It sucks to spend months trying to figure out how to get a set of six-pack abs and nothing appears. You’re doing everything right; watching what you eat and training near-daily only to have a stubborn layer of fat clinging to the lower part of your abs.
There’s a handful of reasons why you only have a four-pack. For one, genetics dictate where you carry your fat, so blame the ‘rents.
Another could be that your diet isn’t as tight as it needs to be to get rid of that last fraction of flab. Remember that the lower your body fat is, the harder it is to keep dropping and so the more strict your diet needs to be.
When it comes to your workouts, there’s also a chance that you’re accidentally focusing on your upper abs and obliques while neglecting the lower portion. Like your chest and biceps, your abs are a muscle. Meaning, if you don’t spend time training them they won’t grow, and if they don’t grow they won’t jut out through your remaining fat. But don’t worry—you’re not doomed to a life of only four abs.
According to Roland Kickinger, an IFBB Pro League bodybuilder, actor, and celebrity trainer, certain ab exercises emphasize the lower abs and there’s a good chance you’re neglecting them during your workout.
A crunch, for example, has you lift your upper back off of the floor to activate your abs. Pay attention, though, and you’ll realize it’s only the top of your stomach that’s feeling the burn. If you’re a fan of Russian twists, the bad news is that those really only target your obliques or the sides.
Below, Kickinger lays out a lower-abs focused routine as well as some useful tips to help increase the intensity and efficacy of your ab regimen.
When your upper-abs are stronger, you have a tendency to pull from them, Kickinger points out. For every rep that you perform, you should concentrate on your lower abdominals. Crunch down hard on that portion with every rep. Also, perform lower-ab exercises like hanging leg raises and reverse crunches first in your workout when your lower abs are strongest.
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2 Concentrate on Quality, Not Quantity
Don’t worry about how many reps you can perform. Too many people try to do 20, 30, or even more reps for abs, but this tends to make you conserve energy in the weak areas of your abs and focus more on the strong parts. Kickinger suggests that by crunching your weakest area—your lower abs—you’ll improve the quality of each set, even if you aren’t able to perform as many reps.
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3 Focus on Abs at Other Times of the Day
“I tell my clients to work on their abs when they’re doing cardio, training other body parts, walking, or even sitting at their desk. By learning to hold your midsection tight at other times, you create a stronger core, and that will pay off with better development of your lower abs,” Kickinger says.
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4 Watch Your Waist
It’s true that nutrition is a significant component of making your abs visible. Many people have developed lower abs, but they’re hidden by a thin layer of bodyfat, Roland says. Bodyfat tends to accumulate a little lower on the waist. If you have a small amount of fat on your waistline, it may only cover your lower abs, while your upper abs appear far more developed. To boil down abs-displaying nutrition to a single sentence, Kickinger suggests eating fewer calories than you need for bodyweight maintenance while keeping your protein consumption above 1g per pound of bodyweight each day.
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5 Kickinger’s Six-Pack Solution
In addition to the previous tips, Kickinger says exercise selection is key to a complete six-pack. Try this lower-ab-specific routine the next time you hit the gym.
Exercise
Sets
Reps
Hanging Leg Raise
3
12
Reverse Crunch
3
12
Vertical Bench Knee/Leg Raise
3
12
For each rep, contract and hold for 2-3 seconds, emphasizing your lower abs.
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