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- Formula #030: Summer's coming. Here's THE guide to get chiselled abs (without crunches, hours of cardio or calorie counting)
Formula #030: Summer's coming. Here's THE guide to get chiselled abs (without crunches, hours of cardio or calorie counting)
Your Simmo
April 24, 2023
Welcome back to another edition of the formula.
In today's issue, you'll learn:
Quote of the day
9 tips to help you build beastly abs that almost no one recognises (but are deceptively powerful)
Read time: 5:50 minutes.
Longer than normal I know, but every time I go longer, I try and make up for it with highly actionable insight (there are a ton of takeaways for you in this).
Let's dive in.
Quote of The Day
Whether by design or coincidence, society wants men weak.
It promotes:
• Going vegan
• Gorging on junk food
• Taking no responsibility
• Binge-watching woke Netflix shows
• A prescription drug for every problem
Reject this toxic conditioning.
You're a man, not a robot.
Summer is just around the corner, and there's no denying that a killer midsection will turn heads at the beach.
But how can you make it happen?
You’re about to learn 9 true tips to train your abs effectively, avoid common mistakes that 95% of men make, and unveil the abdominal potential you've always wanted.
Tip 1: Pick a Priority and Train Accordingly
For the vast majority of men, two things need to happen to get great abs:
1) You need to lose excess body fat in your waist. This is priority #1 for most people.
Do this by training and eating in a way that allows you to create an energy deficit so that you are expending more energy than you are taking in.
2) Priority #2 for most men is to develop strength in the abdominal muscles and trunk.
If you’re relatively new to lifting, this will build muscle in the lower back and abs for a firm, lean waist.
It’s the groundwork if you want to eventually develop chiseled six-pack abs with heavy, high volume training.
Do it by prioritizing the multi-joint lifts of squats, deadlifts, lunge variations, presses, and pulls.
Tip 2: Tighten Up Your Nutrition
Training is most effective for reducing body fat and revealing your abs ONLY when you pair it with a smart diet that leads you to expend more energy than you take in.
A simple way to do this is to eat a high-quality, high-protein intake with a lot of fruit, beneficial fats, and other nutrient-dense REAL foods.
Whether you opt for this tried-and-true method or work some other nutrition magic on your midsection, chiselled abs can’t have fat covering them up.
Eat high protein every meal, focusing on getting between 40-80g of protein each time (the taller you are, the more protein you need).
This is most easily done by eating meat, fish, raw dairy or eggs because animal products are more amino acid dense than plant proteins.
And, the protein found in animal products is 3-4x more bioavailable so is can be readily used and absorbed by the body.
Plan your carbohydrate intake based on location, activity levels, and body fat percentage.
Cold latitudes = less carbs, higher fat
Warm latitudes = more carbs, lower fat
The more sun you’re exposed too, the more amount of carbs you’ll be able to tolerate.
Tip 3: Don't Slash Calories
Fat loss is best achieved with a diet that allows you to avoid hunger and experience as little discomfort as possible.
Slashing calories is an awful way to do this. It’s an extremely outdated and flawed measure of health (newsletter to come on this soon).
Moreover, cutting calories drastically (below 1,500 a day for most people) is one of the worst things you can do if you want to lose belly fat.
Fairly quickly, the body will downregulate your metabolism in order to preserve the fuel stores it has, and you’ll burn fewer calories daily.
Slashing calories also elevates the stress hormone cortisol because one effect of cortisol is that it releases energy stores to keep you going when calories are low.
When cortisol is chronically elevated, it makes your body think it needs to store fat around the waist so that it will have a great source of easily accessible energy in anticipation of more intense stress.
Top it off with needing to fight off hunger with willpower, and you’ll elevate cortisol even more.
This is a very bad situation that will probably leave you with more fat around the middle and no visible abs.
Tip 4: Strength Train with Classic Lifts
The best way to get tighter abs is by training squats and deadlifts with some chin-ups, lunges, presses, and Olympic lifts thrown in for fun.
Squats and deads are a highly efficient way of building abs for at least three reasons:
These exercises allow you to train with the heaviest weights for the greatest overload of the musculature and superior adaptations.
The abs respond best to high load, low rep training because the abdominal musculature is principally composed of fast-twitch muscle fibers.
They optimally train the lower back and posterior chain to produce power and force. If you know anything about training anatomy, you’re aware that the true secret for building strong, defined abs is in optimizing function of these muscles to create a strong framework on which to build a great six-pack.
What I use as the basis template for my clients is Christian Thibaudeau’s “best workout for natural lifters part 2” training template here.
Tip 5: Engage the Trunk
How many times have you seen someone sticking out their stomach on an overhead press or hyper-extending their back at the top of a deadlift?
It’s a common pitfall for novice trainees but it also affects athletes.
For instance, one study found that female athletes who were instructed to engage the abs protected the core abdominal musculature and had much better movement patterns with less hip side-to-side displacement during single-leg squats than those who received no verbal instructions.
To develop stabilization through the trunk, try these exercises:
Tip 6: Sprint Intervals for Fat Loss
Sprint intervals can repair your metabolism and accelerate fat loss. Choose a protocol that suits your conditioning level:
Beginners: Try the 30-20-10 model (jog for 30 seconds, run at moderate intensity for 20 seconds, sprint for 10 seconds).
Intermediates: Use a descending distance protocol (400 meters, rest 4 minutes, 300 meters, rest 3 minutes, etc.).
Well-Conditioned: Opt for a 1-to-1 interval-to-rest program (30-second high-intensity intervals with 30-second jogging recovery).
Tip 7: Focus on Breathing Contractions
Deep breathing during training activates your abs for greater adaptation.
Engage your abs during stabilization exercises like squats or for deadlifts.
For example, in a study that assessed muscle activity in various trunk muscles, deep breathing while doing basic stabilization exercises significantly increased activation of the erector spinae of the lower back, the external obliques, and the rectus abdominis compared to when subjects breathed normally.
Great example here:
Tip 8: Use Isolation Ab Exercises Sparingly
Besides weight loss in general, your abs are probably the recipient of more ridiculous promises of fast results than any other target of food and fitness marketing.
Research provides evidence on dos and don’ts of ab training. Here’s what science tells us:
Ab training is useless for fat loss. A study from Southern Illinois University found that performing a six-week abdominal training program for four hours a week resulted in no loss of body fat.
The “classic” ab exercises like sit-ups, crunches, and planks do activate the rectus abdominis to a significant degree, however they aren’t very effective for building this muscle. First, planks are isometric exercises—a contraction that will build strength but is inferior for building muscle. Dynamic contractions on the other hand, especially those that emphasize an eccentric (lowering portion) component are well known for leading to the greatest muscle growth.
All forms of squats, deadlifts, chin-ups, farmers’ carries and Zercher carries are the best bang for your buck ab builders and fat loss boosters.
Tip 9: Manage Stress
Lastly, remember that stress management is crucial for achieving chiselled abs.
When cortisol is chronically elevated, your body shifts into fat storage mode in the abdominal area.
People love to overlook this fact because stress is hard to deal with.
It takes a complete lifestyle overhaul for most of us, which is the reason a truer statement is that “abs are made on vacation” than in the kitchen.
If you’re the sort of person whose vacations are just as stressful as regular life, or if your nutrition goes to pot and you don’t train when on holiday, you’re stress management plan is not working.
If stress and cortisol are your pitfalls to killer abs, then implementing these 9 tips will drastically improve your results.
So there you have it - 9 true tips for building chiselled abs.
By following these guidelines, you'll be well on your way to revealing your best midsection just in time for summer.
Give them a try and watch the transformation begin.
Remember, consistency is key, and by combining smart training, nutrition, and stress management, you'll be flaunting a sculpted midsection in no time.
Stay dedicated, believe in yourself, and enjoy the rewards of your hard work.
That’s all for this Monday.
If you’re not getting value out of these tips, please consider unsubscribing.
I won’t mind and there are no hard feelings.
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Otherwise, see you again next week - same time, same place.
Your, Simmo.
P.S: 2 client wins from this week, below.
P.S.S:
If you are struggling with:
Low energy
Erectile issues
Sleep problems
Insecurity around women
Low self-esteem or confidence
Body-conscious (skinny or overweight)
Odds are, you may have low testosterone.
If you’d like to have an informal, confidential chat about your situation to better understand whether my 7-pillar system may be appropriate for you.
Book a free discovery call here.