How to Get a Flatter Stomach and Visible Abs
If you were to take a survey of 100 people and you asked them, “do you want to have a flat tummy and visible abs?” 98 of them would say yes and two of them would be lying.
With the exception of a couple clients who want to focus mainly on athletic performance, every client I’ve talked to has wanted to eliminate belly fat and get a flatter tummy, along with some general toning and conditioning. The fitness industry knows that people are obsessed with this and will sell you any product they can that will, “target belly fat,” and, “do all the work for you.” A little word of advice, if it seems too good to be true it’s because it is. There is no pill or product you can buy that will specifically target your belly fat, the sooner you accept that the better off you are.
Most fat loss pills have green tea extract as their main ingredient. All green tea extract does is suppress your appetite. Many people are wasting their money on a pill when having a cup of coffee or tea would have the same effect.
Now you may be someone who looks at those infomercials for those pills and products and say, “What idiot would buy something like that?!?!” All the while you wake up every morning thinking that taking a shot of apple cider vinegar and drinking water with lemon and cayenne pepper will do the trick. Well guess what? It won’t. Although doing those things can help curb your appetite and increase your internal temperature, they should not be relied upon to do the work for you. You have to do the work yourself; no thing and no one will do the work for you. So we know that pills, products, peppers and lemon won’t get you to that flat tummy but what will? You need to do two things; build up your abdominal muscles and burn fat.
Imagine two trains that are heading towards each other on the same track. One train represents your rectus abdominis (your 6 pack muscles, RA) and the other train represents losing belly fat, when they collide is when you have visible abs. If the, “losing belly fat,” train is doing all the work and the RA train isn’t moving, then it will be a long time before they collide. However, if you are building up your RA, then both trains are moving towards each other and you will not have to lose as much fat to see your abdominals. Let’s talk about how to get you RA train moving in the most optimal way possible.
If you want your other muscles to grow you have to use resistance training. Why would your Abs be any different?
Your RA is comprised of about 55-58% slow twitch muscle fibers and 45-42% fast twitch muscle fibers. This will have an impact on how you should be training your RA. Most people think they need to do hundreds upon hundreds of crunches to get the six-pack abs they want and to an extent they are correct, but only 55%. If this were abs school they’d still be failing! Which sucks because they’re working so hard. They are training their slow twitch muscle fibers but not their fast twitch muscle fibers. This is where weights come in to play. Doing weighted crunches, double crunches, exercise ball crunches etc. can help bridge this gap. Doing these weighted movements will overload your RA through resistance rather than fatiguing them. Since you probably aren’t doing this you will give your RA a new stimulus to adapt to which will force it to grow. Now you might be saying, “Wow, Cam is so smart and insightful but I don’t have time to just work my RA, I have a full time job and a family!” Well don’t you worry, there are ways to fit more RA work into your already existing routine.
Here are some quick tips to add extra core work into your gym routine. If you normally do a certain exercise seated choose to do it standing instead. When you’re sitting with your back against a bench your core doesn’t have to take on the same load, so switch it up and do your shoulder presses, bicep curls, overhead tricep extensions, etc., standing and keep that belly button in towards your spine. Doing heavy compound movements will also force your core to activate. Doing deadlifts, squats and barbell overhead presses are fantastic exercises that will force your core to activate. I went through a 12-week deadlift protocol and was pleasantly surprised by how leaner my RA and obliques got due to the increased load they had to stabilize. So you have a good starting point with the RA but there is a muscle that is severely overlooked called the transverse abdominis (TVA), which very well may be the missing link you need to get a flatter stomach.
One of the main jobs of your Transverse Abdominis (TVA) is to bring your stomach in and compact your organs. Think of it as keeping everything structured and tight. If you or anyone you know has ever gotten pregnant, their TVA got stretched out beyond belief to make room for their kiddo. So many postpartum ladies believe that they gained a lot more fat than they actually did, but really their TVA got stretched out and weakened. Thankfully, there is a simple and effective way to rebuild it.
Performing stomach vacuums in the morning and at night are something anyone who is looking for a more structured and flatter stomach should be doing. Every morning, or at least as many days a week you can, go to your bathroom in the morning. Lean over your sink and place your hands on the counter; then all you have to do is suck in your stomach as hard as you can, you can also do this lying on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground. Congratulations, you just activated your TVA! Hold it for about 10 seconds on and 20 seconds off for about three rounds to start. Just like any other exercise you will be able to hold it for longer the more consistently you do it. Over time this will start to bring your stomach further and further in. So, we have a starting point for building up your RA and your TVA but we still have the million-dollar question, how do I burn stomach fat? Fat loss is a huge topic in itself that Andrew and I will go more in depth on in a future article but I will give you one small but important tip to help get you started.
The first thing I would recommend you do is fasted cardio. This is cardio that you will do in the morning at a lower intensity. I recommend going up and down a flight of stairs in your house, go for a walk or lightly jump rope for about 20 minutes. This will not only wake you up a little bit in the morning and help regulate your hormones and circadian rhythm but also use the stored fat in your body as fuel. Your body doesn’t have any food you’ve recently eaten to use or glycogen stores in your muscles so it targets the stored fat you have in your body (It is important to note that you cannot choose where your body burns fat, for me the fat on my legs and arms is the first to go. Each person is slightly different). The key is to keep it at a slightly lower intensity while still getting your heart rate up. A way to test this is by doing a simple talk test; you should be able to say a sentence without it being too difficult or if your listening to music you should be able to sing along. Again, we will cover other ways to effectively burn fat in another article but this is a great starting point and all you have to do is get up about 25-30 minutes earlier which you are all capable of.
TLDR (too long didn’t read): Build up your RA using a mix of resistance training and endurance training. Do TVA vacuums every morning or as much as you can to bring that stomach in and do low intensity, fasted cardio. Finally remember you’re in this for the long haul; do things that are sustainable that can become a part of your lifestyle. If you are patient and consistent you will be unstoppable.
Cam Hewett
P10 Nation Model/Trainer