Getting rid of my belly

Hi,

I while ago I decided that I wanted to put in some effort to get a six pack.

I did put in the effort but made a classic mistake.
I started doing crunches and situps with weights.

So even though my belly was entirely flat when i started out now its kinda
swollen due to the weighted situps.

My question is, what is best to do now to obtain the sixpack?

Should I continue with my situps without weights and high reps?
Or should I stop for a while until my belly muscles dissapear and then start again?

Please let me know.....

I' ve been doing crunches with weights as well. I use a 10lb and do 3x of 25-50 reps. I think too much weight and your abs will grow like any other muscle in the body. Since you didn' t say, I don' t know how much weight you were using.

However, using weight for crunches isn' t bad. Really heavy weights and growing the muscles might be..

At this point, muscle just isn' t going to go away. You might try using light weight or none at all.. doing higher reps.

Most people (including myself) think that a 6-pack is going to come from weights. But in reality it comes from your diet. It sounds like you' ve got the muscles there now.. to bring them out, you need to diet in order for the fat around the abs (although targeting fat is nearly impossible) to disappear and the individual muscles appear.

Your abs will grow like any other muscle. But I' m betting that the Pros as well as some ripped amateurs have the swollen look. But when they flex, they have that solid 6-pack. Due to the actual muscles being big enough to show and their diets.

Your belly muscles won' t just disappear. Keep the reps up, lighter on the weight and diet so they can show when you flex them.

Think of it this way.. you have to have ab muscles in order for them to show. And to get muscles, you will need to stress them out so they will grow. You probably don' t want to use excessive weight and make them grow too much but you will need to use weight.

I' d recommend just lowering the weight, doing inclined crunches, higher reps and firming and toning up what you' ve already got. Then diet and they should show.

Honestly, sounds like you are on the right track!

Did you look at the AB FAQ in the Exercise forum?

Thanks for your detailed reply!

I' ll check the faq out.

Could help running or maybe aerobic excercisez help to reduce the fat around my belly?

Aerobic exercise will assist in reducing the fat in your entire body.. abs included, and less fat, means muscle closer to the skin and then those abs showing.

If you are a male, it' s unfortunate that you cannot ' spot' reduce (targeting a specific area) and that your fat deposits will most likely be in your midsection towards the end.

I would work on your diet (use FitDay to track your nutrition) and slowly introduce 3x a week, 30 mins of moderate cardio.

Less fat, defined abs from exercising them, good diet will all lead to them being visible.

When I say ' spot' reduction I mean, that without lyposuction, there is no way to target fat loss in a specific area. Either you lose fat on your entire body or you don' t.

Cardio is a must along with a good diet to get down to the levels you want for the real 6-pack to show. At some point, genetics will play a factor (as the FAQ says) but in the meantime, you can do everything necessary to build the abs, diet, and do cardio to reduce the fat levels.

Give the supplements section a look. I know the CLA thread had some good suggestions on ingredients to look for in fat loss products as well to help with your dieting and cardio.