Certified Turbulence Trainer Mike Whitfield here, and you’re going to discover how to get six pack abs without slow, boring cardio.

Ohhhh dear.  January.  The time when all the “resolutionists” grab up all the cardio equipment in the gym trying to get rid of the 12 lbs of fat they gained from eating Grandma’s stuffing and too many cookies.  You can’t delete your cookies with cardio (yes, I know… that was a great play on words… ha-ha, “delete cookies”.  That’s like… freakin’ brilliant.  Wow, this is a lot of words between parenthesis).  Even if you are trying to get 6 pack abs, you don’t just simply add more cardio.  That’s like throwing an ice cream sandwich at a big forest fire.  It’s odd, it doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t work.

The truth is that the little bit of fat that you have left covering your 6 pack abs is stubborn.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that you can knock it out and reveal your lean midsection without cardio.

Here’s What You Need For Six Pack Abs

1 Effective and proven ab exercises that help define your midsection

2 Interval training and metabolic finishers

3 Metabolic resistance training

4 A diet of whole, unprocessed foods, giving you a caloric deficit

This is the part where it can be tricky.  You may think you need to do all of these after one another (with the exception of the diet) and you’ll end up working out for 2 hours.  The real magic is that if you combine everything into a unique combination, you can actually do it all in about 45 minutes.  But first, let’s take a look at why cardio won’t do you any good for your 6 pack.

Cardio Does More Harm than Good for Six Pack Abs

Let’s take it that you use the elliptical for an hour, trying to lose your belly fat.  How often do you work your core using the elliptical?  Isn’t that the reason you’re on it – is because you want to finally reveal your abs? Ask yourself that question, then pout.  I know, tough love is … well, tough.  Now wouldn’t it make more sense to implement a workout program packed full of moves that use a lot of muscle at one time, creating a huge caloric burn both during and after a workout?  Wouldn’t that burn off that little bit of fat around your waist line?  Am I not asking a lot of questions?  Anyway, what if you complimented that type of program with ab exercises that helped sculpt your abs and metabolic finishers that would literally blow torch the belly fat for hours?  You have to admit that it would make more sense to approach your quest for leaner abs this way.  Oh yeah, did I mention that cardio has been shown to increase your appetite as well as increase the hormone cortisol, which leads to belly fat?  That’s not a cool sentence, but it ties it all together and it makes the header of the paragraph make more sense.

How to Use These All at the Same Time

The main workout program should consist of a combination of big moves like deadlifts, squats, rows, pushups, lunges and other big, “calorie expensive” exercises.  The reason I say “calorie expensive” exercises is because these moves use so much muscle at one time, creating a massive caloric afterburn for your body.  In other words, these types of workouts will have you burning fat in your sleep.  That is why they work.

With the main program, you now sprinkle in the proven ab exercises like the ab wheel/stability ball rollout, cross-body mountain climbers, etc., etc.  You can even get crazy and use the chin-up/knee-up combination.

Using Interval Training and Defining Your Abs at the Same Time

That takes care of the metabolic resistance training as well as the ab exercises that work.  Now, you can actually combine the intervals and the metabolic finisher into one final segment of your workout program.  You can even put in some effective ab exercises here as well, depending on your main program.  Here is what I mean:

Let’s take an interval program like 30 seconds of high intensity followed by 30 seconds of low intensity.  Instead of just simply using the bike or treadmill, we can implement what’s called an “Ab Finisher” that would replace the intervals and work your midsection at the same time.  Below is an example:

Do the following circuit four times, resting for 30 seconds between circuits.

1A) Jump Squats (30 secs)

1B) Stability Ball Plank (30 secs)

1C) Jumping Jacks (30 secs)

1D) Stability Ball Jackknife (30 secs)

In less than 10 minutes, you performed intervals, while at the same time incorporating belly fat blasting exercises.  Now that’s efficient.  It’s like using a blowtorch for your birthday cake.  Who needs matches?

Using a combination of MRT, finishers and a proper diet is much more efficient than using cardio to get your 6 pack.  You get much more accomplished in less time, and you set your body up to burn belly fat 24/7.

Finish Strong,

Mike (AKA “Mikey”) Whitfield