Myth alert!

It seems like not all the things that we heard from “experts” or overheard in the public areas are true. Maybe the reason why we are not getting those perfect abs are because we are not doing it right. Then that would be such a terrible waste of our time. So we need to know the myths and what is real to get the chiseled abs we want.

Six pack Myth 1: Abdominal muscle is different from regular muscle.

Muscle is muscle. Abdominal muscle is the same with our biceps and lats. The only difference is the location. Abdominal muscles are not resting on a bony surface, instead it is against the stomach and intestines. There is no significant difference whatsoever.

Six pack Myth 2: Strong abs means a strong back.

The key to a strong back is a balanced abdominal muscles. You can work your abs, but no more and no less than you work your other muscles throughout the day. There are heavy emphasis on working your abs, this heavy emphasis is often misunderstood to be the contributor of food health. Infomercials give the false belief that by working out just one part of your body will give your health great benefits.

Working out and exercise should not just be concerned with one part of the body. What you need is an overall body fitness to be healthy.

Six Pack Myth 3: You have to train your abs at least every other day.

They say that you need to train your abs hard enough twice a week, that is to give them time for recovery. The key is to choose exercises that fatigue your abs, so that they actually need recovery time. Include exercises that use the abs functionality. Since abs are used to stabilize the body, holding a push up position without letting your body sag will really feel and develop your abdominal muscles.

Six Pack Myth 4: To gain results, high repetitions are required.

The key to abdominal gains is the to overload. If you aim abdominal endurance, the more crunches you do each time, the more you can do later on. It does not strengthen the abs very much but it also eats up most of your time.

Six Pack Myth 5: Hard rock abs can be attained by doing a lot of sit-ups.

Many doctors say that sit-ups and crunches are the work exercises and perhaps should never be done. A common mistake done during crunches, is throwing the neck out. Crunches and sit-ups cause the abdominal muscles to be pulled to tight, this excessive pulling put stress on the neck or what is known as throwing the neck out. The overuse of crunch type exercises may even lead to the reduction of thoracic extension and contributes to bad posture.

Six Pack Myth 6: It takes years to get great abs.

Everyone has abdominal muscles, you just need to train them in the correct order and reduce the fat surrounding them. For some, it would take a few weeks. For other it may be longer. Different body type develop at different rates.

Actually there are some easy and simple tips that would help you get the six pack stomach that you want.  Avoid eating while watching the television.  Since your mind and focus will be on the movie and television show that you are watching, you would not be able to watch the amount of food that you are eating.  You may tend to overeat while watching television.

Do not skip breakfast.  It is the most important meal of the day.  Upon waking up, the metabolism is accelerated and fat starts to burn.  You would need enough food to cope to cope up with the day.  Calories would burn while you perform your daily tasks.  By avoiding a meal, you tend to overeat the next meal.  Since you would feel that need to make up for the lost fat.

Incorporate good eating habits to your daily routine.  Aside from making sure you eat regularly and not in front of the television,  you need to make sure that good fats are incorporated to your diet.  Some people shudder in the word fats, well, there are fats that are good for your.  Fish oil, flaxseed oil, extra virgin olive oil are the healthy fats.

Water is good for you.  The more water you drink, the better.  You donít have to stick just drinking 8 to 10 glasses of water when you can drink more.  But we are required to drink that much water everyday to keep hydrated.  This would regulate fat burning and body metabolic process.

If drinking milk, the choose skim milk.  There are healthier alternatives, all you need to do is make sure that whenever you go to the store to buy groceries, you choose the healthier alternative.

Diet is incomplete if you don’t put some mobility into your routine.  So still incorporate exercise routine into your lives.  Doing a hundreds of sit-ups a day is not good enough.  Think about your whole body and not only about your abdomen.  When aiming for six pack abs,  cardiovascular exercises are a must.  This kind of exercise increase stamina and heart condition, it burn fat in a quick way.  Cardiovascular exercises can be done 5 minutes a day, and can increase it to 45 minutes.  Aside from cardiovascular exercises you can also do some weight training to get the body that you want.

Not all exercises can be done inside the gym, take your exercise outside.  Take a walk, stand straight in a cocktail party, you can even do some exercises during your break time while you are sitting down on your chair.

Aside from proper diet and exercise, getting the minimum seven to eight hours of sleep every night is very important.  Sleeping rejuvenates your body.  It repairs muscular system by decreasing the stress hormone levels.

And last, you need to be consistent.  You may plan or devise your own exercise regimen, but getting your six pack abs just does not stay there.  You must be consistent with the plan or regimen you devised.  That is why diet or exercise do not work, because we lack consistency in doing things.  Six pack abs are easy, as long as you put yourself into it.