The dream of a washboard abs - I've dreamed it too. And you? Maybe when you read the headline again at the kiosk or in the bookstore: "Six pack in six weeks". Or: "This is how your abdominal muscles become bikini-fit".
Can this work? The answer is clear. No - in most cases not. The promise is unrealistic and unhealthy at that. In order to really get a six-pack in six weeks, in most cases a brutal and one-sided diet has to be followed. It's not just sit-ups and crunches that shrink belly fat. Because with this type of training, only a few muscles are activated. And the body hardly breaks down fat. But the percentage of body fat is crucial if you want to have a visible washboard abs.
So that the muscles on the stomach are clearly visible, the fat content should not be higher than 14 percent. Even for young and well-trained men, this average is 18 percent in Germany. In women even at 25 percent. With continuous and hard training, it takes at least nine weeks for the six pack to become visible.
If you continuously feed your body with little energy, you will eventually reach a low body fat percentage. However, this goal can usually only be achieved through a radical starvation diet plus training. Diets that consciously deprive the body of food and are based on an unbalanced diet are known to be unhealthy and usually lead to the dreaded yo-yo effect.
Also, women naturally have it harder. They are much more subject to hormonal fluctuations. Depending on the cycle, they automatically store water. If the body fat percentage drops too much, numerous health problems threaten. There is often a lack of nutrients, minerals and vitamins. In such cases, women often do not have their menstrual period. The body tries by all means to save energy.
So what to do? A combination of a healthy diet plus strength and endurance training is the best way to shrink the fat on your stomach in a healthy way. The more body mass is moved, the higher the energy consumption. With endurance training, you not only burn a lot of calories and fat during the activity, but also in the hours afterwards. According to a study by the University of South Australia, you can get rid of about 300 extra calories up to 14 hours after training. However, the units should not be less than 30 minutes long and you have to be active several times a week.
In order to get a six-pack at some point, it is far from enough to just train your stomach. Only full-body strength training provides more muscle mass - and even at rest it burns more energy than fat. And that ultimately has an effect on the stomach and its pads. A well-trained core is always worthwhile, especially for runners. Because the stable muscle corset protects against instability when running - and thus prevents injuries very effectively.
One thing should not be concealed here either: A six-pack and its stabilizing muscles have to be trained for a lifetime. If you rest, they disappear very quickly - without training after just eight to ten days. Muscle proteins are broken down and the energy stores in the muscles are plundered. If the break lasts longer, the body shuts down even smaller nerve and blood vessels that lead to the muscles.
