~ªêQµïTª$~'s "little" Problem... PLZ HELP!!

[Climax]

My Workout:

400 crunches a day

2km run on Tred-mill

30 minutes boxing (Punching bag)

My Problem:

I have been doing this sort of workout for the past year or so, and my body seems to look good, my back, my arms, legs... all that is fine.... but the main reason that i do all this workout for isnt working/showing an improvement...

My ABS!!

I STILL have that layer of flubber on my stomache... Now people would normally tell me that i need to change my diet...

BUT...

My Diet:

Breakfast: (7:00am) - Cerial with milk or Toast (2 slices with some yellow cheese and butter) or Weet-bix etc...

In between Breakfast and Lunch: (11:00am) - 2 Sandwitch (4 slices of bread) with tuna/cheese/polony etc, and a health bar or something of that sort (nothing fattening like chocolate etc)

Lunch: (4:00pm) - Chicken, rice, vegetables or Spaghetti or Pizza or Hamburgers/hotdogs, etc

Supper: (8:00pm) - Cerial or something light.


Now.. during the coarse of the day i try to eat 1 or 2 fruits/vegetables, and i drink about 2 - 3 litres of water a day on average. ( i dont drink fuzzy drinks like coke etc )

I also take Vitamine Tables after Breakfast in the mornings.

No No's

I dont eat anything like chips, chocolate, white bread, cakes, cookies, etc.

My weight and Body:

i weigh 65kg ( i am 18 years old ) and nearly everyone sais that i am too thin, so i deffinatelly dont have the problem of being over-weight, because i'm really not anywhere near to being fat.

Back To My Probem:

My arms, my legs, my back, my theighs, all that is stronger etc, but my ABS still fail to stick out for some reason, and that layer of flab doesnt seem to be willing to go away.... Now dont get me wrong, my abs to stick out ABIT, and i can FEEL them etc, but if i had to take my top off, people wouldnt be able to see them and say "oh look, that guy has a 6 pack" etc... so in other words, i WANT a 6 pack, and i am working hard at getting one, but i just cant for some reason

My Pleed:

Can SOMEONE on these boards that has alot of experiuance in this sort of thing and thinks thet they could help me out PLEASE reply to this thread and help me out? Your help will be greatly appreciated.


Thanx in Advance....


Laterz...

 

[Eternal]

Do weighted situps or cable crunches. Abs are muscles too, so work them with weights like other muscles.

 

[Climax]

blah!

Originally posted by Eternal
Do weighted situps or cable crunches.

1) What exactly IS weighted situps? How do u DO them?

2) What are "cable crunches"?




Laterz...

 

[prosemont]

You don't weigh a lot. What is your height? It would also be helpful if you got your bodyfat percentage tested which you should be able to get done at any gym, fitness center, nutritionist or doctor.

Getting abs that you can see is a matter of decreasing bodyfat. It almost never has anything to do with building the actual ab muscles, particulary for you since you say you are doing crunches daily and that you have some fat on your abs.

It also is not possible to spot reduce fat. In other words, you can't lose fat *just* at your mid-section, you have to lose overall bodyfat.

So, you have to reduce your overall bodyfat percentage.

There are two ways to do this and I'll cover them in turn:

1. Diet/Nutrition
2. Physical training.

DIET/NUTRITION
From first glance at your diet, it appears that you have too many carbohydrates in there. In "cutting" or fat reducing, you'll want to increase your protein intake and decrease your carb intake. There's lots of different views on this, but generally speaking, shoot for 40/40/20 being 40% protein, 40% carb, and 20% healty fats (ie. those found in olive oil, flax oil, etc.)

You'll also want to take a look at your overall calorie intake. Check out www.calorieking.com and www.fitday.com to find out what your intake is and % of protein/carb/fats.

Diesel's cutting guide stickied above does an excellent job of explaining what your caloric intake should be to lose fat while maintaining lean tissue mass.

PHYSICAL FITNESS
In losing fat, it's important to realize that the more muscle (lean tissue) you have, the less fat your body retains, so you'll want to lift some weights to at least maintain your muscle mass while you are losing bodyfat. You may not be able to increase your muscle mass while cutting (the body just doesn't work like that) but you can minimize the loss of muscle mass while you are cutting.

In addition, although you are running and doing cardio which is good because it means you should be in decent cardio shape, you will want to switch to a specific type of cardio that burns fat.

That cardio is called HIIT (high impact interval training) which basically requires you to max out as much as possible your heartrate for relatively short periods of time. There's plenty on these boards on HIIT and I recommend you do a search to find out more.

Hope this is a start. Good luck.

 

[MindOverMatter]

or Spaghetti or Pizza or Hamburgers/hotdogs, etc

If you wanna lose that layer of fat on your stomach so the abs can show, you can't eat this sh!t. Keep your fat intake low, and keep you starch carb intake lower too in the evenings (i.e. instead of cereal etc, make a whey protein shake with like 2 bananas and 500ml of milk)

Secondly, after workouts, take a whey protein shake. After you finish working out, your body is stressed for protein, and guess where it will get it from? The protein stored in your muscles. Without supplementing protein after workouts, your muscles get depleted after every workout, and hence they don't grow. The reason I say take whey as opposed to say - eating chicken or drinking milk is because it will get absorbed very quickly.

Thirdly, try this routine for a change:

http://www.skippypodar.net/Fitness/

Fourthly, (even tho it's already explained in the routine I sent you), do your crunches SLOWLY. Focus on muscle contraction rather then speed.

 

[Climax]

many thanx.... and...

Thanx for the replies all... No more hamburgers etc for me and whey + protein is what i'm gonna be eating from now on

prosemont said:

What is your height?

I am 1.75cm tall (1 meter and 75cm)


Thanx for the links and references, they helped too....

1 more question:

Can you please give me a short list of things that i should add tro my "food shopping list" that will give me the maximum protein and whey etc (things that will help the loss of fat/building of muscle) and how do i make a good "protein shake" ? (what to put inside etc)


Thanx again...


Laterz...

 

[MindOverMatter]

here's your grocery list:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/stella9.htm

as for protein shakes, take whey powder + milk + maybe a banana or two and blend em together.

 

[Climax]

Thanx

ok kewl... thanx


Laterz...

 

[semag]

as for protein shakes, take whey powder + milk + maybe a banana or two and blend em together.

If you're cutting... no no no. The banana and milk have waay too many carbs for that, and your protein shakes will be an essential way to get your protein while keeping your calories low.

While cutting, Protein Shake = Water + whey.

 

[Desdinova]

Can you please give me a short list of things that i should add tro my "food shopping list"

I've been eating very differently lately. For lunch, I'll eat a can of tuna or mushrooms. For snacks, a whey "shake". For breakfast I've been eating a high fibre cereal. Supper: usually whatever the woman cooks, but since I do the cooking sometimes, it's usually barbequed chicken.

Even though Whey usually contains calcium, have at least one glass of (low fat) milk a day to keep your calcium level up.

 

[Climax]

sh0t

Originally posted by semag
If you're cutting... no no no. The banana and milk have waay too many carbs for that, and your protein shakes will be an essential way to get your protein while keeping your calories low.

While cutting, Protein Shake = Water + whey.

So i must get whey powder and drink that with JUST water alone? no bannana's or milk added?


Desdinova: Thanx man... yeah... i do drink about 500ml's of milk a day

thanx again...


Laterz...

 

[naoi deag se deag]

Buy or otherwise procure "Bulletproof Abs" by Pavel Tsatsouline (expensive, yeah, but Limewire is free and then so is the book). The exercises in there can make a huge difference without cutting by building the hell out of the rectus abdominus. Of course, if you want to look like an abdominal pimp like MindOverMatter you're going to have to cut too

 

[Climax]

yip yip... umm..... blah...

Originally posted by naoi deag se deag
Buy or otherwise procure "Bulletproof Abs" by Pavel Tsatsouline (expensive, yeah, but Limewire is free and then so is the book). The exercises in there can make a huge difference without cutting by building the hell out of the rectus abdominus.

Could u maybe copy/paste some of the helpfull things that are in that book and then post them here?

And ya... M.O.M is my role model when it comes to abs...


Laterz...

 

[Jay-X]

i haven't done any situp or crunch since i was 14 (i'll be 18 in less than 2 weeks) and they did really little for my abs.
what has worked more have been lots of pushups (since u automatically flex ur abs when u do lots of them)... try to do like at least 60 a day, EVERYDAY... maybe 2 times a day, so they are 120.

plus, u'll obtain a really good chest and big arms and they'll lower ur bodyfat as hell. well, at least, that's what i've obtained in a month with that program, maybe it was just luck.

recently, bench presses got my abs improved, but i don't know if u own a bench and some weights.

 

[Climax]

hmmm.....

Originally posted by Jay-X
i haven't done any situp or crunch since i was 14 (i'll be 18 in less than 2 weeks) and they did really little for my abs.
what has worked more have been lots of pushups (since u automatically flex ur abs when u do lots of them)... try to do like at least 60 a day, EVERYDAY... maybe 2 times a day, so they are 120.

plus, u'll obtain a really good chest and big arms and they'll lower ur bodyfat as hell. well, at least, that's what i've obtained in a month with that program, maybe it was just luck.

recently, bench presses got my abs improved, but i don't know if u own a bench and some weights.

In the 1 month that u have been doing all this... what are the changes/improvements that u have seen?


Laterz...

 

[Jay-X]

i started growin' immediately, then, after a month, i was complimented on my chest, my abs and my arms by everyone who saw me with my shirt off. u won't get a lot bigger, but u'll be cut as hell. after that program, my 8 pack was quite visible (i wasn't at all near bodybuilders, but it was well noticeable), my triceps were fuller and more defined, my pecs stood out more and were bigger

 

[Climax]

Shweet!

Originally posted by Jay-X
i started growin' immediately, then, after a month, i was complimented on my chest, my abs and my arms by everyone who saw me with my shirt off. u won't get a lot bigger, but u'll be cut as hell. after that program, my 8 pack was quite visible (i wasn't at all near bodybuilders, but it was well noticeable), my triceps were fuller and more defined, my pecs stood out more and were bigger

U saying that all this improvement happened after only 1 month!?!?!?!? .. woah! .. ok... but what exactly did u do every-day? like.. what was ur daily workout during that 1 month? And.. what was your diet like?

Thanx


Laterz...

 

[MindOverMatter]

i haven't done any situp or crunch since i was 14 (i'll be 18 in less than 2 weeks) and they did really little for my abs.
what has worked more have been lots of pushups (since u automatically flex ur abs when u do lots of them)... try to do like at least 60 a day, EVERYDAY... maybe 2 times a day, so they are 120.

plus, u'll obtain a really good chest and big arms and they'll lower ur bodyfat as hell. well, at least, that's what i've obtained in a month with that program, maybe it was just luck.

recently, bench presses got my abs improved, but i don't know if u own a bench and some weights.

Wow, just wow.

First of all, your abs didn't show when you did crunches because your bodyfat was too high. Those crunches however, still built a set of abs underneath that layer of fat, but they couldn't be seen. When your bodyfat went down, your abs showed, and you thought it was because of the push ups.

Doing push ups will get your abs tense, but in the way that will make them grow. They need to contract and feel pressure directly in order to adapt and grow. Push-ups will work out your chest and triceps, with delts/bis/lats working as stabilizers. That's it.

Doing push ups will not lower bodyfat! You can take a fat 300 lbs slob, and make him do push ups, and a year later, he'll still be a fat slob. Losing bodyfat is dependant on your diet / metabolism / cardiovascular training. By doing push ups you can build some muscle (not a lot tho, since muscle needs resistance in order to grow, and eventually push ups get easy),. That muscle you built can improve your metabolism and thus help you burn more fat, but not as much as you are saying. Doing push ups will not get you a 6 pack lol.

Now, the reason why you've gotten your results is because:

a.) You went through puberty. During this time, your body is releasing a lot of growth hormones, and it is very easy to build muscle, even with the simplest of exercises. Your metabolism is also very high, allowing you to burn fat more easily.

b.) Because of the way you eat, or perhaps other physical activities (do you play any sports?), you've managed to get a low enough bodyfat % for abs to show. If you have low bodyfat, your abs will show even if you've rarely exercised them directly. The reason you didn't see them when you did the crunches was because you prolly had a higher bodyfat percentage. Once that bodyfat went down, your abs showed.

 

[Climax]

hmmm.....

ok... now i'm donfused.... M.O.M... so what do YOU suggest i do....

Do more crunches rather than push-ups? and somenoe said that banannas are a bad thing to use and that i must only use water and whey powder... what u say about that?

Thanx


Laterz...

 

[MindOverMatter]

Aeqitas, if I was you I wouldn't look for shortcuts. There is no miracle way for you to get an amazing stomach in such a short period of time. If you think you'll get a 6 pack in a month, you will get disappointed when you don't and give up. It takes time and dedication to get them, and to maintain them.

I have linked you what I think is one of the best ab routines around:

http://www.skippypodar.net/Fitness/

Get your bodyfat down to like 9%, and start Skip's routine.