“Six-pack Abs…”
May 11, 2009 General Fitness
If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me over the past 30 years, “How do I get abs like yours?” I would have long settled into the most lavish mansion on easy street. This questions I get though are often fraught with confusion and desperation: “Do I need to do thousands of sit-ups? What about The Ab Roller or The Six Miinute Ab Machine – do they work?” While some of these may help improve and define your abdominals, the answer to the question of whether or not these products will visibly reveal your abs is a big NO!!! No matter how much money you spend on products or how much you exercise, you cannot spot reduce fat without surgery.
What all of these questions and queries divulge is a misunderstanding of the role that body fat plays in revealing muscle definition. You can do crunches until the cows come home but if your stomach is covered in rolls of fat nobody will be able to appreciate your efforts. You have to understand how to remove the layer of fat between your abs and the skin covering them. Sadly, body fat is often highly resistant to just exercise.
The bottom line is you must know three basic facts:
- How many calories your body needs to function – your Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR)
- How many calories you intake on a daily basis
- How many calories you expend on a daily basis
I use the Harris-Benedict formula to figure out the first fact. You can find a BMR calculator on this website under “Useful Information” which uses this formula. To learn the second fact just requires good old calorie counting. You must write down your total daily caloric intake at least at the beginning until you get a handle on this. And for figuring out basic fact number three there are all kinds of websites out there that will tell you approximately how many calories the average person burns during practically any activity. One great product which constantly monitors your calorie usage is the BodyBugg. Plus, most cardio equipment has a calorie counter built in. Obviously you can’t use these numbers as absolute values but you can get a pretty decent average from them.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall – who’s the fairest one of all?”
May 11, 2009 General Fitness
While fitness center mirrors can be vital tools during one’s journey through the corridors of wellness, typically providing visual feedback on correct form, development and achievement, they tend to reflect an illusion for the mainstream fitness warrior. Novice exercisers are generally very critical of the reflective image they see of themselves; however, after a month or two, these now so called exercise veterans witness distorted images in the mirrors, replicating the imagination of their own perceptions.
Consider this. We see images of beautifully fit people everywhere we turn; television, movies, magazines, and newspaper ads. Advertisers know all too well that the general public will purchase products and services that are peddled by these individuals in an effort to look beautifully fit too. In the past, most marketing powers have been directed toward women. But now we are seeing more advertisements of this same nature directed toward men.
Advertisers tell us that in order to be successful and attractive to the opposite sex we must look a certain way. Men then flock to fitness centers believing that they’ll have an award winning physique that can grace the cover of muscle magazines in a few short months. After a couple of reps on the bicep machine, our would be alpha-male, in his Y-back tank top, has one eye in the mirror admiring his engorged muscle as he tenses for a quick nonchalant flex. But in reality, his small bicep muscle is still covered in layers of fat giving him the illusion of a Hulk Hogan arm.
It’s time to end the fairy tale and take a reality check. Gentlemen, if you want to display your hard earned physique, make sure that your physique is indeed hard earned. The majority of men (and women for that matter) I see every day in gyms and fitness centers do not know how to train or, judging from their bodies, how to eat. If you like the way you look in front of a mirror when you’re naked, then great; however, if you’d like to sculpt your body in to one you can be proud of in that reflection – give me a call.