A lean midsection takes a combination of good nutrition, cardiovascular training and core training. For some, the quest of how to get a six pack also requires additional time trimming extra weight off the midsection.

If you want to tone up your core, follow these guidelines to transform your keg into a six pack

How to Get a Six Pack – Start with Nutrition

You can shorten the road to a six pack by turning your sites on better nutrition.  Eating healthy is essential to a good physique overall, especially for the abdominal region.  This area tends to be the first place where fat is deposited for a lot of people.

Eating processed foods and fast foods provides a lot of calories but leaves you lacking nutrients to fuel your body.  Eating natural, whole foods in small meals throughout the day provides high quality fuel that keeps your metabolism stoked throughout the day.  That gives you energy, stops you from overeating, and helps you burn more calories.

How to Get a Six Pack Through Exercise

Exercise by itself is a great way to expend calories, but if you’re not monitoring your dietary intake then you’re going to be on a slow road to getting a six pack.  In order for your abdominal muscles to show through, where you have a visible six pack, you need to balance your exercise and your nutrition to trim off any excess fat.  Even a small amount of fat will prevent those muscles from showing.

The key is to combine cardiovascular conditions with strength training and balanced nutrition.  Whether you’re running, walking, taking dance classes, cycling, swimming, you need to mix in cardio to burn off calories and excess fat.

More Ab Workouts Are Not the Answer

Some people think that heavy abdominal exercises are the key when they’re trying to get a six get. 
More is not necessarily better, especially when it comes to abdominal training.  You simply cannot reduce fat content with strength training alone. 

Abdominal muscles consist of three layers.  The deepest layer acts the body’s girdle and provides the support and stability.  The rectus abdominis is the middle layer, which helps flex the spine.  The closest to the surface is the internal and external obliques.  These turn the trunk and provide the body with rotation and lateral movement.  All these muscles work in the same way as the other muscle groups.  You wouldn’t over-train your biceps doing 100 curls to bulk up.  You can’t do this with your abs either.

If you want to know how to get a six pack, then retrain yourself to follow a consistent exercise regimen that is balanced – containing cardio, improved nutrition, and healthy strength training.

Join our Free 6 Week Six Pack System is great start for anyone who wants to get ripped fast. JOIN HERE 

Contrary to what most people believe, endless crunches and leg raises are NEVER going to transform a beer belly into a six pack. Abdominal exercises can help a little bit, but revealing your abs is about getting lean! You can’t spot-reduce the fat off of your stomach with sit-ups, either – you’ve got to lose fat from all over your body. Here are five six pack abs shortcuts for getting lean and sporting that six pack you’ve always wanted.

Nutrition – Your Abs are Made in the Kitchen

Proper nutrition is even more important for fat loss than it is for gaining muscle. You can train your ass off in the gym, but a bad diet is going to kill your results every time. Getting ripped abs starts with a comprehensive diet plan that will allow you to efficiently lose body fat while retaining that muscle mass you’ve worked so hard for. No starvation diets!

Adjusting your carbohydrate intake is going to be the most important part of your fat loss diet. You should still be eating tons of protein to support your heavy training, but the carbs are going to have to come down if you want to get lean. Make sure you only eat sugars and starches in the meals just before and after your train – the times you need them most. Even if all of your carbs come from oats, potatoes, and other “clean” sources, eating them at other times of the day will jack up your insulin levels and prevent your body from ever burning fat.

Cardio – It’s When You Do It That Counts

If there’s one strategy that’s really a “quick fix” for fat loss, it’s got to be fasted morning cardio. You’re not going to go from fat to fit in a week doing this, but it’s one of the best strategies for quickly losing body fat without burning up your muscle mass. It takes some serious time and effort, though!

Upon waking, down a few grams of branched-chain amino acids or about five grams of protein powder. Then just get your ass on that treadmill for about forty-five minutes. You need to keep the pace brisk, but you should be walking – not running – the whole time. Since you don’t have any food in your stomach, your body will be forced to use its own fat stores for energy. Do this four to five times per week in combination with a proper diet, and you’ll start seeing daily results in your midsection.

High Intensity Intervals for Rapid Fat Loss

Is treadmill walking too boring for you? Do you not have the time to add in four to five hours of cardio per week? Are you too damn fat to avoid harder conditioning work? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may want to give some interval training a try.

Intervals simply involve alternating periods of all-out effort and active recovery. If you do these on a track, you would sprint for about fifteen seconds and then walk for one to two minutes. The same principle applies to stationary bikes and ellipticals. Do eight to ten rounds, and you’re done!

This kind of cardio is hell, and it’s going to take a toll on your recovery abilities if you do it too frequently. If you’re already weight training four to five times per week, then one or two interval sessions is plenty. Doing them on an empty stomach isn’t going to help you, either – high intensity activity burns carbs, not body fat. The fat-burning benefits come later, as your body expends more calories for hours after you’ve completed the workout.

Squats and Deads for a Strong Core

While getting lean is the key to a six pack, it’s true that your abs will poke through your skin a little more if you make them bigger. You’re not going to achieve any muscle growth with hundreds of crunches, though!

Heavy squats and deadlifts are the ticket to a thicker, stronger core. Supporting weight during these movements engages your lower back and abs like nothing else. These exercises should already be staples in your leg and back routines, so start doing them now if you’re not already. If you’re really looking to strengthen your abs, you might want to avoid using a belt.

How to Really Train Your Abs

Direct abdominal training comes last AND least in your quest for a six pack, but there are a few exercises which can still help you out. Instead of doing a bunch of bodyweight crunches, try decline sit-ups with a weight BEHIND your head. Don’t be one of those jackasses who piles 45s on his chest and bends about one inch at the waist. Use a long range of motion with a 10 or 25, and you’ll torch your abs in just a few sets. It’s incredible how much harder this movement is when you keep the weight behind your head.

Other good abs exercises are heavy weighted side bends, weighted leg raises, and cable crunches. In general, you should be training your abs like every other muscle – heavy and progressively. Aim to actually get stronger on sit-ups and crunches, and you’ll finally notice your abs getting more pronounced. Stronger abs will make help your squat and deadlift numbers, as well.

Article by Sixpackfactory’s Muscle Building Expert and Top Fitness Model Justin Woltering. Get more info on Justin at: http://www.justinwoltering.com/

Hi Everyone!

Now many of you will know that last year we created the The 6WeekSix Pack Challenge. What started out as a small challenge for our fans to help them stay motivated and get ripped for summer soon became so popular that we ended up running the 6WeekSixPack Challenge for the rest of the year.

By the end of 2011 we had over 30 000 people who took the challenge and got into the best shape of their lives

Some of them got some seriously amazing results and many were dropping 20 pounds or more in just 6 weeks! The before and after photos ( See some of them here ) we got were simply astonishing to say the least and even though I knew I created something powerful you just never know how powerful something is until it is paired with  dedicated and focused individuals. And well all I can say is that even I was surprised by the results everyone was getting.

But that was last year!

This year I created something even better, even more powerful, even more EXTREME

The 6WeekSixPack Xtreme Challenge

I started out with all the most powerful aspects of the old 6WeekSixPack Challenge, the things I knew worked extremely well from all the feedback I got from everyone who did it and who got results.

I then spent the whole December fine-tuning every part of it ! In some cases I completely got rid of full workouts because I have come up with something that is even better than what was there before. The Weight training, the cardio and even the ab workouts has gone to a whole new level in the Xtreme Challenge.

In fact the only similarity between the old and the new 6WeekSixPack Challenge , is that it is still 100% FREE!

So If you are sick and tired of being fat and are ready to get into the best shape of your life then put away your wallet ! Grab your Balls!

And come and join The 6WeekSixPack Xtreme Challenge

JOIN HERE NOW

We are going to run the 6WeekSixPack Xtreme Challenge every 2 months and the best body transformation during each challenge will win prizes worth over $1300 T&C apply.

Now there are literally hundreds of books and systems on how to set goals the right way. And I have probably read most of them. The problem with many is that they are too complicated and are not set up to actually motivate you to go and reach your goals. But as you know by now I like things to be short, simple and very powerful and the 3 steps I am going to share with you below will help you to set goals in just such a way.

So the system I created is known as the SDR System. Let’s have a look at each step that the goals you set should adhere to if you want them to be effective.

S = SCARY

Your goals should be a little scary. It should make you nervous yet excited. It should make the hair stand up on the back of your neck when you just look at what you wrote down, and you should write down all your goals and stick them somewhere you can see them every day!

See, if a goal is too boring, if it doesn’t excite you, then the chances of you actually continuing to pursue those goals after a week or so are very small. Your goals must almost give you that feeling of an adrenaline junkie who is looking at the next big thing he can do to get his kick. When they look at things at first it always scares them a little. But after planning and looking at facts and knowing what they want to do it just becomes something they have to accomplish. But without the real excitement in the beginning, chances are they would never have started. And when you set goals it should be just like that. When you first write it down it should scare you a little. You should think, OMG, I am insane to think I can do this. But then when you sit down and start to plan on how you want to achieve it, you will soon realize that what might have seemed totally unobtainable in the beginning could soon become reality!

D = Desirable

Your goals must be really desirable. For example, you can set a scary goal like “I want to climb Mount Everest” but if that is not really something you personally desire, you won’t follow through. On the other hand if you want to really buy a Ferrari and that means you need to work harder than you have ever worked, then you will do it without even thinking about complaining. And on a side note let me just say this about materialistic things. Sure, every time I reached a materialistic goal like buying a car I always wanted or a watch etc it was not really as exciting as I was hoping it would be. However, having started my life with NOTHING and I mean nothing ( Apart from a good upbringing by my parents ) I have learnt that materialistic things motivate me, FULL STOP! I don’t live just for money, but I know I can always use it as a strong motivator to help me achieve stuff. But is it sharing your goals and wealth with the people you love that are really what life is all about. Because you will soon learn when you get to a point where you can pretty much afford anything you want, that you must have something more or your life will be pretty empty.

But let’s get back to the point. Your goals, no matter whether it is a nice car or ripped abs, must be something you REALLY want and desire or I can promise you right now you will never reach that goal. It must be something that if you just think about it, it sparks your motivation to the point where you will work 24 hour shifts 3 days in a row if you have to or eat fish and broccoli for 4 weeks just to reveal your abs at last. You must really desire it or drop it from your goals’ list.

R = Realistic

You might have come across this one before and I have added it as well because it is extremely important. There is a fine line between setting goals that are scary and desirable yet realistic. Now if you set a goal that you want a Ferrari in 2 months but you don’t even have a business up and running yet then you are really just setting yourself up to fail. Or if you are 50 pounds overweight but want to 6 pack abs in 2 weeks. It’s just never going to happen. You need to be realistic when it comes to your goals and the timeframe in which you want to achieve them in and the only way you can do that is by knowing the FACTS ! What I mean by this is that if you know how quickly you can lose fat and get 6 pack abs ( See an article on this here ) then you can use that info to set realistic goals. For example: If you know that you need to lose 40 pounds of fat to get ripped. And you know that a realistic amount of fat to lose each week is 2 pounds then you can now set yourself a realistic goal that it might take you 20 weeks to get ripped. Now if you want to make that goal scary as well without making it dangerous you can say I want to shoot for 2.5 pounds of fat loss per week. This way it will push you and you will need to be 100% dedicated to your diet and workout program to reach your goal.

Ok so go grab a piece of paper right now, RIGHT NOW!!!! Then write down your top 10 goals for this year. They can be lifestyle, emotional, materialistic, physical etc. goals. Then look at the 3 things at the top and get rid of any of them that do not adhere to these 3 rules. Then take the ones that are left and go and find out all the facts you can about them. If you want to get your Pilots’ License go find out how long it takes, how much it costs etc. Then come back and write down a plan on how you are going to achieve those goals. Simple as that!

Now like I said, this is my simple plan I use but below I am going to add a few other things that you might also want to think about when you set your goals.

• Make sure you set short term and long term goals.
• Reward yourself for each goal you reach. In reality reaching your goal should be reward enough though if you have set proper goals.
• Take action. A goal is like day-dream and unless you take action that is all it will always be!
• Write it all down and put it somewhere where you will see it all the time. Make a dream board if you want to but you must see your goals each day!

Steroids allow some lifters to put extra testosterone straight into their bodies, but how are we natural guys supposed to optimize our hormone levels? This is one of the biggest questions in bodybuilding today. While many nutritionists, athletes, and trainers would tell you that there’s really nothing you can do about it, I beg to differ. You’re not going to achieve “steroid-like gains” with natural test-boosting techniques, but you can certainly pack on a few extra pounds of muscle if you do everything right. Here are some of the most effective methods to boost testosterone naturally and build muscle faster.

Natural Supplements

There are a lot of junk supplements out there that claim to deliver the same effects as steroids without the high costs, physical side effects, and legal risks. If you’re actually thinking about buying any of this crap, just remember: if something seems too good to be true, it is! These products won’t make your muscles bigger, but they will make your wallet thinner.

That being said, there are a few all-natural supplements on the market that have been shown to increase blood testosterone levels, especially in people who suffer from chronically low levels of this crucial hormone. The most effective one is called tribulus terrestris, and it’s sold at almost every supplement shop and online store. There are a few decent products which incorporate tribulus along with other ingredients, but you can great effects from buying it plain.

Dietary Changes

Like everything else related to building muscle and losing fat, proper nutrition is key to boosting your testosterone levels. However, you’re going need to keep an open mind on this one. Like many nutritionists will tell you, protein is great for high testosterone levels – but you’re probably eating tons of the stuff, right?

You wanna know what really jacks your testosterone levels up? Saturated fat! Studies have shown time and again that a diet rich in monounsaturated AND saturated fats is conducive to high testosterone levels. What’s more, research on various diets throughout the world suggests that neither plant-based nor animal-based sources of saturated fat are the real culprit behind obesity and fat gain. If you want to get lean while boosting your test levels, cut some of the starch and sugar out of your diet and gnaw on a big hunk of beef!

Heavy Lifting

If you’re trying to build muscle, you should already be lifting some seriously heavy weights. However, lifting heavy in the 4-6 rep range does more than just stimulate strength and size gains. Natural athletes who regularly lift the heaviest weights – powerlifters and Olympic lifters – have been shown to have higher testosterone levels than people who train lighter. Save the pump for end of your workout and focus on adding plates to that bar.

Sleep

Sleep has got to be the most overlooked recovery modality. While beginner bodybuilders always read about the holy trinity of heavy weights, big eating, and lots of rest, it seems that intermediate and advanced guys stop worrying about sleep somewhere along the way. This is a huge mistake!

Getting plenty of sleep AND maintaining a normal sleep schedule are critical for your body to maintain optimal hormone levels. Your testosterone fluctuates throughout the day, but it will never be as high as possible unless you get enough sleep. Ideally you’d get to bed early enough each night not to require an alarm clock in the morning. We’re all busy, though, so just make sure you’re getting six hours MINIMUM. Try to be more efficient in your daily tasks so you can adjust your bedtimes or at least catch a few catnaps – those help, too.

Stress Management

How often do you see a ripped, muscular, and just plain manly dude who’s also worried all the time? Yea, not too often. Not only does chronically high stress kill your energy levels and knock the wind out of your sails before you even get to the gym – it is poison for your hormonal balance.

If you want to be a successful bodybuilder, you’ve got to remove or at least mitigate the stress in your life. Quit hanging out with people who just piss you off anyway, and take time to relax when you need it. You’re always going to have stressful stuff to deal with, but get your priorities in order and stop making your life harder than it needs to be. Your muscles and your mind will both thank you.

Other Hormones to Consider

If you want to build as much muscle as you can without steroids, you’ve got to think about optimizing all of your hormone levels, not just testosterone. The two most important to consider are insulin and growth hormone – but that’s another article!

Article by Sixpackfactory’s Muscle Building Expert and Top Fitness Model Justin Woltering. Get more info on Justin at: http://www.justinwoltering.com/

Now before I get started I just want to say I am not here to promote or sell products. It is just that we get so many people asking us what products are worth buying for home workouts that we decided to create a list of the products that we use and feel is worth spending money on so that you don’t have to go and waste your hard earned cash on any of the crap out there!

Secondly, it is that time of the year where we like to give back to all our fans and so on 24 December we are going to do a MASSIVE Christmas Giveaway where we are going to give some of the products mentioned in this article away. You can find out all the info at this link: GO TO THE CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY

Also remember that the products I am going to talk about in this article are things that you can and should get only after you have already bought the basics e.g. Dumbbells, exercise bands, stability ball etc. Those are the products you start out with and then if you want to take things to the next level you can look at these products.
Before we start to look at the products I wanted to share the 3 things that every home fitness product must adhere to before I would even consider looking at it.

• If a product is focused on one body part or only trains one area of your body, I am not interested. If I am going to spend money on something it better do more than just work one muscle group. It must allow me to train my full body.
• The product must allow me to do more than what I can do with just a pair of dumbbells and exercises band. It must bring something to the workout Table so to speak. Otherwise what is the point other than to make the product owner rich!!
• The product must actually be a home fitness product and that means it should be portable and affordable. These things you get that take 5 weeks to assemble and then take up half your house are not home fitness products as far as I am concerned!

So, let’s look at what we believe to be the top 5 home fitness products on the market today that will take your home workouts to a whole new level! ( You can also watch the video above for more info on each product )

Pull-Up Bar

The door mounted Pull-Up bar has been around for a while now but it is still one of the cheapest and best home fitness products out there. The main reason is that it allows you to do a large variety of exercises including pull-ups that you won’t normally be able to do without it. Get more info by clicking on the banner below.

The Human Trainer

This suspension training system basically allows you to combine straps, any door and your body to do hundreds of exercises. Once again I love this specific product because it is extremely durable, has a double anchor system ( See the video above ) and allows you to make adjustments very quickly. If you want to build some muscle at home this product is a must! Get more info by clicking on the banner below.

The Ultimate Body Press

This is one of those very unique type home exercise products that when you see it for the first time you think, why I would want this! Then when you start using it, you wonder, how did I ever do workouts without it. I love doing my abs on this and also some cardio exercises. And as with all the products above so far, it is very portable and affordable, two things that are very important to me when it comes to home workout products. Get more info by clicking on the banner below.

PowerBeats by Dr. Dre

The next two products are more about enhancing your home workout experience than being actual equipment and nothing will help you push harder than good music. But good music only really helps if you can actually hear it and when it comes to high quality sound, nothing beats PowerBeats by Dr. Dre. They can be a bit pricy but in my opinion they are worth it.  Get more info by clicking on the banner below.

GymBoss Timer

Many of our workouts on this website work with intervals. Now if you don’t want to waste time looking at a big round clock for when each interval is over then a timer like the Gymboss is what you will want, and YOU WILL WANT IT! The first time I used my Gymboss I burned like 20% more calories just because I could focus on pushing as hard as I can without stopping every 10 seconds checking the time. I know it sounds simple but it can make a huge difference and at only $20 it is an investment you will never regret! Get more info by clicking on the banner below.

Hi Everyone!

Today I just quickly wanted to annouce the winners of our 6WeekSixPack Xtreme Plus Pack Competition and I will hopefully later this week get some time to shoot some actual footage of my new car and show you all.

Now many of you got it WRONG and only a handful actually got it right. So my new car is an AUDI RS4 !

Well done to the 3 guys below who got it right first and please contact me and I will get your packs to you asap. Note: You had to guess exactly what the car was. If you said something like it  could be aRS4 or RS6 it did not count.

Winners:

• Skyli
• Aviad
• Matt Halliday

If everyone is an expert, confident in their own ideas and beliefs, how can the average beginner possibly know who to listen to? He or she is instantly confronted with endless questions that seem to have no clear-cut answer.

How many days should I train per week? How many sets should I perform for each muscle group? What type of rep range should I be using? What are the most effective exercises for stimulating muscle growth? How long should my workouts last?

These questions go on and on until he or she is eventually led to believe that building muscle is an infinitely complex process involving rocket-science precision and an intimate understanding of human physiology. I mean, that’s what takes to build muscle, right? Wrong! Believe me, there are answers to these important questions, and if you are willing to put in the time and effort you will most definitely find them. But that’s not what this article is about.

You see, amidst all of the confusion and endless debating, the majority of lifters end up losing sight of the big picture. Beyond all of the specific workout principles, such as rep range and exercise selection, remains one crucial principle, a principle that lies at the very heart of the muscle growth process. If this principle is not given full attention, or even worse, completely ignored, building muscle becomes next to impossible.

The bottom line is that muscles grow as they adapt to stress. When you go to the gym and lift weights, you create “micro-tears” within the muscle tissue. Your body perceives this as a potential threat to its survival and reacts accordingly by increasing the size and strength of the muscle fibers in order to protect against a possible future “attack”. Therefore, in order to continually increase the size and strength of the muscles, you must focus on progressing each week by either lifting slightly more weight or performing an extra rep or two. In doing this, your body will continue to adapt and grow to the ever-increasing stress.

Building muscle is all about building strength!

So what is the most powerful muscle-building tool available? Quite simply, it is a pen and a piece of paper!

Every time you go to the gym you must write down exactly what you accomplished and then strive to improve upon it the following week. If you aren’t always getting better, then you’re either staying the same or getting worse. Every week you should have an exact plan of attack ready to be executed. You absolutely cannot afford to start throwing weights around aimlessly without a clear-cut goal in mind.

The specifics of building muscle are important to understand and implement, but regardless of what style of training you’re currently using the ultimate deciding factor between success and failure is progression. You can sit around all day obsessing over specific principles, but the bottom line is that if you aren’t getting stronger every week, you absolutely will not be getting any bigger. Examine your training approach closely. If you haven’t been paying laser-like attention to the amount of weight you’ve been using, the number of reps you’ve been performing, and then striving with every ounce of your energy to improve upon those numbers each week, you are completely ignoring the very foundation of the muscle growth process. If you want to see the best gains in muscle mass and strength that you possibly can, a pen and a piece of paper is the most important tool you could possibly have in your arsenal.

In order for muscles to grow, three things are required:

Stimulus - exercise is needed to make the muscles work, use energy and cause microscopic damage to the fibers.

Nutrition – after intense exercise the muscles need to replenish their stores of fuel.

Rest - it is during the rest or recovery phase that the muscles repair the microscopic damage and grow.

Muscle size increases due to hypertrophic adaptation and an increase in the cross section area of individual muscle fibers. Intensive exercise impacts more on the strength influencing fast twitch type II fibers, therefore the increase in muscle size is accompanied by greater strength.

This will deplete the muscle’s energy stores and cause microscopic damage to the muscle tissue. During recovery, these stores of glycogen and phosphocreatine will replenish from carbohydrates and creatine ingested as food or supplements. Amino acids supplied in the diet will trigger the protein synthesis that repairs the damaged muscle and lead to the creation of bigger muscle fibers.

To achieve continuous improvement you will need to keep reaching for higher levels of training intensity otherwise the improvement process will grind to a halt. This is why we always tell you to keep track of your progress in a workout journal so that you can make 100% sure you always improve and push to the next level and so continue to build muscle and sculpt the body of you of your dreams!

1) You are training too hard – Every time when you train your muscles intensely, you are actually breaking down your muscles. So your muscles need to recover from the damages you inflicted on them. So train each muscle group only once or at most twice a week.

2) You are training too long – Keep your workout intense but do not workout more than an hour each time. After 45 minutes of intensive training, your cortisol level will increase. This hormone is known to destroy muscle cells.

3) You are sleeping too little – You need to sleep more for good muscle growth. Your muscles grow when you sleep. So sleep more than 8 hours a day and watch those muscles growing fast.

4) You are abusing alcohol – Alcohol is known to break down muscle mass plus many other body destruction ability.

5) You do not change your workout routine – You must change your workout routine every 6-8 weeks. Your muscles adapt to your routine and stops growing.

6) You do not progressively overload your muscles – You must try to increase your reps or weight every time you next train a particular muscle group. Otherwise, there is no reason for your muscles to grow.

7) You do not eat sufficient protein – If you want to build bigger muscles, you must eat more protein. Protein is the building block for your muscles. It is recommended that you need 1 gram of protein per pound of your body weight equivalent. If not enough protein is consumed with your normal diet, do supplement with protein shakes. ( Click Here to find out how much protein you need )

There you are, the 7 reasons why your muscles stopped growing even though you are training hard. There are many more methods on how to grow your muscles bigger but these 7 reasons and how to overcome them will be sufficient for an average bodybuilding beginner.