Thanks to Mark Wahlberg or more recently, Justin Bieber, there seems to be a general appreciation for a set of well sculpted abs. With the summer months only a little bit away, you may have started thinking about putting your abs on display at the pool or the beach. Whether you will or won’t will involve some internal reflection, but as for getting your abs to the point where you might contemplate going shirtless or in a bikini; we have found some advice for that.
If you haven’t frequented your local gym, that’s always a good start. And when you do, you may find that they have classes on the schedule solely for abs. Some may cringe at the thought of 30 minutes of concentrated work on the part of your body that seems to have a unique and painful burn when exercised. But according to a number of professionals, zero-ing in on that part of your body can have the best effect.
“You have four different kinds of muscle in your abs,” says fitness instructor Tomer Rossano, who teaches the 30 minute killer Six-Pack Attack! class at DavidBartonGym in Century City. “You have the transverse abdominis, the obliques, internal and external and you have the rectus abdominis. Each one, comes from a different direction so you have to come and attack it from different directions if you want to get all the fibres and the results.”
Attack the abs? If you think that sounds painful, I’m here to tell you, it is. I attended the Six-Pack Attack! class to see what ab lovers put up with and I can safely say it hurt to laugh for two days after that class. Thankfully it doesn’t need to be frequented daily. “I would recommend doing an ab class twice a week,” says Rossano. “The idea is to work out between three to four times a week. Less than that and it’s not enough and won’t benefit you as much. If you come three to four times a week and make sure you are working your lower and upper body as well as your twice weekly ab routine, you will get the best results.”
