to only training your rectus abdominus, if anything at all. This is a mistake and can lead to injuries down the road. I’m going to outline some great workouts that stimulate each area for you.

Let’s start with the rectus abdominus. These are the easiest the train and you are likely already familiar with many of the exercises.

Cable Crunch:

Attach a rope extension usually used for rope pull downs to the universal weights pulley system. From there, go down to your knees with your back towards the weights. Reach above your head and hold onto the rope.

Then crunch down as if you were bowing to an ancient king of Greece. Remember to go through the full range of motion and to keep tension on your abs at all times. It’s recommended that you perform 2 sets of 25 reps for this exercise.

Ab Crunch Machine:

This is where you sit up right on a machine, lock your ankles in place and grab the handles next to each side of your head. You then select the weight and perform a crunching motion while holding onto the bars next to your head. The advantage to this machine is that you have lots of potential to increase the weight as needed.

Be sure not to cheat. You might feel the urge to get greedy and lift too much which will result in not performing the full range of movement. Here you can do as little as ten reps if you’re really looking to go for mass in your abs.

A proper workout routine to gain muscle will also train your oblique’s, here’s a couple of great exercises for that.

Seated Barbell Twist:

Hold a fixed weight barbell on your shoulders. Keep holding onto it with your palms up. Sit down onto a flat bench. From there you simply twist side to side. Be careful not to do this too fast or else you might hurt your lower back. Perform two sets of ten.

Hanging Leg Raises (with a twist):

This is exactly how it sounds. Lift yourself halfway up as if you were performing a pull up. From there make your body parallel with the ground. Then hold your legs straight up and start twisting side to side making your legs look like a windshield wiper. This may be too advanced for some gym goers, so if that’s the case for you, be sure to work your way up to it.

To be perfectly honest, training your abs and using a workout routine to gain muscle is only 20% of the equation. When it comes to developing shredded 6 pack abs, it’s mostly thanks to nutrition. This may be good or bad news for you, depending if you like your junk food and beer or not. Fact of the matter is, if you don’t naturally obtain the metabolism required for a 6 pack, you’re going to need to severely alter your diet in order to achieve that 6 pack.

This is where a solid nutritionist or nutrition plan comes into play. To give you a quick crash course on how you will need to eat to get that 6 pack, I’m going to outline the basics quickly for you. Nutrition is broken down into three main macro-nutrients. These macro-nutrients are fats, proteins, and carbs.

Fats

You need to focus on mono and poly-unsaturated fats. Do not consume anything deep fried or cooked in oil. Avocados, almonds, extra virgin olive oil and fish oil tablets are your friend in this department.

Proteins

You want your proteins to be lean and plentiful. Protein takes the longest to burn through, so this will allow you to feel hungry less often and still give your body plenty of quality energy to perform.

Carbs

They need to be low in sugars. This is known as having a low glycemic index. Carbs such as whole grains, whole wheats, oatmeal, sweet potatoes are good. These should be limited however. Many successful fat cutting diets only consume carbs every second day (they are still very important to consume).

If you are not familiar with nutrition, you need to be. It doesn’t matter if you’re training with an incredible workout routine to gain muscle, in the end if you don’t nourish yourself properly, your body will not be able to develop that additional muscle that you want. You now know that it’s very important to train your core. Not just to get that 6 pack, but to avoid injury as well. Having a strong core will stop you from developing back problems down the road.