Why Your Abs Aren't Showing This Summer.

Having rippling abs in time for the summer is a fitness goal as old as time, and if we're honest with ourselves, a goal we've all shared at some point in our lives regardless of our strength, fitness or performance goals. I mean who doesn't want to feel great when walking along the beach in their swimwear, when hitting the pool, and enjoying a well earned holiday. But the number of people who genuinely make that goal a reality year on year is limited, so I want to make sure you fully understand why your abs aren't showing this summer, so you can make sure they are this time next year.

The Basics

The abs are just like any other muscle in the body, and to show definition in them you need to train them the exact same way as your arms, shoulders, thighs, or whatever other muscles you're looking to develop. To get visible, defined abs for summer you need to:

1. Reduce your body fat percentage

2. Build bigger abdominal muscles (hypertrophy)

3. Do that for long enough to see significant results

Lets break those down individually.

Reducing Your Body Fat Percentage

Well respected strength coach Ben Bruno named his gym "The Kitchen", but as the cliché goes, abs are made in the kitchen.

Like all clichés, it's founded on an element of truth, because no matter how much direct ab training you do, and how well developed your abdominal muscle are, you won't see them if you're 5-10kg overweight. If you've been training hard and smart for 2+ years, it's likely that you already have good, strong, well developed abdominal muscles. You just maybe haven't got to a point with your diet where you can consistently see them due to a higher body fat percentage. I'm not going to say what percentage of body fat you need to be to have visible abs as we all store our body differently across our bodies, but the key take home is that if you can't see them, you need to lose body fat. It is also important to say that you cannot spot-reduce fat. Any belly fat torching ab specific workouts are a nonsense that are preying on your insecurities. We lose body fat generally, and cannot target specific areas where we want to lose body fat from. So we have to simply commit to losing body fat as a whole, over time, until the point where we have the definition that we desire. That means a calorie deficit, likely with a higher protein diet (1.5-2g protein per kg bodyweight per day), and a ratio of carbs to fats that makes sticking to that calorie deficit achievable for an extended period of time (more on that later). Building Bigger Abdominal Muscles In the same way we can lose body fat but still have slim, undefined arms/legs/shoulders/whatever, losing body fat on it's own isn't guaranteed to leave you with a chiselled 6-pack ready for summer.

We also have to get to work on building bigger abdominal muscles. To do this, we need to do less traditional "core-stability" style training, like planks, pallof presses, and bird-dogs, and focus more on exercises that actually load our abdominals through a fuller range of motion. You don't build big, powerful looking quads with wall-sits and squat holds. You need full-range, heavy loaded squats, lunges, leg presses and leg extensions. And you don't build bigger, blockier, more defined abs with lower tension isometric exercises. You need genuinely challenging core exercises like loaded crunches, incline reverse crunches, strict knee and leg raises, and aleknas. Exercises like those focus on the three main drivers of muscle growth, mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage. And will actually challenge your abs in a way that makes them grow, to show more definition even at slightly higher body fat percentages.

I'll also be honest, there is a genetic component here. Depending on your muscle origins and insertions you may be lucky like me to have a better predisposition for blocker more even abs. You could have a pre-disposition for blockier but uneven abs. Or you could have a smoother flatter abdominal structure. All of these are trainable when it comes to size though, so whatever your starting point, you CAN improve with proper, direct, challenging abdominal training.

Be Patient And Give It Time The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today. It's the same with getting in shape for summer. As I write this, it's the end of June and 25 degrees outside. Summer is here. So if you're reading this to get in shape for summer, you may have missed the boat. I usually set up a couple of coaching intakes for late March/early April to give clients the time they really need to make big changes to their physique in time for summer. But that will never change the fact that most people leave it way too late, and crash diet into summer, make questionable progress with suboptimal (to put it kindly) methods that result in rebounds and the feeling that "nothing works". Unless you're already in very good shape, and looking to get into great shape, 6-8 weeks of "shredding" is not going to be enough for a genuinely impressive summer 6-pack. You need to commit proper time, effort and training into the processes I explained above. And if I was going to say which one of these 3 tips is the biggest difference maker when it comes to people getting a great set of abs in time for summer, it's this one. Give it time. Be patient. Start early and commit to it. It's what all the people you want to look like have done. There are no shortcuts. You just have to do the work for long enough for it to actually pay off. But that's fine, because training hard and smart is great fun. And eating in a slight calorie deficit doesn't have to be a total chore and can actually be really enjoyable. Especially if you hire a skilled coach to guide you through the whole process. Ian.