Flat TummyGuide

When I get a new client I always ask them what their goals are. The goals range from fat loss to muscle building and toning to athletic performance. This makes perfect sense…people are all quiet different…however almost ALL of these people will mention one specific thing…one common goal… everyone wants a FLAT and TIGHT stomach. Everyone wants an amazing MIDSECTION. Lean and sculpted abs and obliques signify health, youth, vitality and strength. The core is what connects the upper to the lower body and is responsible for supporting the spine, rotating the body, maintaining good posture and it is greatly involved in all physical movement. Sports coaches and athletes know this which is why direct core work and indirect core stability work are major parts of exercise programs. Much of this doesn’t really matter to the average person though…what most people are really concerned with is LOOKING good.

flat tummy guide

flat tummy guide

Midsection training, exercises and techniques are plentiful on the internet. Every single year new fads and new sales hooks are introduced to the midsection training market yet people are more frustrated than ever with their progress. This is too bad because getting a flat and sculpted midsection is actually quiet simple….yes I said SIMPLE, but I didn’t say easy. It does take work but the formula isn’t too complicated. If you apply it you can expect tremendous results that come fast and consistently.

Below I will talk to you about the biggest myths and mistakes people make when training to get a flat belly and I will teach you how YOU can focus on what is most important so that you can FINALLY see the midsection you’ve always wanted. Although there are countless mistakes that people make when targeting this area I have identified the top three myths I have seen over and over and over again in my 20 years managing gyms and training clients.

flat tummy guide

I know you think im crazy for saying cardio isn’t a great way to burn body fat and before you stop reading and you write me off as a loon please allow me to explain. Yes cardio burns a lot of calories…yes cardio burns more calories than other exercise modalities when comparing time for time…yes cardio can show someone some initial and encouraging fat loss. Those are all true and those are ALSO part of the problem.

I am going to teach you something very interesting about your body…it is an ADAPTATION MACHINE. It adapts to stresses and its environment constantly and its goal is to keep you alive and to keep your body EFFICIENT. You see our bodies evolved over thousands of years and during most of this time food was VERY scarce. Through generations and generations the bodies that learned to be the more efficient survived and this process happened many times. You are the result of this process and you have a body that doesn’t know that food is plentiful. Your body still adapts the way bodies did 100,000 years ago and when we do lots and lots of cardio we burn lots and lots of calories. We do use our muscles however when we do cardio we use our muscles in aerobic ways which does not require much strength…it only requires endurance.

myth #1cardio is a great way to burn belly fat

flat tummy guide

Lots of cardio sends the following signal…”become efficient with calories cause we need to CONSERVE.” That’s right..cardio tells the body to conserve calories. This process means your body learns (in a very short time) to burn LESS calories when you are active but especially when you are NOT active. In other words your metabolism SLOWS DOWN. This is known as metabolic adaptation and is a well known phenomena.

A great example of this can be seen with the popular show The Biggest Loser. This TV reality show has obese contestants lose a ton of weight through extreme high intensity cardio based workouts with restrictive diets. Sure they all lose tons of weigh but almost all of them gain it back with SLOWER metabolisms than ever before.

The key to TRULY burning belly fat is to SPEED up the metabolism not to slow it down…and the best way to train the body so that it adapts is to send a signal which tells the body to GET STRONGER. Getting stronger requires more muscle which also burns more calories….not just when you exercise but also when you just sit there. Imagine that…living your life as you normally would except you now NATURALLY burn an additional 200 or 400 or 800 calories a day!!! I have seen it with my own eyes many times when I have clients focus on building strength instead of cardio. This is all done with traditional resistance training…in other words if you want to get a leaner midsection you need to LIFT WEIGHTS.

flat tummy guide

Sometimes in fitness we hear the same advice so many times that we accept it as truth. It becomes COMMON KNOWLEDGE. This is true in so many areas of fitness training but it seems to be especially true when it comes to how to train the core. No doubt you have heard that the abs and muscles of the core need to be trained with high reps. They are said to tone and sculpt whereas training in lower rep ranges builds big blocky and bulky muscles. This is frustratingly FALSE. Training with sufficient resistance is the fastest way to strengthen and develop all of your muscles including the muscles that are under your belly. You’re probably shaking your head…how could this be true when we have been told for so long that high reps are the key. In order to understand this we first must understand MUSCLE FIBERS.

Muscles are made up of hundreds of thousands of individual fibers…these fibers are what are responsible for how your muscles move and contract…however there are different TYPES of muscle fibers. Some are responsible for endurance type activities like long distance running (Type 1) and others are responsible for strength and power movements like sprinting (Type 2). In fact MOST of your muscles are comprised of these two types of muscles fibers. Knowing this

myth #2not training with resistance

is important because the type 1 muscle fibers DON’T grow…or at least they grow very little. Type 2 fibers change and shape at much faster rates and they respond FAST in comparison to their endurance focused counterparts. When you do set after set of high rep crunches you are stimulating the WRONG muscle fibers. This is why you see such slow or even no progress even after hours of high rep ab and core work.

If you want to see results faster the key is to train the muscle fibers that will VISIBLY change the fastest and the most. This means focusing on LOWER reps ranges…10-15 to be exact. Pick difficult exercises that you can do with good form and once you get good at them and can do more than 15 reps either add resistance (by holding a

weight for example) or move to a more difficult exercise. I love seeing the looks on my clients faces after a few weeks of heavier core work…they cant believe how QUICKLY their midsections tighten up and sculpt simply by adding resistance. If you want faster results with your midsection training start going heavier…you will see and feel the difference within weeks.

flat tummy guide

“Training with sufficient resistance is the fastest way

to strengthen and develop all of your muscles including the

muscles that are under your belly.”

99% of all midsection exercises that are promoted in online training programs revolve around training one main muscles…the abdominals. The abdominals are what give you a six pack and they have two main attachments…the pelvis and the lower rib cage. Think of the abs as a large band. Its job is to pull its two attachments together…it does NOT keep your stomach flat. This may sound crazy but when you consider you house many of your internal organs in your midsection and that gravity tends to make them “settle” near the bottom of that midsection you can see why a “lower stomach pooch” is so common…even in lean individuals. The abs only have two attachments and aren’t designed to hold everything in…that is the job of another muscle…one that is almost NEVER targeted in training programs. This muscle is known as the tranverse abdominis also known as the TVA.

The TVA surrounds your midsection like a natural corset. It’s job is to stabilize the core and to KEEP THE MIDSECTION FLAT. In fact if you suck in your stomach right now you would be using your TVA not your abs. This muscle, when weak, allows the organs of the midsection like your stomach to “pooch” out…but when its strong it pulls everything in nice and tight and gives the illusion of a smaller waist. Weakening of the TVA is the main reason why women have such a tough time POST pregnancy with tightening their midsection. This is because the TVA needs to weaken and loosen in order to make room for a growing baby and it will stay weak if it isn’t DIRECTLY targeted with specific exercises. The good news is that the TVA responds very quickly when trained properly. The problem with this myth lies in the fact that most people simply don’t know how to train the TVA. The cool thing is that its actually quiet easy…one exercise in particular is PERFECT for targeting this muscle.

myth #3 not training the muscles that truly flatten and “suck” the stomach in

flat tummy guide

Enter the vacuum pose exercise. With this exercise, you target and strengthen the TVA muscles and over a short period of time you notice a smaller and tighter waist…even if you don’t get leaner!! That’s the crazy part…I have seen women lose over 2 inches around their waist without losing a pound from proper TVA training.

Well…that is pretty much it. If you have a sensible diet and you exercise the entire body properly and you combine it with the techniques and methods I described above you WILL see better and faster results than you ever have before. Learning HOW to send the right signals to your body so that it adapts in ways that are favorable for your goals is key. Get a faster metabolism with weight training, train your midsection with sufficient resistance and train your TVA and watch what happens.

flat tummy guide

Sal was 14 years old when he touched his first weight and from that moment he was hooked. Growing up asthmatic, frequently sick and painfully skinny, Sal saw weightlifting as a way to change his body and his self-image. In the beginning, Sal’s body responded quickly to his training but then his gains slowed and then stopped altogether. Not one to give up easily, he began reading every muscle building publication he could get his hands on to find ways to bust through his plateau. He read Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, Mentzer’s Heavy Duty, Kubrick’s Dinosaur Training, and every muscle magazine he could find; Weider’s Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Iron Man and even Muscle Media 2000. Each time he read about a new technique or methodology he would test it out in the gym. At age 18 his passion for the art and science of resistance training was so consuming that he decided to make it his profession and become a personal trainer. By 19 he was managing health clubs and by 22 he owned his own gym. After 17 years as a personal trainer he has dedicated himself to bringing science and TRUTH to the fitness industry.

about the author

sal di stefano