ABSolutely not!

Oh the never ending quest for abs! You can't run through the stations on TV without see totally ripped young men and women working on a gadget of some sort that guarantees that you will look like a men or women's model in weeks. Now granted, having your abs visible is pretty cool, and the only six pack that I will ever have is the kind you buy in a liquor store, but this issue does need some clarification.

First of all, everyone has abs; it is just that for most of us they are covered with a layer of fat, and sometimes sadly many layers. Working on your abs specifically with no other goal is often fruitless because although there are advantages to a strong core, the muscles from your chest to your thighs, it takes more that a TV special to get there. The key thing about getting your abs to show is to get your body fat down to a pretty extreme level. For me, that is around 18 percent and is typically something I only experience after I have ridden my bicycle for a week solid across a state or in the midst of cross-country ski season, and even then I never get the kind of definition that bodybuilders often have.

So there are actually two muscle thoughts that you really need to develop abdominal definition. The key one is table muscle, that being the muscles you use to push yourself away from the table. I am not real good at that one at all. While exercise is key, diet is probably even more key in reference to getting your body fat down. Second, don't specifically think about your abs so much as thinking total body exercise. The more of your body that you can engage in exercise, i.e. YMCA classes such as Power Hour, Zumba, Kickboxing, etc, the lower your body fat is going to become. Once you get these two issues licked, then you can do specific gym exercises to accent your abs or if you want, order that fancy machine which might do you some good then.