Throughout my years as a trainer I have seen the methods of getting clients sleek, ripped abs change.

The once popular low fat – high carbohydrate diet has been replaced with a more effective lower carb – moderate fat diet.

The once popular bodybuilding inspired body part split routines have been replaced with full body, metabolism based training programs.

The once popular fat burning zone, ‘grind it out’ steady state cardio marathons have been replaced with high intensity interval burst training that spits in the face of the fat burning zone and instead focusing on creating a metabolic afterburn effect resulting in an increase in calories burned over the entire day and not just during exercise.

What about ab training?

Why hasn’t ab training changed?

Well, it has.

The days of endless crunches a la Rocky Balboa are gone.

The days of 6 Minute Ab abdominal isolation circuits are gone.

Why?

Because the future of abdominal training is not about flexion (e.g. crunches). The future of ab training is stabilization training.

For years we have been missing the boat with abdominal training. We have been focusing on training and developing a 6 pack through moving the abs by flexing our spines. The problem is that kind of training is NOT stressing your abdominals efficiently and NOT having them do what they are supposed to do.

The future of 6 pack abs training is developing a six pack by making the abs do what they are meant to do – stabilize.

The failure of 6 pack ab training may be partly due to our obsession on ‘seeing the muscle work’. We’ve all done crunches where we lay down and put out hands on our abs so we can feel the crunch. Textbooks are also to blame for their continued recitation of “the function of the abdominal muscles is to flex the spine”.

But if we look as our daily lives, our abs work the most when we are walking, running, lifting, and even standing by stabilizing our core. Think about it…if the true function of our abs was flexion then wouldn’t they look like two biceps and not a 6 pack?

Once you starting start using the 21st Century 6 Pack Training you will strengthen and develop your six pack faster and more efficiently than with the outdate ‘crunch’ method as you will be working your abs how they were designed to be worked and not how a magazine thought would make the best pictures.

Here is an example of the 21st Century 6 Pack Ab Circuit

1) Inch Worms - 1 -2 x 5-10 reps

Start:


Finish:



2) Mountain Climbers on Swiss Ball - 1-2 x 45s (slow pace)

Start


Midpoint (Left Leg)


Finish (Right Leg)

3) Forward Swill Ball Roll - 1-2 x 45s (slow pace)

Start:

Finish:

4) Side Plank with Cable Row - 8-12 each side

Start:


Finish:

About the author:

Alwyn Cosgrove, M.S., C.S.C.S. is a nationally renown fat loss expert whose work has appeared in magazines such as Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Men’s Journal, Self, Oxygen, and Muscle & Fitness HERS. His Warp Speed Fat Loss system is a complete Done-for-You A-Z Fat Loss Blueprint that gives you exactly everything you need to eat and exactly what to do for exercise to lose weight in record time.