Are you sick of crunches? Unfortunately, women have to work much harder and longer, to get visible abs, BUT if you avoid these mistakes, you can show your six-pack faster!
The most common reasons why your abs are not visible
#1 You have too much body fat
If you want to get abs as a woman, you have to burn off the fat layer. Making your abs show, is a matter of getting low body fat levels which means 16 to 19 percent for females. The lower your body fat, the thinner your skin will appear and the more your abdominal muscles will show through.
#2 Your diet is not on point
The best way to get six-pack abs is to have a healthy and balanced diet. Even the best abs workout is useless if your nutrition is out of control. If your goal is revealing your abs, you will need to maintain a clean and healthy diet. Eat whole grain and water-rich foods to keep your metabolism high. Try low-fat proteins like baked or grilled chicken, fish, or lean meat. Enhance your workouts with complex carbs, like oats and brown rice. Stay away from white flour, and sugar, which quickly raises your blood sugar, promoting fat gain around the middle.
To make sure you meet your daily nutrient requirements, you can use sports nutrition like Women’s Best Fit Pro Whey Protein as a supplement to your healthy diet. It is rich in protein and amino acids and contains low amounts of fat and carbohydrates.
#3 Your abs workout is not hard enough
How to get abs as a woman? You have to make them BURN! Most people perform a lot of reps and expect fast results, but if you want your abs to pop, you need to add resistance. By adding weights to your workout routine, you force your muscles to work harder and allow you to build a deeply-etched six-pack. Furthermore, keep your reps in the hypertrophy range (12-15 reps) and work on increasing resistance, just like you would with any other exercises for other body parts.
#4 You try to crunch away the fat
Focusing only on the abs workout does not work. You cannot lose fat in specific areas of your body by training that body part more often. Unfortunately, abdominal fat is usually the last bit to come off and the first to come back. The best way to get abs for women is to get rid of the belly-fat is by slowly and gradually burning it off from your entire body through cardio, nutrition, and strength training.
#5 You don’t target your abs from every angle
Hitting all areas of the ab region means upper, lower, and obliques. Just like you do for any other body parts you need to target all areas of the ab region: upper, lower, and obliques. Most people just do crunches or sit-ups and expect great results. To make your abs pop, you need to avoid this by including at least one specific exercise that targets each area of your six-pack during abs workouts.
#6 You avoid cardio
Cardio is really important for revealing your abs and is always going to be a key factor. Unfortunately, one of the biggest mistakes I see people make when attempting to speed up their fat loss is by doing the wrong type of cardio. Low intensity, long duration cardio workouts are not the best way to lose fat. They are time-consuming and can be damaging to the metabolism, by ending up burning off precious muscle mass. Try interval cardio and high-intensity training to boost up your metabolism and start burning fat. Intervals have been shown to burn more fat than long-duration cardio sessions. HIIT also increases your metabolism at a higher rate, for a longer period after exercise is over which results in greater calories burned over time. For example, if you go for a run, sprint for a minute, walk for a minute, and repeat.
#7 You don’t drink enough water
Keeping yourself hydrated is essential when you want to get six-pack abs safely. The more dehydrated you are, the more your body will retain water and store it under your skin. This stored water will look like excess fat. Therefore, drink plenty of water to keep your metabolism high and maintain muscle fullness. Besides, the water will help you to feel full and satisfy sugar cravings.
Make sure to drink water regularly throughout the day and as well as during training. You should drink at least 8 cups of water per day.
Tips for flat tummy and great female abs:
➔ Avoid drinking sodas!
➔ Watch your portion size.
➔ Boost your metabolism! Supplements such as green tea extract or carnitine have shown to burn and accelerate the fat-burning process.
➔ Speed up your metabolism by eating more often. 5-6 times every day is highly recommended. Remember, meals should not be the standard restaurant portions but rather smaller.
➔ Eat breakfast and you’re more likely to stick to smaller portions throughout the day.
➔ Stay consistent. The closer you stick to your diet and the fewer workouts you miss, the quicker and more permanent your results will be.
➔ Don’t forget recovery and try to sleep at least 7 to 8 hours per night. If you don’t allow your body to get enough sleep, you are neglecting a very important part of your muscle-building program that could completely erase all of your muscle-building efforts in the gym. It is also very important to incorporate “rest days” so that you allow time for your muscles to grow.