After intensely working on them, crunching and doing brutally intense ab exercises day after day, week after week, you’d think that the magic number 6 would show up where it should be! It’s very discouraging not seeing results after putting so much effort and time into something important... It can be unbelievably depressing.
Ab development tends to be more challenging than any other weight loss or muscle building goals. This is partially because most people have a completely wrong approach, not focusing their time on what would make ab training efficient.
An outstanding set of abs requires smart - planned training, a lean and clean diet and minimal equipment. Stop using the abs machine, doing crunch after crunch without any result…time to forget about that.
Here are the top reasons why your abs aren’t showing and what to do about correcting things.
Your body fat percentage isn’t low enough to see what you’re packing underneath.
Having too much fat covering your abdominal muscles will never help. Instead of working on making your abs strong, why not taking the time to shed that belly fat that’s been hiding them since you started working on them.
For men, the body fat % should be under 10%, and for women under 18%.One way you can make it happen is to incorporate a solid dose of high intensity cardio and make sure you clean up your diet. Start lowering that body fat percentage and uncover your abs.
Emphasizing way too much on crunches.
You will never be able to crunch off the fat covering your abs. Training and continuously performing the same exercise will just lead to a plateau which won’t help in any way. There are so many exercises that focus on multiple and different areas of the core than just your standard crunch, such as: plank, side plank, T-plank, L-sit, hanging basket, window wipers, and many more.
The only way to strip your abs from the layer of fat that’s covering them is by slowly and gradually burning it off from your entire body through nutrition, resistance training and cardio.
Not diversifying your workouts enough.
Your abdominals are not one muscle, but in fact composed of 4 main abdominal muscle groups: rectus abdominus – located between the ribs and pubic bone at the front of the pelvis, transversus abdominus – the deepest muscle layer, internal & external obliques – along the sides of your rectus abdominus.
These muscles are the ones who help the torso flex, extend and rotate, and like any other muscle group, they will quickly react and adapt to a movement pattern and overload.
You’re training your abs every day.
Perhaps you’re doing this because you know abs are the ones who recover the fastest. While that’s true, if you want to build that six pack, you need to give them a rest. It’s best to give your core a break during the week, because even though you’re not targeting your ab muscles, they still get stimulation during your compound lifts and other training you’re performing.
Not being consistent.
Stop crushing your diet and training plans! You need them for a reason, and you should always train with a plan and keep a close watch on your diet. Consistency is the single most important piece of obtaining the so much wanted six-pack.
Bonus: If you want that V-look on your lower abs, aside from losing fat, you need to emphasize on the lower abs and obliques. Some of the best exercises that can help you with that are: hanging leg raises, flutter kicks, windshield wipers and side V-ups.