The Push Away
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By Craig Huntington
By far, the biggest concern of clients over the years has been with the abs. whenever anyone asks me what exercise is best for the abdominal area, I tell them to do the push-away. No other exercise even comes close.
They usually get really excited and ask me to show them how to do it. The look on their face is priceless when I say,
"If mom puts another serving on your plate, you PUSH IT AWAY!" (Thank you Eric Kupperstien)
I used to believe there was a need for clients to do a specific ab routine because I had yet to delete all of the idiotic fitness industry notions completely out of my brain. The abdominals are not some magical set of muscles that if worked separately somehow melt away the fat from around the tummy.
Just like any other skeletal muscle, abs are exercised by contacting them intensely against resistance. In fact one could argue they are potentially the most over worked muscle group in the body because they are stimulated on virtually every exercise.
For example, the palms up front grip pull down, which targets primarily the lats, is so effective; I've actually witnessed many a client's abdominal area go into spasm during its performance.
The main issue here is with the belief in spot reduction. You CANNOT spot reduce body fat! In other words, you can't pick a part of your body, do an exercise for said part and make the fat go away. Doing endless amounts of crunches, or any other abdominal exercise for that matter will not whittle away the fat from around your waist. It's the oldest (and most successful) fraud in the fitness industry. Don't fall for it!
Fat is stored all over the body and It just so happens that the major fat deposits are in the waste, hips and thighs, Skeletal muscles, and the fat that is stored in and around them have zero direct relationship with each other. They're like two neighbors who don't know each other from a whole in the wall. You could have the best abdominals in the world but if they're covered by a thick layer of fat, no one is ever going to see them. To attain a "six pack" one has to become very lean. How lean? It's my belief that the average woman has to be below 15% body fat and men have to get into the single digits.
To lose fat from any part of your body you have to make a slight calorie reduction, (I can hear the whining already) mainly by limiting starches and sugars. When calories are reduced, the body is forced to dip into stored fat to find the energy it was used to getting from food intake. Once you start to lose fat, you'll finally get to see the chiseled midsection you had all along underneath.
The best kind of exercise you can do for your abdominals is very intense strength training. 2 to 3 sessions a week, lasting an average of 15-20 minutes is all you need. Remember this. Diet is the key to a toned midsection, with the right kind of exercise being a valuable, but very secondary component.
I'm not saying you should never do specific ab exercises. Just work your abdominals in the same manner that I recommend for all of your other muscles, one set of one exercise, done to the point of momentary muscular failure. Use a weight heavy enough that makes you fail within 50-75 seconds.
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