I’m sure you have heard it before….

It’s not necessarily true abs aren’t made in the kitchen…you have always had abs. But how visible they are comes down to what you make in the kitchen. So to put it correctly - visible abs are made in the kitchen.

Apart from the few lucky people who can eat what they want and have abs all year round, the rest of us have to put in the hard yards if we want visible abs. We really need to focus on our training and more importantly on what we eat. If we eat more calories than we burn, we gain body fat. Making smart choices, and not over indulging are just a couple of the things we can do to being on our way to getting results.

Hormones can also contribute to excess body fat on our stomachs. For example high levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) can cause us to store body fat around our mid section. If you don’t have a good tolerance to carbohydrates or eat/drink a high amount of them - this can show by excess fat stored around this area.

Getting abs won’t come from just doing loads of crunches either…I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have heard clients say “I want a flat stomach” “I want a 6pack”. Just doing sit-ups alone will build up your ab muscles, but it won’t lower the body fat covering them. I always try explain to clients that spending a whole session doing ab exercises won’t get them the results they are after, and in fact they need to be using their bigger muscle groups. Burn more calories therefore lower body fat which results in having visible abs. It can take a few weeks/months for some clients to believe that an exercise like a lunge will be more beneficial for this. My suggestion to trainers is listen to what your clients want, each session teach them a little bit more on why they need to be training full body, give healthy meal suggestions. Once they start seeing results they will be more trusting and more willing to listen to your suggestions. It’s our job as trainers to help them achieve their results and to educate them enough that they will be able to keep them!

And i’m not saying your shouldn't do core exercises - you most definitely should…it’s very important to have a strong core, it will protect your spine, and enable you to lift heavier weights. But if you goal is a 6pack - you need to be lunging, squating, deadlifting, free weight lifting and most importantly eating right.(FYI your core will be working the whole time stabilising you).